Evergreen

ceremony

"And again, thank you all for coming out today despite the loss, the news of our late Miss Anne Penny has indeed dampened the mood- but let her stay strong in our hearts as we carry on with the rest of the school day...you are all dismissed!" The second Mrs. Hathaway, the principal of St. Marina high., announced the school assembly's dismissal... the bell for afternoon classes rang throughout the halls.

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Afternoon classes had begun and all the students who were once clustered in the bleachers of the auditorium, moved in droves to whichever classes they had at the moment. Except for Zahri, who was abruptly stopped in his tracks by his home room teacher, with an all too strong of a hand.

"Zahri-sweetie, you have an appointment with the guidance Counseller- and you're going the opposite direction of his office.... not running away, are we?"

"No... I just...need to go to the toilet..."

"Zahri..."

"I swear- It's not like I'm the type to run away anyway..."

Her usually wise and inviting eyes held a hint of doubt whilst they stared at him, internally battling herself in order for her to not personally walk with him all the way to the bathroom. In the end, she let him have his way, in hopes he wouldn't simply run away... "Fine...10 minutes...if I don't see you by then, I'm calling both of your parents..." Without a moment's hesitation, Zahri's home room teacher walked off to the Guidance Counseller's Office.

Sighing defeatedly to himself, Zahri habitably brought his watch up to eye view, "12:45..." sighing once again as he combed a hand through his hair, Zahri steadily made his way to the restroom, his verdant eyes scouring the various classrooms as he passed by.

Then, came the bathroom, a place Zahri doesn't visit very often and for a very good reason. Male bathrooms are a different hell within itself, from the odor to the characters that dwell within it... The male school bathroom just isn't the ideal place for anything really- yet, in this case, Zahri was using it as the area for a long-awaited breakdown. "I knew it wasn't a good idea to come to school after all that...." He grumbled to himself, panting hard as he stumbled to one of the sinks. Gradually, the cool façade Zahri had displayed for the entire first half of the day melted away in those moments. With every strained tussle for air, only bringing more struggle until he had brought himself to the point of collapsing.

Wheezing on the floor and more than determined to get up off it, Zahri, as quickly as he had fell, had gotten back up. He propped himself up on one of the sinks, making sure that he was indeed steady- before he attempted to wipe his face of the sweat that had been accumulating on his face and hopefully, that horrifying image too. Water mixed with sweat as he tried to calm his ever-growing loss of composure, the feeling so great that he could feel the stress rushing to his head and settling on his eyes.

He frustratedly wiped them of displeasure as he splashed the more water upon them. Thankfully, it was only a matter of time before the pain, the pressure and the buildup rested within him. An indignant sigh tripped out of him as he slowly opened his eyes, the world snapping into clarity as he did and the image in front of him- in the mirror, as well.

Zahri didn't think too hard when his image was caught in the mirror, staring right back at him, nothing was off or unusual, well...maybe the fact his ears were peeking out too much from the sides. Adjusting his hair to cover them wasn't too hard, a mere few strands out of place could be fixed easily. That's when he remembered, "Shit the time!" Frantically checking the time on his watch, brought a wave of anxiety then relief, "12: 51....thank god."

Returning back to the mirror to continue readjusting his hair, he was met with himself, a distinct image, yet eerie.... alone...empty...he couldn't put his finger on it--but the longer he stared at himself in the mirror the more estranged it became. Zahri was pulled almost into a different world...a different universe even, just him and the mirror, staring at each other in God given silence until one of them would let up, a staring contest with oneself.

Unfortunately, it wasn't so much so, as the image in front of him was slowly transforming, melting, oozing and swirling into something much more retched, much more terrifying, much more unsightly, much, much, much, much more unreal...like a poor florist laying in a pool of blood.

Zahri's stomach heeled in on itself, causing him to regurgitate the contents within, his body stunned in a state of fear. A fear that caused his body to be in an unlikely state of paralysis. It was only when an ominous figure came rushing through the door, in an unusually cooled but urgent manner, did he snap out of his hysteria and dart out of the restroom, slightly nicking the ominous figure in the shoulder as he did, a boy completely covered in black.

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