A/N: For those of you who weren't here last week, I'm still not getting notifications from this site. Please send me a PM if you review this or any of my stories so I can get back to you.

A FEW DAYS EARLIER…

It was seemingly another October day at Françoise Dupont High School as students filed into their respective homeroom classes for their usual morning routine. However, the morning would be anything but usual in Miss Caline Bustier's homeroom class:

"Class, I have an exciting announcement to make: this Halloween, we will be having our annual Halloween Ball! You are not legally required to attend if you don't want to, but if you do attend, you will be expected to dress up in costume, so get creative! Last year's ball was a spooktacular success, and I hope you will all do your best to make this year's ball even more so!"

At lunch, the furor over the Halloween Ball had yet to die down as students excitedly discussed the ball and the roles they would be playing:

"Oh, I am SO gonna have the best costume this year!" said Marinette Dupain-Cheng.

"What are you gonna dress up as, Love Song?" asked Luka Couffaine.

Marinette giggled. "It's a secret!"

Luka put his hand on Marinette's shoulder. "Come on, tell me!"

Marinette slightly shoved Luka. "It wouldn't be a secret if I told you lololol!"

"Costumes are lovely and all, but Juleka and I are gonna take care of the decorations!" said Rose Lavillant.

"I'm gonna bring some frightful Halloween tunes!" said Nino Lahiffe. "Or…I would if I knew that many tunes…"

"I can help!"

Everyone turned to Andreas Sniegowski, a rather tall, muscular, fat, clean-shaven student with neatly-combed short black hair and sideburns.

"Really?" said Andreas. "Show me what ya got!"

"OK."

Andreas pulled out an MP3 player and a Bluetooth speaker. He then put on "Supernature" by Cerrone. Almost immediately, everyone began jamming to the music. Andreas smiled, knowing that the electronic horror disco sound of Cerrone was proving to be a big hit with his test audience. After the song, Nino expressed his approval:

"Man, that was jammin'! This party's gonna be bumpin'!"

"There's plenty more where that came from," said Andreas. "I have enough tunes for at least seven hours of partying."

"OH MY DAMN CHERRY BLOSSOMS!*" Rose put her hands on her cheeks. "This is going to be an exciting party!"

"I don't usually like disco music, but that was actually pretty good," said Juleka Couffaine. "I might actually wanna dance."

"Enjoy your party plans while you can!"

Everyone turned to see who'd made the threatening remark: none other than Lila Rossi. Immediately, Marinette shot a snarky, venomous glare at her.

"You talk pretty big, Lila. However, I wouldn't count on you succeeding at ruining the Halloween Ball!"

"You're one to talk yourself…Dupain-Cheng! However, that's all you are: talk!"

"Hey, at least I'm the one who can make friends honestly! All you ever do is 'duh huh target practice!'"

Lila shot an angry glare at Marinette. "That does it! You'll rue the day you ever said those words! See you around…Dupain-Cheng!"

Lila went elsewhere, while Marinette was more steamed than a vegetable:

"Seriously, who does that girl think she is!? Ruining innocent people with her lies! I'm surprised nobody's killed her by now!"

Adrien Agreste smiled. "It's OK, Marinette! You have more friends in this school than she'll ever have in her lifetime!"

"Adrien's right," said Kagami Tsurugi. "We mustn't let her get a hold of us. As long as we do our part, then the Halloween Ball will be an unparallelled success."

Marinette nodded. "Adrien, Kagami…you're right. Why should I care about what one liar thinks when pretty much everybody and their mother here has my back?"

Adrien and Luka gave thumbs up.

Later on, after school was finished, Lila was heading home…wherever that was. Thus far, it was just a routine day for her. Then, somebody forcibly placed a cloth over her mouth. She struggled to break free of the hold, but it was no use, and the darkness took her over.

When Lila awoke, she found herself in a box made entirely of Plexiglas, with only one door. She made tracks for it and attempted to open it, but was unsuccessful.

"Is anybody out there!? Somebody help; I can't get this door open! Help! HELP!"

Just then, a TV turned on, depicting a ventriloquist's dummy with a white face, protruding cheeks with red spirals painted on them, black eyes with red irises and a messy mop of black hair. The dummy was wearing a black tuxedo. Then, it spoke:

"Hello, Lila. I want to play a game. Ever since you were born, you treated society as your own personal playground, lying and manipulating people for your own selfish ends. You've done this for so long that you're not even sure who your real parents are anymore. Now, I'm offering you a chance to straighten out the facts. The room you're in has a giant trap door for a floor. When the timer goes off, the trap door will open, and you will plunge into a giant vat of sulfuric acid. Fortunately for you, there is a key to open the single door to this room, allowing you to escape. To get this key, you must use the hacksaw I've provided to cut off your right arm. It's a small price to pay compared to what will happen to you if you do nothing. Live or die, make your choice. Let the game begin. Oh yes…there will be blood."

A timer on the wall began counting down from twenty minutes. On one hand, Lila really didn't want to cut off her own arm, but on the other hand, she didn't want to suffer a horrible death in a pool of acid, plus, she figured she could lie her way out of explaining the bloody stump where her arm used to be, so she grabbed the hacksaw and attempted to cut her right arm off. However, doing so posed a number of problems. First of all, in attempting to position the saw, she got all shaky and squeamish about the prospect of having to cut her own arm off. Second off all, once she mustered up the courage to actually begin the act of cutting, she let out a loud yelp of pain and dropped the saw as soon as she felt the teeth of the blade digging into her flesh. She picked up the saw and tried again, but found that no matter how hard she tried to steel her nerves, she just couldn't bring herself to cut her own arm off, and she fell to her knees crying just thinking about the inevitable death she was going to face in the acid pit. Part of her didn't want to give up, though, so she grabbed the saw again, but like the previous few attempts, the pain of the saw cutting into her proved to be too much, so she surrendered to the timer and soon fell into the vat of acid, where she screamed her lungs out as it burned away her flesh.

*The phrase "OH MY DAMN CHERRY BLOSSOMS" is a registered trademark of KagamiPINKAgreste, used with permission.

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