Unspecified Rage

Survival Instinct

Julia spent her lunch slowly smoking the rest of her joint in calming silence. She watched the screaming, mass of students running around, enjoying the last of the good weather outside. Part of her wished she could join them, find some friends, be normal. But the all too familiar anger rose when she thought of how closed in she'd be, surrounded by hundreds of students, everyone asking her questions, trying her patience. And the pain started to creep up again. It didn't matter how many painkillers she took or how much weed she smoked, the anger and the pain were always there. Muted but never wholly forgotten. Onward, outward, forward. She mentally motivated herself and walked back towards the school, getting ready for her final 2 classes of the day. Biology and Drama. She loved sciences, they were logical and if you paid attention, you could not screw it up. But her parents felt she needed the 'outlet' of a drama class. Seriously? The last thing Ju wanted was to be forced to do anything that put her in the center of attention. She hated having everyone's eyes focused on her. They would always be judging, expecting something. It drove her nuts knowing that she'd have to do this. But she owed it to her family. After her last.... outburst, they'd had to leave their hometown and take her away. Despite being a straight A student, Julia had been kicked out of every school in the district, her bizzare behaviour perplexing the doctors and shrinks her loving family sent her to. They all hoped a change in scenery would calm the madness but it didn't seem to be working.

Julia made it into class before any of the other students. There were no desks here, just long lab tables with the occasional sink or gas outlet for bunsen burners. There was literally nowhere she could sit where she would be alone. Grumblnig to herself, Julia picked the desk closets to the door to hopefully make a quick getaway once class was done. Her classmates all shambled in, some barely making it before hte final bell to get to class. And then they waited. Everyone talking and whispering to their friends, bored and waiting for the teacher to make their appearance.

"Hi, I'm Andrew." said the smallish guy sitting next to her. Now at 5 foot even and all of 100 pounds, Julia had no stones to throw, but he was barely taller than she was, maybe a whopping 5'3 and had a definite Italian ancestry.

Julia blinked at him and hid her exhaustion, smiling a little. "I'm Julia. New here obviously."

"Obviously." Andrew repeated. "The teacher is nuttier than the mad hatter. It's fun." he grined and turned back to the front, not ignoring her, but obviously recognizing her discomfort with social niceties.

Before Ju could try and make awkward small talk in an attempt to at least fit it, the teacher waltzed into the class. Literally. Mr Sutherland was dancing with himself, humming a tuneless melody. Looks like Andrew was right about the nutty part.

Instead of just running through the syllabus as she expected, the teacher held a vote. He wanted to know right now, what they wanted to dissect before the end of the year. Cow's eye, frog, baby pig or something else entirely. But, they had to have a good reason. Without knowing entirely why she decided to speak up, Ju held up her hand with a suggestion.

"Why not rattle snake? see the mechanics of the rattle and try to dissect the venom sacs is more interesting and challenging that getting a piglet's brain out without tearing the sac and turning it all into goo." And she could feel their eyes on her. Judging, shocked, curious and disgusted. Every one was LOOKING at her. Suddenly all she could hear was the rushing of her blood again. The peripheral of her vision fogged red and she gritted her teeth to keep from screaming at them to STOP LOOKING AT HER!

"Interesting. Votes for?" the teacher asked the class at large, breaking their attention from Julia, helping her gain her calm again. Looking down at her hands, Ju was surprised to find that she'd dug her nails into her palm so hard hse'd drew blood.

"Here." she heard Andrew whisper as he passed her a mostly clean bandana from his pocket. "You shy too?" she heard the sympathy in his voice, but no judgement. 

"Thanks." she whispered back, wrapping her hand and mostly ignoring the class vote against her idea. It didn't matter, she'd dissect a frog for the second time. Julia kept her thoughts to herself for the rest of the class, not saying much but appreciating the friendly silence from Andrew. Maybe she wasn't so weird afterall.

The bell rang for her final class of the day, drama. Fabulous. Ju thought to herself sarcastically and found the double doors that led in, and down to the drama room. It was different than she expected. There were three teirs, all carpeted in black leading to a sunken ampetheatre surrounded by huge blakc curtains.  And she shuffled out of the way of other students, all whom gratefully ignored her and took seats whereever they felt like. She spotted a door off to the side and stuck her head in, seeing a control panel for lights and sound. Interesting. She mused and sat slightly apart from the group.

The teacher that breezed in looked rather... odd. She had on floral tights, a plaid sundress and a purple croched sweater. And  Hogwarts scarf. "Hello my muses, my great thespians." she called out to the class.

"Hello Anastasia." they called out in greeting. o-okay.

"OOOH a new student! How lovely!" the teacher squealed, running over to a very much unappreciative Julia. "Welcome to my class, what's you're name, I'm sure you're gonig to have so much fun here!" the words tumbled out of the teacher's mouth and Julia just could not reply. Everyone was looking at the teacher in amusement and at Ju in curiosity. Again with all the eyes on her, it felt so closed in, so caged... Her heart started to accelerate, telling her to shove hte teacher away and escape before she was trapped. STOP IT! She yelled at herself, forcing calm to slow her heartbeat.

"I'm Julia." she managed to say calmly. "And it's a pleasure to be here."

"Excellent!" the teacher exclaimed and walked to the bottom of hte teirs so everyone could see her. "Alright my lovelies, this year we are gonig to be doing a travelling show! Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf! I've got us showing at the local grade schools and we're doing a three night presentation here at the school itself. So first things first, I'm gonig to hand out a list of all the roles to fill, and hte behind hte curtains support jobs. Start thinking about what you want because I am starting auditions all this week and next week. So chop chop!" she buttled about, handing out scripts and explaining what certain jobs were.

Julia just stared at her pages in overwhelmed shock, wishing that she could just go home and be away from all these people. In her old town everyone knewshe had problems but they also knew to leave her alone. This was all getting too much. The pain beating in her skull made Ju curl up almost double, her vision greying out until she remembered to slow her breathing down so she wouldn't hyperventilate. Calm, calm. Count. 999, 998, 997, 996... She recited the numbers backward, trying to relax her tight, and painfully tense muscles. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't. The pain didn't recede so much as she just accustomed herself to it.

Finally the bell for freedom tolled. And hte hoards scattered out, running away from the first day of prison, grateful that school was over for the day. Julia made her way to the back of the school and made sure no one watched her as she rolled a new joint. She was about to light it when she heard an argument erupt around the side of the school.

"Come on guys, just leave me the hell alone!" she heard a smei familiar voice. Frowning, she couldn't explain why she went to investigate. This is so not my problem....