Flirting With Death

Chapter Two

A pounding headache is the first thing that registers in Payton's mind, like a thousand ants are marching across her temple playing loud victory music on their nut-shaped drums. As if that wasn't enough, in a blink of the eye Payton finds herself on her knees spewing her night's dinner into a polished and clean toilet.

Spots of black dance across Payton's vision and swirls takes her to another galaxy as she bounces back and fourth between Earth and the lovely planet of Hangover. Payton wipes her arm across her lips, getting chunks of something orange all over her arm. She flinches back in disgust but doesn't have that much time before another army of food travels up her throat, demanding release.

"Damn Payton, how many shots did you have last night?" Melody's voice echos around the marble stone bathroom, a hint of amusement clearly noticeable in her voice. 

"Leave me alone," Payton grumbles with annoyance before standing up after she makes sure that her stomach is empty. She stumbles over to the sink and washes her face in cold water to wake herself up before brushing her teeth, her vision still a tad blurry. 

"Looks like we'll ditch first period, the teachers must be expecting it anyways," Melody continues to bug Payton with words, knowing that she must sound so loud to Payton at the moment. "And to think, I was hoping to get with a few Preys so that I could finish them-"

"If you don't shut up right now, I'm going to personally murder you," Payton growls out under her breath. Her threat thankfully causing her friend's mouth to snap shut. Melody rolls her eyes in amusement before stepping out of the bathroom and into Payton's room. She throws open Payton's closet and throws a pair of black skinny jeans and a white tank top. 

"Here, wear this. It's simple, don't want to capture too much attention on the first day of school, though, I think we already did," Melody leaves the room with a smirk, off to hunt for a fresh cup of coffee or two. Payton pokes her head around the door frame of the bathroom to make sure that her roommate and best friend is really gone before she grabs the clothes laid out on the neatly made bed. 

Payton kicks the bathroom door shut before stripping and stepping into the steaming water running from the fossil. She scrubs off the spilled liquor on her body from the night before and lets her muscles relax. The beating of the drops of water on her back does miracles to her aching muscles. 

When the water starts to turn cold, Payton switches it off and wraps her hair in a fluffy towel to dry it while she slips into the outfit of the day. Just as she pulls the tank top over her head, the door to the bathroom flies open and in the doorway stands Melody with two cups of steaming Starbucks coffee. 

"Drink. I heard the Lurkers got two kills already," Melody instructs with a firm voice. Payton sighs and hangs the towel on the rack before grabbing the cup of coffee and exit the dorm with Melody right next to her. 

"It's going to be a difficult year. I heard they got some new recruits," Payton informs Melody before taking a sip of the scalding coffee. 

"New or old, they still suck. They're only one kill behind us though, that's extremely unusual," Melody adds in her opinion. "Usually we'd be on our tenth kill by the time they get their first."

"Whatever, we'll just have to stay up later tonight," Payton points out with a smirk. She always enjoyed her role at the academy, though, it did get in the way of her education. It's not like she could just murder people for a living.

"It's our senior year. Aren't you scared of how we'll manage with life after we leave this academy?" Melody asks with a frown. She knows her grades won't get her anywhere further than a cashier at McDonald's. 

"Pfft, you think I'm going to graduate?" Payton asks with mock laughter. "Besides, I'm just wondering if we'll ever set foot out of this academy. Remember Joseph Connor?" Both the girls cringe at the same time. 

"Poor guy, he was the best murderer here at the academy. Exactly an hour after he graduated, he was found hanging by a rope right in front of the school building," Melody  summarizes the memory in the fewest words as possible, leaving out any gore description. 

"Exactly. Nothingness, it might be a close year," Payton could hear footsteps off in the distance and catches a few flashes of gold. "No way, you're kidding," Payton asks with fake astonish in her voice. 

Melody adverts her gaze from her cup of coffee to the person about to walk past them, knowing that he's a Prey and in ear distance. "Yes way. Her hair was like, all pink," Payton and Melody both fill the hallway with laughter as the guy passes them. Payton catches the wink that Melody sends the guy before shaking her head in amusement.

"That never gets old," Payton points out, wondering how many times they would change their conversation from the Game to the time when Heather got her hair dyed pink on her sleep when she decided to mess with Melody. 

"True that sister, true that," Melody agrees and lets out a long sigh when a fork finds it way in their path. "Alright, I'll see you after class. Get ready for someone to scream bloody murder," Melody's eyes glisten mischievously as she turns and walks down one of the halls, leaving Payton to herself in the other. 

Payton feels a shiver run down her spine at the thought of being in an eerie hallway alone. She could only hope that the bell would ring soon so that she wouldn't be the only living thing travelling down the deserted path. 

Soon, Payton finds herself standing in front of the window that she was staring out of the day before. The same window that she caught her first prey of the day. Payton edges her way over to the ledge and sits on it, leaning her head against the window as she takes a moment to think about what her life has become.

Four years ago, she was excited to finally be going to high school. Tragic hit her family the week before the first day of school that forced her to pack her bags and move across the country where there would be a high school solely made for kids like her to perfect the art of murder. 

The other half of the students thought this to be the top high school in the world. They didn't know that while they lay in bed silently sleeping, someone was being murdered. Every time a student went missing, the principal would tell the school that they dropped out or that they were kicked out because they couldn't keep up. 

That was never the case. The student that went missing was murdered, their body donated to help people like Payton and Melody learn more about vital spots on the human body to attack that would be an instant kill. Organs that if you stab correctly, they would slowly die with torturous pain. 

"Payton! Run and hide!" Melody's frantic voice sounds in her ear from the Bluetooth that every real student here posses. Confused, Payton jumps off of the ledge and listens to footsteps coming from the way that she came from. Payton takes off in the opposite direction and runs her hand along the side of the milky red hall, feeling for a bump or a hallowed out space behind the wall.

Payton could hear the footsteps approaching her and she knows that her pursuers are fast runners. Time was running out and a mental image of an hour glass forms in her mind. She counts how many pieces of sand she has left before one half would be empty. 

"Thump," relief floods Payton's body as she finds the secret compartment and presses herself to the left side of the wall, steadying herself as the wall flips around and hides her in darkness like the way one of those book shelves would in the movies. 

Payton presses herself against the concrete wall that separates her from the dark room and the hallway she was just in seconds before. She takes slow and steady breaths, trying to calm her racing heart so that her pursuers wouldn't hear her. Her breath gets caught in her throat as she hears the footsteps stop right behind the wall. 

"Where did she go?"

"I swear she was here just seconds before!"

"Are you lying to us?"

"No, I swear, she was--" The student didn't get to finish his sentence before a loud sickening crack fills the air and the footsteps starts to retreat off to who knows where.