K-12: Legacy

Nurse's Office

I woke up on a stretcher in the hallway, surrounded by four red-haired nurses with white uniforms, matching caps, and matching smirks. I managed to lift my head, and either the nurses didn't care, or they didn't notice. They walked with each step in perfect unison, and with each corner, they turned the stretcher so quickly my head fell back against the crinkling paper that lay on top of the thin mattress. I knew these nurses were not qualified, or else they wouldn't abuse substance like novocaine and adrenaline, substances that were not even permitted on school premises. They were merely people that were chosen off the street and told to wear nurse uniforms and inject children with random fluids and collected their paycheck each month. Also, real nurses wouldn't just give people random medicine- they would have to at least check their vitals.

Soon, they stopped in front of a pair of enormous double doors with red crosses painted on them, and as if that wasn't enough, the small golden plaque by the doors said "Nurse's Office."

There were four pink seats against the wall, two on either side of the doors. Three of them were occupied. 

The nurses abandoned me by one of the seats, not even bothering to unstrap the gurney. 

I rolled my head to the side to see Bahari stand up with her powers activated. Looking angry, she stretched out her arms.

Pink sparkles surrounded me, and I felt a tingling sensation in my lower spine, and it travelled up my back slowly. I felt momentarily like I was on fire, and then the sparkles faded away. I was no longer paralyzed, and the gurney had disappeared. Without saying anything, I reached over and hugged Bahari. She hugged me back, and then pulled away and turned around.

It was then I realized that I- up until now- was literally a puppet. My eyebrows creased together as I looked over my shoulder in apprehension. 

The nurses had returned with about six more of their friends. They had two gurneys. My heart dropped into the pit of my stomach in dread.

"Don't cut me, or punch me!" I begged. "Just let me go!"

They ignored me, and they ignored the other people who were waiting in their seats. One of them coughed, and the other threw up into a paper bag.

I looked at them in pity, knowing that the nurses here were not actually qualified. Neither were the teachers, the drivers, or the custodians. Not to mention the principal, whom I was beginning to despise. I realized, within the short time that I was at K-12, that I had looked up to my father blindly. Maybe Rosalie was right, for once. Maybe it really was bad blood.

One of the nurses grabbed my arm and forced me into the gurney, and another did the same to Bahari. Once we were tied up proper- at least to them- the nurses pushed the stretchers toward the huge doors, which were swung open by the bunny-hybrid doctors that I had always felt uneasy around.

I detected rust on the metal bars of the gurney, which was starting to feel more and more like a cage.

We were pushed into an open room with lots of windows and medical equipment pushed to the sides of the room.

One of the nurses dug around in her purse until she found a used band-aid with purple stars on it. She shoved it on my still bleeding nose.

"Go back to class," the nurse said flatly. I shook my head, trying to plead with my eyes.

"Take me home!" I said. "Just let me go!" A nurse ran her hand through my hair, which that little bitch Ava had cut.

"This one's hair doesn't match the school's dress code. Get her extensions," she said.

One of them rolled their eyes and grabbed what looked to be black hair extensions out of her pocket and threw them at me. Who carries hair extensions in their pocket? I looked down at the extensions, which were black in contrast to my platinum hair. I didn't protest, and just put them in my pocket, leaving one side of my hair to be short and the other half long. Looking at the mirrored ceiling, I decided this look wasn't very bad.

The lead nurse nodded to one of her fellows. The nurse she nodded at came forward and pulled out a syringe. My eyes widened in shock. Surely they wouldn't...? 

They would.

The nurse put her fingers on my jaw, forcing it down, and then she squirted brown liquid into my open mouth. I struggled and kicked but to no avail. 

The room began spinning, and the lights flickered in my vision. I let out a gurgle of a laugh, struggling with my arms. It felt oddly pleasant, like I was trapped inside a mini-nova. But then things got a lot less pleasant. They began forcing more and more of the liquid down my throat, and my stomach hurt and I began trying to throw up the liquid, but a nurse shoved her hand on my mouth, and holy shit I can't breathe! Someone help me I can't breathe!

I was pushed toward the back of the room, where they had weird buttons and even more medication.

They rotated the stretcher so that I was completely upright, and the hybrid doctor began to raise a paw to push a red button, and who knows what that would do to me!

But he didn't press the red button. Nobody did. Instead, all of the medical staff of K-12 grabbed their heads, and slumped, moaning, to the floor. 

A golden door had appeared in the middle of the nurse's office, and there stood...

"Cry Baby!" I gasped. The bindings on my hands and feet were released, and so were Bahari's. 

We ran forward. Cry Baby was wearing a long, white dress that had a long train in back. Her hair was piled up on her head, and her eyes were fully black.

"Wait," Bahari panted. "Why are you leaving us here?"

"Take us with you!" I begged. 

"Continue on, and do not fear physical pain. The only way you can truly learn," she said, looking each of us in turn in the eyes, "Is through experience."

"But we've been through so much!" I sob, in desperation, wringing my hands.

"We're exhausted, and we don't want to rot in this stupid hell-hole!" Bahari said, and she was on the edge of hysteria. 

"You've had many bodies before this, and so have I. You're immortal, so you will continue to have more bodies in the future," she said, trying to reassure us. "You've been through much worse."

"Please..." I said in a small voice.

She turned and left us, retreating into the fading light of The Elysian Peace, the realm of the honoured dead.

Bahari and I looked at each other, and we sighed in unison.

"We should go," She said, sounding tired. "Before they wake up."

We turned around and exited the nurse's office to continue to "learn through experience," whatever that meant.