Seth didn't speak to her after that. He stilled stared at her in classes, squinting like he was trying to figure something out, which she supposed he was. But he didn't crouch in the window of the library anymore, staring at her and Azzy? No, their name was Azriel, she had later found out when they decided they wanted to sit next to her in biology and she watched them scribble their name out on a lab packet.
Emi was good at ignoring things. It came with chronic anxiety and paranoia. Sometimes you just had to box up things and leave them in a corner of your mind and hope that they didn't burst out of the box at an inopportune time when your brain got too full.
So she ignored them. She was used to being stared at before. Why, she couldn't remember, because she was ignoring that as hard as she could.
Plus, for once, they were the weird ones. Was she human? Good grief.
And then.
The fight.
Two of her classmates in her Mythology and Philosophy class, Morgan and Celine, were known to have ridiculous fights. Emi was unsure if they were lovers' spats, or if they just fully hated each other. She couldn't imagine putting that much effort into hating someone unless there was affection involved in the first place, but what did she know?
So, there 75-ish people were, in the cafeteria, eating their lunch as people do. If you tuned in, you could probably hear Morgan and Celine's argument escalating, but it was mostly hidden by the ambient dull roar of conversation.
Finally, Emi and the rest of the table heard Celine reach a screeching crescendo. Emi caught the tail end of it, something unpleasant about a horse.
The person next to her's "oh shit," was her only warning before Emi watched Morgan's face go bright pink in rage, then her fist curled into her mane of red hair, coiled, and pulled.
There was a sickening smmmOCK sound as Morgan pulled her head off her shoulders.
Ah. Emi thought faintly, watching Morgan swing her detached head like Emi had seen an athlete do at a hammer throw event, and then Morgan's head went flying, even as her mouth shrieked "at least my mother isn't a LITERAL BITCH!"
"She's a bisclarvet!" Celine screamed back as she dodged the head. It landed, uh, neck-stump? First against the wall with a splat before the head thunked to the floor.
Some students rushed to collect the head, others went to restrain the two girls, and the rest were jeering and screaming "Fight! Fight! Fight!"
Emi slowly got up with her lunch tray, staring intently at boiled broccoli. Her head was full of static.
The guy next to her laughed and said "too loud?" and she nodded and tried to give a smile, but she was pretty sure it just looked like a wobbly grimace if her shaking was anything to go by.
She threw her tray out and walked out of the cafeteria.
She didn't know where she was going she was just walking—
Tendons fraying/muscles rotting
—because what the actual hell was that—
Ơ̷͙̋͛r̷͓͋̿̄͆͌͜͠ͅg̶̨̡̯̥̝̑̕͜a̶̛̗͖̱͉͉͖͐̾͂n̴̰͇͔̫͠s̵̪͚͙̃ͅ ̴̗́̅̐̎͑g̵̛̪̠̼̝̙̈́̉͝ȗ̶̖̙̃̓̂s̸̭̦̖̭̹͊̒ḥ̷̖͖̜̄͘͝͠i̶͙̰̱͚͗̀̒̓n̵̰͍̥̉͋́̾͒g̶̢̗͎͖͑͑́/̸̢̣̯̫̼̄̓͜ņ̵͐e̷͚̺͕͖͈̍̄͊́̄͒r̶̡̭̘̼̔́̂̄v̵̲͈͉̀̓̐̀ê̶̡͆s̸̹͕͕͔̈́͋̃̅͘s̴͖̩̮̗͂n̶͚̖̫̐͗͆a̴̧͖̦̥͆̏͘͝ṕ̶̩̠̰̪̰p̵̠̌̔̌̀̇̀i̵̛̩̦̚ñ̶̢̬͙̗g̵̟̭͛
Oh god, she was really going crazy this time. She should have known she can't REMEMBER and she can't remember why she's here where was she what's her name her name is Emi that'sthenameherfathergaveherandshe'srememberingshedoesn'twanttoremember—
