Chapter 3: No More Good Girl.

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It was a fresh afternoon when school ended. Kids walked out of their classrooms and met up with their friends. Some walked home and some others took the bus. Shadow was the unlucky soul to walk alone most of the time. At times it felt unsafe as Princess Fiona and her besties would take this chance to beat her or simply make her feel miserable without suffering any consequences. But today, they did not show up.

The will pay for everything... I'll destroy this damned hierarchy. Shadow thought as she walked.

Shrek happened to walk right behind her, and she knew this because it was his ogre call that made her turn. "Shadow! Would you wait?" 

"Don't get close to me! I can't talk with you!" Shadow said as she kept some distance away from him.

"Don't be ridiculous. What happened?" Shrek insisted as he kept up his pace.

"I said leave me alone!" Shadow cried as she ran away and tripped over a fire hydrant.

Before she even hit the floor, she felt someone stop her fall. It was Shrek with his mighty, gigantic hands that held her gently. They both glanced at each other's eyes for a solid minute before Shrek let go of her.

"...Thanks..." Shadow murmured while her face shone red.

"Let's never talk about this." Shrek looked away while his green face became red, "What was it that made you like this?"

"What do you mean?"

"Angry, serious, and sad... What happened? I mean its not like I care." Shrek said as Shadow looked up to him with a small smile that formed in her face, someone cared for her, and she knew it. 

"It's nothing. I mean who cares." Shadow asserted.

"Was it Fiona and her stupid friends? Do you think people don't know about her and you?" Shrek insisted.

"I know they know! But what do they care? It's just gossiping anyway, no one is concerned." And Shadow was right, gossiping was the equivalent of an average man reading his newspaper every morning to be up to date with what is happening. It was none other, but the way violence caught up with her. Everyone knew of her, everyone knew about her weirdness, she knew about the whispers.

"I am sorry for you." This was the only time Shrek actually felt pity for someone in life. Yet, he knew that there was no other way to battle this problem but by climbing up the hierarchical stairs. 

Shadow looked at him dead in the eye and said, "I promise you that I will destroy this social hierarchy and make us all equals." 

Shrek glanced at her surprised, almost as if she had written a war declaration. He felt like a God threatened by a small, average heathen. And this was true, as he was naturally at the very top of the social hierarchy. But, he did not seem to mind her words after a few seconds.

"You can't destroy the hierarchy. You can only climb it or fall lower. That's how life is." Shrek sighed.

"If the French revolution broke out and killed its own nobility and monarchy, do you think revolutions can't rid nations from their problems?" Shadow continued, "I can start that revolution, and no one will stop me."

Shadow said her goodbyes and walked away in dead silence. Shrek was impressed at how she insisted. He no longer knew whether she meant it or this was just her anger that talked for herself. Whatever this was, he knew that something would happen before his great competition. Meanwhile Shadow was left with a salty feeling of dread, something within her changed her completely to the point she thirsted for vengeance.

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Shrek calmly looked through his phone as his mom barged in and sat on his bed. 

"We need to talk, Shrek." Mrs. Farquaad ordered.

"Yes mom?" Shrek said as he kept his eyes on his phone.

"I said we need to talk. Turn that off, and look up." Mrs. Farquaad almost lost her temper as she blurted her words out.

Shrek then put his phone away, feeling threatened by the presence of his mom and glanced at her. Mrs. Farquaad then pulled out the same stack of papers that Mr. Neutron had shown him. 

"I want you to do these." Mrs. Farquaad ordered as she placed the stack of biology papers in his desk like some sort of authoritarian dictator.

"What are these?" Shrek played dumb.

"Don't act dumb with me, you know what they are as much as I know. As a matter of fact, I had a meeting today with Mr. Neutron and he expressed dissapointment in your current grade. How come your grade fell from a D+ to a D-, don't you care about what others think of us? Don't you ever consider your academics above your sporting? What about me? What will others think of me?" Mrs. Farquaad stood up in great anger like a Karen about to fall and put her massive weight of negativity on the manager, killing them.

A wave of fear ran up Shrek's spine that left him paralyzed, unable to even respond. He was afraid that his mother would use violence again. He was afraid of the belt. He knew his mother would beat him up over nothing, so he chose to comply.

"I'll do them, don't worry." Shrek said.

Mrs. Farquaad decreased her abnormal size and sat back down and said, "Good. Now get to it, the school year is almost over."

As Mrs. Farquaad stood up, Shrek waited for her to leave as he returned to his phone. He noticed that a notification jumped up while he had his little conversation with his mother; Princess Fiona texted him once again with her cheesy attempts to get him to be her boyfriend. His rage fumed like the smoke of a burning house through his ears. He had rejected her three, no four, no more than five times before, yet, she never gave up on harrasing him with love texts. She showed her hypocrisy in the way she wrote, of course Shrek knew what was up with her, she just wanted another jewel to add to her crown. She knew how popular she was, and how entitled she was to whoever matched her height in the hierarchy, that being Shrek with his popularity.

(Fiona):Shrekieeee!!!! Wanna go out with me this Saturday? I'm free ;3!

(Shrek): I thought we already went over this, I'm not dating you. I don't like you.

(Fiona): But my love for you can't die easily!!!! You're so shrexie!!! Get it? :3

(Shrek): Fuck you.

Shrek then blocked her number once and for all. He felt no remorse as he was already tired of ignoring her usual spam text. 

Shrek sat there for a while as he glanced at the ceiling. Something in his mind was unable to leave him be, something within him worried about a girl. Why was a guy like him worried about an average quirky girl? She wasn't special anyway as he's heard many threats in his life and none ever were promised or delivered. What was it that nailed his thought on her?

Did she mean it? Or did she not? Should I tell someone about this or not...?  Shrek thought as he grabbed one sheet of paper from the stack that shone gold with the dim light of his lamp. He faked to look through the paper, in fact, no word in there interested him as much as the words that came from Shadow that afternoon.

I promise you that I will destroy this social hierarchy and make us all equals. 

He found no logic within the sentence, yet he was as concerned as a mother was for her sick child. Something within him shook that night and told him that the impossible would be possible in the near future.

It was then, that Shrek chose to do his homework willingly. It was time to bring change.

Chapter 3 End.

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