Four

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Shock: It is defined as a state of disbelief, a sudden upsetting or surprising event. Thank you Google. But Google cannot describe human emotion to detail. No one can.

It was as if someone had squeezed my heart. I didn't know what was the cause of these emotions. She doesn't even know me but I would have loved to know her. I'm just a wuss.

Baseball practice was cancelled that day. It seemed like no one could pay attention to anything anymore. All they could talk about was the disappearance of Layla Cunningham.

Her disappearance made me see the true colours of most of the students in this school. I never knew that they actually bullied people. The girls acted so concerned about her in classes, talking about organizing parties and posters to find her when the teachers were around or listening. But the moment the teachers were gone, they were glad that she was gone. They said horrible things about her and I couldn't stand it. The boys weren't even better, it's either someone laughed or they added one or two comments. It made me feel sick.

The rich kids that I thought were down to earth, weren't down to earth at all. They were horrid creatures who wore masks to deceive others, to make them perceive them as good people meanwhile a rotten soul lies underneath. But I couldn't do anything. I couldn't say anything or defend her because I was scared deep down of what will happen to me.

I made my way out of class and headed towards the library with Jaime. If no one would tell me things about Layla, I'll just search myself. So he searched for previous yearbooks on the bookshelves, while I went through the computers. When her name came up, there was nothing much about her, no extra curricular activities, no hobbies, but there was a house address so I wrote that down.

Jaime came over with some old yearbooks. Every year, the school made a new version of the old one and kept both versions in the library. I asked him why it was the old ones he brought. He said the old ones had more information written by students in them.

We scrolled through the the yearbook and we saw a picture of Layla decorated with very mean words.

"Jesus." Jaime muttered. Even he couldn't believe that this was going on. No one would have ever thought that the students of Northvane high school were wolves in sheep's clothing, ready to pounce on their prey which happened to be Layla Cunningham.

On the same page one of the students had written down a website link and told us to click on it for a good laugh. Jaime and I both wondered why that was, so we clicked on it.

I quickly covered my mouth so that I wouldn't throw up. What we saw was revolting and I was struggling to hold back the bile that rose in my throat. These kids took bullying to another level.

Someone made a website to post video about her bullying and it got loads of views. We clicked the first video it tore my heart to shreds. There were various girls who held Layla back. They beat her up, punching her, kicking her until she was swollen everywhere. She spat out blood while tears were still flowing down her eyes. She struggled to try to speak but all her efforts were in vain. The girls laughed at her attempt to speak and called her names like 'mute.'

"How didn't we know that this was happening?" I asked Jaime, my hand still covering my mouth.

"This is cruelty." He said.

I clicked on the next one and this was even worse than the previous. It showed her walking down the street, holding the infamous blue umbrella. This time around there were three guys that were approaching her and one behind the camera. They cornered her and began saying lewd things to her she tries to use sign language to talk to them.

"Huh? What was that? Want me to touch you? Gladly." He then proceeded to touch her chest area. I couldn't stand it so I paused the video. I couldn't believe it. This kinda stuff actually happened under our own noses and no one ever noticed it.

Jaime turned away from the video and shook his head in pity. My head hung low and I couldn't even bring myself to form words. From passive bullying to active bullying. As if that wasn't even enough, she got sexually assaulted in public too and people laughed about it.

Jaime tapped my shoulder and had us leave the library. None of us could comprehend what we saw in the video. How could they have done something so horrible to someone who did nothing to deserve it. From what we had both seen today, Jaime was determined to help me get to the bottom of everything even though he never knew anything about her. Layla Cunningham was a mystery that we were determined to solve. We wouldn't rest until we got to the bottom of it all.

I was beginning to see a new light to the students I went to school with. I thought they would do their best to help whoever was in need. Not judging a book by its cover was what I mostly based my morals after but when the story in the book is exactly like it's cover, it becomes hard to ever trust that saying.

If these kids could do something of this magnitude, who's to say they they had nothing to do with Layla's disappearance?

The girl with the blue umbrella had a way of attracting unwanted attention without her knowing and most certainly has caught my attention.

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Hi:)
Thoughts?

Ayeesha🥀

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