All For Not

Page 4

"Nevermore was founded in 1791 to educate people like us. Outcasts, freaks, monsters, fill in your favorite marginalized group here." The blonde with dyed blue and pink tips was quite happily giving a tour, "you can save the sanitized sales pitch. I don't plan on staying here for long." she paused for a second but we kept on walking so she followed us, "why not?"

"This was my parents' idea. Oh look, there's my mother smirking at me." A framed picture in the entrance of the school, Morticia Addams, the captain of the fencing team, "they've been looking for any excuse to send me here. It's all a part of their nefarious, yet completely obvious plan."

"What plan?" I turned, almost as if in a rehearsed military movement before speaking, "isn't it every understanding that parents want their children to become just like them, or at least in most cases it is." She looked at us confused as we walked through the school, "exactly, it is in their best interest that they want to turn us into versions of themselves." I nodded simply agreeing, "in that case, perhaps you can clear something up. Rumor's been swirling around that you killed a kid at your old school, and your parents pulled strings to get you off." I could tell she was quite unnerved by the non-emotional interaction, "actually, it was two kids, but who's counting?"

We left the school's hallway, entering a large grass filled area, picnic tables surrounding a fountain with a large dead tree at its center, "welcome to the quad." I spoke first as my eyes darted around ignoring the students present, "five sides." Wednesday counting behind me mentally, "it's a pentagon." Both of our heads snapped, eyes flicking to the back of her head at the sound of the gruff groan, "the whole snarky Goth girls thing might have worked at normie school, but here things are different." She stopped for a second, only a second. "Let me give you a wiki on Nevermore's social scene." I gave a chiding look outside of the walkway, gazing at the students present. "I'm not interested in participating in tribal adolescent clichés."

"Well, then use it to fill your obviously bottomless pit of disdain. There are many flavors of outcasts here, but the four main cliques are Fangs, Furs, Stoners and Scales." I watched as she pointed, walking towards the group before stopping to explain, "those are the Fangs, AKA vampires. Some of them have literally been here for decades." Peering at them uninterested left them to turn to us at the word 'vampire', of course my interest was lost almost immediately, "that bunch of knuckleheads are Furs, AKA werewolves. Like me!" The group of messy haired individuals started howling at her and my interest peaked for another reason, "full moons get pretty loud around here. That's when Furs wolf out so I suggest you pick up noise-canceling headphones." I side eyed the blond, "the howling won't bother us, I assure you but you have yet to do so, correct? Wolf out?" She froze and became quite off-put, "it's that obvious?" I turned back, "not at all, at least to others, I simply have an eye for it." I gave her a simple glance that ended the small talk with a short uncomfortable nod from the pink haired wolf.

"I'm assuming Scales are sirens?" Enid quickly changed tune once the sirens were brought up to change the subject, "you catch on quick. And that girl, Bianca Barclay, is the closest thing Nevermore has to royalty." Her head gestured to the group leaving us to assume the girl with her hand in the water was the proclaimed, maybe royalty. "Although her crown's been slipping lately." My head tilted at the slight dig as she turned us once again, "she used to date our resident tortured artist, Xavier Thorpe." The next target of the tour turned towards us, not looking at us, skipping over us in fact to look around the yard as the siren, Bianca, looked at him. "But they broke up at the beginning of the semester. Reason unknown." I gave a small hum, not truly interested in their relationship, "fascinating." I watched him turn around and instead looked at his mural, "I know, right? My vlog is, like, the number one source for Nevermore gossip." Suddenly a voice popped up from Enid's side and she turned from us, "yo, Enid! You're not gonna believe the dirt I heard about your new roommate." My ears perked and I looked away from the painted ravens, "she eats human flesh. Chowed down on that kid she murdered. You better watch your back."

"Quite the contrary." I watched Enid step from in front of us, showing the boy that she wasn't alone, "I actually fillet the bodies of my victims, then feed them to my menagerie of pets." He looked between the three of us and simply smiled with my head tilted to the side when his eyes landed on me, "or my personal favorite, slowly roasted over a breath of flame." He swallowed and looked back to the wolf, "Ajax, these are my new roommates, Wednesday and Morella."

"Whoa. You're in black and white. Like a living Instagram filter." The fake smile dropped as he commented on Wednesday's tones, "Ignore him. Gorgons spend way too much time getting stoned." A clear joke, "he's cute, but clueless. It's a small school. There wasn't much online about you two. Well there was some on Wednesday but almost nothing on you Morella." Another hum from me and silence from Wednesday and she continued, "you should really get on Insta, Snapchat and TikTok." I made no comment, not entirely interested in any of it, "I find social media to be a soul-sucking void of meaningless affirmation." I opened my mouth looking at the both of them, "I believe we are done, are we not? We should say our leaves now." A sigh came from Wednesday and Enid turned gloomy before smiling, "yes, I believe we should, sister."