The Final Exam

Margerie

I blacked out.

.

.

.

.

I would have liked it better if I had awoken in my bed at home, in another life, screaming for my mother. I would walk for hundreds of miles if it meant that I could wake up drooling over my desk... instead of here...

In Hell.

The blazing yellow light hums as it warms up above me. The melodic tap of heels can be heard dancing about the lab room. I notice I'm on a metal table.

I naturally look around, confused and afraid for the first time in my life. I'm shocked to find Jon a few feet away from me, unconscious... or worse... on a similar table.

Tears fill my eyes. I know better than anyone about what is gonna happen. I'm going to die. My face will be on ever corner of town, with big red letters on the bottom saying: Have You Seen Me?

That's the reality.

Yeni hums a tune I know very well. She's about to start. I watch her open her vinyl player and pulls out her only album. An old Olga Guillot. It seems very sad to only be able to listen one piece of music for the rest of your life, but she savors it. Clinging on to every note like it's the last she'll ever hear. She skips straight to number 5

I don't know much Spanish, but I know she picks this song only on special occasions.

The party has started. And I'm her only guest. The taps of her heels come closer, until I see her standing above me with that smirk on her face and that look in her eyes. Her pretty eyelashes flutter as she puts on plastic gloves. It must be a joke, of course. She doesn't care about getting dirty.

"Are you comfortable, my dear?" Her voice sings. I grit my teeth and spit at her. I can't believe I ever thought I could trust her. She must be thinking the same thing.

"I'll take that as a no." Her plastic, cheerful manner doesn't change. She's been like this forever. A psychopath.

My body feels heavy. As if the devil himself sat upon my chest, snarling and smirking at me. Anger boils through me as she handles a syringe like a toy. "... I've gotta say that was quite a fight you put up. You've should've done judo while you were alive..."

"You could've been champion," She trails off in a murmur for a moment.

"We could have been...

champions..."

Silence.

A drop of something falls on my face. Crystalline tears fill her eyes, threatening to flood the world into an eternal ocean. An flat ocean of melancholy.

Remorse fails to infect my system.

"I'll show you a fight."

In an instant, I find myself crashing to the ground with my hands around her neck. She gags and chokes as she looks at me with an absent-minded grin. Her long mahogany tresses spread out across the floor like branches of a tree. Why does she smile like that? Why does she taunt me? She opens her mouth to say something. "... ch-... che-..."

I loosen my grip like an idiot.

"...ch-...checkmate."

The syringe pierces my side, and I yelp in surprise rather than pain. That's it. I'm done for. STUPID IDIOT!

My vision turns into a haze, and my head turns into a mess. Now she's on top of me. Staring down at me yet again. I let out a grunt as I attempt fruitlessly to squirm away. A blurry Figueroa leans closer, "See you in hell, sweetheart. I spared you the worst." Her lips press against mine, and that is the end of Margaret Keller.

Damn it.