The Prophecy

Chapter 1; Part 2

Marina

At the beginning of the semester I thought Biology was gonna be a breeze. I was wrong. It's not the material or anything, that's fine...it's my lab partner. At first I had Jeremy Sternem who looked like he was copy and pasted from google images after the search 'geek.' He was nice and all, definitely stereotypical, but he tended to do...everything. Even if I offered to do an experiment he always made the comment, "Why have someone do something you can do yourself?" He lucked out. Mr. Stoin let him be by himself for the rest of the year. And what did I get? I got put with Scarlet Blackheart.

I didn't hate Scarlet, by no means, unlike the way she treated the rest of the world (I would assume) she was actually quite nice to me. But I guess I really wasn't looking for 'nice' in a lab partner description. 'Helpful' and 'hardworking' would have been more common in my add...had I been given a choice...but this is high school. So I was stuck with the sarcastic scarlet making witty comments under her breath while I did everything else.

I assumed Mr. Stoin was going to switch lab partners for me again because instead of me doing no work, I was now doing all of it. But after a month I realized that I had been given the 'no return' student. Meaning he carted her off to me for the year so he didn't have to deal with her...I should really talk to the principal about that sometime.

So today, as always, as the video began I watched intently taking brief notes on what seemed important as Scarlet said, "I guess the drama team found a replacement spot light for the auditorium. It's Mr. Stoin's bald spot." I assume she only makes these graces out loud for my benefit seeing as in every other class she sulks in the corner. I usually try to muster something back like, "Yeah, maybe we'll finally be able to see the stage with all that head space." I'm not a particularly verbal person around everybody because...I word vomit...badly. But with Scarlet? Sarcastic one liners seem to come naturally. I wonder if she did that to everyone she talked to?

"Scalp Silk therapy would do wonders for his head wrinkles..." I frowned at the comment, seeing as I doubted Scarlet knew there was such a thing, let alone had the product vocabulary to make one up until I saw her look behind us. Annie Magred had leaned forward and apparently easdropped into our conversation.

"You sure know a lot about head crème. Do you think there's one that cures superficial stupidity?" Oh no...here we go...

"Uhhh...I don't think so...I could look into it if you want though!" Oh crap!

This was the problem with any rare Annie/Scarlet crossing. Annie was just too...well...unknowing to understand that Scarlet was insulting her...and she usually in the process accidentally then insults Scarlet. It's a great cycle they got going.

"Yeah, you do that..." Scarlet said, a forced smile on her lips and a growl in her throat. She turned back around to me while I made sure our little scene was completely undetected by the, apparently aware, Mr. Stoin, if there was any consultation to this morning's Rosalina incident. "Can I kill her?" Scarlet responded simply to Annie's retort.

"I don't think that'd be an encouraged experiment...I mean I guess you could ask Mr. Stoin but..." I was surprised when she didn't look at me with a sting of annoyance or hatred in her eyes. Instead she snorted.

"I could probably come up with a pretty good pitch as to why her death would be a great experimental opportunity for studying the mechanisms of the human body," Scarlet said now actually faintly watching the video.

"Hey, you sold me," I said. The exchange actually seemed natural, which I guess was progress. So far in-between these exchanges and the passing time, the premise of the video had moved from the growth of cells to something that looked like it set off a hypochondriac. I tried to scribble some more jumbled notes at the tail end of the video. Soon, however, Mr. Stoin was stopping the video and flicking on the lights. The audible grown that came from each student because of the new found light was evident as Mr. Stoin said, "The paper I'm handing out now is your instruction manual. What you just watched is an explanation as to why you will be dissecting what you are and why you're looking for each of these things. Follow it carefully and you should get an A." He finished as he made it towards the last line of lab tables.