Project X (published via Sanctum Press)

Chapter 9: Detention

ELISE'S POV

Jia's murder was the talk of our school the next day. But not in the way I have expected. All the professors announced the news in their first-period classes.

Mrs. Perez said, Jia sneaked out of the school by taking the route from the ravenwoods in an attempt to attend a friend's party; her bag was found with dresses, heels and makeup and the chauffeur's car keys that she got from the faculty office. And the obvious thing that a neolutionist attacked her, but no confirmation was given.

She used to be like me, she grew up in mortal realm and was one of the it-girls that's why she couldn't just leave her old life behind. Her phone was found having an access to the mortal realm even if our cellphones are given a different chip blocking the signals so the only ways of communication is within the Cross Institute but she found a way through a VPN. (Virtual Private Network)

After that, there was a campuswide moment of silence for Jia, so we could all pray for her soul or whatever they did here at CI.

Three psychic that Jia had been friends with were in my the same class schedule, attended the class after her death, and I thought that they might ask to be excused, to go back to their dorm rooms for the rest of the day and just process what had happened to their friend, to just feel sad and grieve and cry for her.

But the three girls opened up their textbooks, got out their laptops, and started working on the latest critical thinking essay like the rest of us.

Like everything was normal. Like nothing out of ordinary had taken place. Kung hindi lang ako traumatic sa nakita ko, I would have thought that I had imagined everything that had happened.

My eyes went from face to face, but everyone was just calm and collected as the three girls were. Nobody looked upset, nobody cried.

Nobody seems scared at all that one of our kind had been murdered last night.

Last year at my old school, Josh Trevor, a popular basketball player had been shot to death during an armed robbery. The next day at school, everyone had been hysterical.

Crying, weeping, screaming, wondering why Josh had been shot, why he'd had to die, what he'd had done to deserve something like that, something so violent, and awful and random.

Jia had been the most popular psychic who made his way to the power elites as rank 20. Yeah, she wasnt the first student to die, -Mrs. Perez said, but Jia's death had to be one of the most unexpected, the most shocking, But everyone was so calm about it. It was creepy.

Finally in information technology class, I couldn't stand it any longer. Kinalabit ko si Fenrir sa gilid ko.

"What is wrong with people here?" I muttered under my breath. "Jia was murdered. And nobody even talks about it, Nobody cares about Jia anyway or who might have killed her or the fact that maybe he's still here outside, hiding out somewhere."

Fen gave me a sad look, like he and everyone else knew a secret that i didn't. "Do you know how many kids I've grown up with, who have died Elise? Lots of them. So many that I lost count. We go to Cross for a reason, to be warriors. We're warriors and warriors die. That's just how things are."

I'd never thought that a playboy like him could be so blase about something like this.

That he could talk about kids lying and killing other kids like it was all okay. Like it was the way things were supposed to be.

"But doesn't it bother you? May napatay dito sa lugar na'to." I couldn't really handle my thoughts, they are extra loud today.

"But nobody ever said that we are a hundred percent safe. Kids sneak out, it's their fault at all. Besides, Jia wasn't the nicest girl around. She was kind of a bitch, if you really want to know, always being mean to and putting other people down just to make herself look cool. "