TAINTED ROSE

Chapter 14

One week later…

Helen woke up, started by the sound of the loud bell. She looked over her shoulder to see Natasha started. That was the bell for the students to turn on their radio. She checked her watch and saw the numbers 00:00 staring into her face. Why would the bell ring at such an hour?

“Shh… They’re still asleep.” Natasha whispered, pointing to the direction where Rose, Adolpha, Sherry, Pearlyn and Crystal were. Helen gave a thumbs up sign and tip-toed to get the radio.

When they turned on the radio, there was a broadcast.

“In a certain school, the most ruthless killers were trained…

Delicate, deceptive, these orphaned girls are divided into classes and when The Day comes, they fight…

Every class fights for themselves in the secondary 2 level…”

“The exam begins… May the odds never be in your favour.” The principal of the academy announced.

Helen and Natasha looked at each other confused. Ruthless killers? Exams begin? At that instant, they knew what was coming for them.

The secondary two level prepared themselves. It's to kill or be killed…

Mere hours later, the girls found themselves in a death field, the canteen. 2/4 had turned out to be a group of interesting to be assassins.

Adolpha looked around at her classmates, all busy doing battle with girls from the other classes. A stout girl, Katy, ran around a group of 2.5 girls, screaming “I’m in your team!” A 2/5 girl looked at her, confused by the intrusion, then was tapped on the shoulder from behind by Crystal, who pummelled her fists into her unsuspecting victim’s face mercilessly.

“I’m gonna puke!” Adolpha turned to see Rose covering her mouth, a green shade on her face. “Oh my… she’s gonna get herself killed…” Adolpha mused to herself. However, this seemed to work as a deterrent as the girls who had surrounded Rose earlier went off to look for other targets, figuring that the girl would get herself killed elsewhere.

Madge drove her hockey stick into the skull of her attacker while Natasha pulled her tie around a 2/8 girl’s neck, using it as a noose while the girl’s eyes rolled back into her skull. The drama girls danced and sung on table tops for their lives and as their amused audience walked away, they got backstabbed literally. A 2/6 girl ran for her life as two art girls chased her, one trying to stun her by splattering paint into her eyes while the other darted back and forth, trying to drive her palette knife into her back.

Such were the tactics of the cowardly…. Interesting class

“Adolpha… Adolpha!” Adolpha turned to see a familiar pair of eyes glancing around nervously out of the huge rubbish bin behind her. “Helen? What are you doing?” Adolpha quietened her words as Helen put her finger to her lips and beckoned for her to climb in. Adolpha stood there silently, then nodded and clambered in. Tying her knots, she listened to Helen as she rattled on and on about how to escape death…

Rose hummed and skipped around the school, dodging oncoming arrows and knives while tossing “Almond Crunch” cookies out of a metal tin. She watched in the shadows as a hungry 2/7 girl took a nibble of the cookie, then immediately convulsed and lay on the floor, cold dead. “Almond cookies, the perfect hiding place for cyanide and other poisons”, Rose said proudly to herself. Smiling innocently, she waved goodbye to the crowd of shocked onlookers which had formed around the body and fled the scene…

“Can’t stay here forever.” Helen twirled a dirty pen in her fingertips as Adolpha looked up from her knots to speak. Helen pulled herself up to a squatting position as she looked out of the rubbish bin. The floor of the canteen was a graveyard, littered with bodies and broken ‘weapons’.

“Okay, but should we go get some weapons first?” Adolpha stoned, put the knots into her pocket and nodded. Helen hopped silently out of the rubbish dump, dusted herself off, and ran to the first stall at the canteen. Its neon sign, “snacks”, had become rubble on the floor in front of the stall. Helen reached into the stall through the window where so many of them had ordered food daily and looked for some kind of weapon. She smiled contentedly as she found a small butter knife and a pair of sharp scissors. Just as she tossed the scissors to Adolpha, who caught it gracefully, they heard the loud roar of bimbo voices. Grabbing Adolpha’s free hand, Helen broke into a sprint as they fled back to their classroom…