notes: chapter opens with gore !! also i want to reach the end before the 31st and i'm dead busy with school and work so these chapters will be short and have a lot but will stay at 1k words each also dw tho i've already come up with the plot and already have next chapter started so happy reading and seriously please if you see that im writing something that's wrong or is incorrect or should be taken down please tell me

ii. nothing

"Why didn't you call me yesterday?" She interrogated, coughing out the last words, as if to make herself seem even more sickly and somewhat justified in her question. Lara simply rolled her eyes in reply at her mother.

"You were at work. That's a fact. It's not like you would-a wanted me to." She mumbled against the seatbelt strap, flicking her eyes from the side mirrors to outside before her mouth had been sealed in a death grip, her entire weight suddenly tugged forward. Her mother had hit the brakes. Hard.

The coins had slid forwards, too, and her backpack had fallen to her feet.

"Mom!" She screeched, moving about dramatically.

Her mother simply stayed put: shoulders drawn together, frizzy hair jumping with her eyelashes, knuckles white, frayed sweater rising and falling at the bosom since she heaved heavily, too.

"I-I hit something. I ran over it-how did you not feel it? Lara? I-I'm sorry." But her daughter wasn't having it.

"I'm going to be late."

Ignoring her comment, her mother simply parked the car, right in the middle of the empty lane before tiptoeing out and towards whatever she had proclaimed to hit.

Lara joined, muttering her disgruntled opinions before falling silent at what lay underneath the illumination of the headlight and had caused her mother's dropped gaze. Brown fur ripped at the seams, gushing red muscle and raw tissue curled behind it, with a pair of black eyes that only reflected nothing and offered nothing. They had torn apart a rabbit.

Her mother began to weep into her palms, apologizing sobs echoing off, all while Lara stared and stared and stared. She couldn't even blink and neither could the rabbit anymore.

____

The raucous of the cafeteria was enough to make anyone lose their appetite. It was often divided by cliques and certain groups of students that subconsciously drew the lines between themselves, and Lara felt irritated with how she was the only given that knowledge. She seethed, knowing that only she wasn't just a sheep.

Her place in the room resided with a little bit of everything but it mainly comprised of try hards. She pitied them.

"Hey, speaking of attendance, why were you late for Roberts? He literally lost his mind because half the class was late, too, but you-know, everyone got there before you did." A voice, belonging to Emily, somewhat of a friend to Lara, surfaced the past events of the day.

She looked up from the cold, prison-like meal she had been given, but she didn't meet the eyes of her friend.

Junhui laughed hard, great smile shining and everything. He sat amongst his best friends. Chan sat beside him, complaining about Jun's spit getting on his textbook it seemed. Pathetic nerd, Lara squinted. A grin began to light across her wrinkled lips at the thought of his skull cracked open like a pot. Wouldn't it be nice?

"My mom hit a rabbit." She replied without tearing her gaze, bringing the fried chicken breast up to her mouth before seizing it with her teeth. Lara couldn't even care whether it was undercooked or not, whether or not blood would spew out from between her teeth and gums, whether it would stain her beige skin.

Grace entered the circle of her view, waving vigorously at the boys at Jun's table, especially flashing that toothless grin of hers at the boy of the century.

Lara also wouldn't mind seeing that pig caked in her own sanguine.

"You're so call about it! I would've cried my eyes out!" Emily exclaimed, rubbing her face in disbelief.

"My mom did." Lara added, gripping the plastic fork into her flesh, knuckles whitening. The pain tickled.

Junhui stretched his arms out high above his head, engaging into a conversation with Grace and the two girls at her side. He had his green hoodie on. She knew that underneath that, he perhaps appareled himself in his track jersey. Grace had on her ponytail. Lara wouldn't mind running that dangle of hair through a blender.

"I've been talking to you for a few minutes, jeez. You haven't stopped looking at the guy for a second. Looks like Lara has a crush on Jun!" Emily's friend, presumably her own, Logan, whisper shouted, catching the table with gossipy uproar.

They weren't too far from his table, and Junhui also had a habit of just observing anything and everything that caught his attention. Just a few more decibels and he would see her. His brain would register her and not only that but her humiliating gang of pathetic acquaintances, who he probably looked down upon and talked to out of pity. She was practically seething now.

And she could see it all. Junhui would never like her. Junhui would associate her with those things and he would continue looking to that pig, Grace. Junhui would listen. Junhui would interpret what was being said: Junhui would shrug and avoid her like the plague, though ignoring was never something he would ever do. Junhui would never love her. She would never be able to protect him the way she was meant to. She would never be able to love him. Worst of all, she would never be able to have him.

"No! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Lara bawled, squeezing her eyes shut at the insanity and the possibility of losing Jun, which she could not allow.

Every other voice inside the cafeteria silenced out against her wails, which, at this, soon faded to nothing but shaky panting. The hundreds of pairs of eyes also pointed towards her, as well. It all seemed like it had been pulled out of a vivid memory of when she was in the talent show.

She had nothing to lean on, depend on: nothing but black eyes, darkness, and silence.

Lara now felt like behaving the same way her mother had done just a few hours earlier, except she was frozen. A wave of heat enveloped her body in embarrassment and frustration and a million other things. It lasted for minutes.

None of it compared to the sight of Jun, his shocked eye contact, and the way he looked away, now putting her greatest fear in action.

Nothing else compared to losing Junhui.

Despite the heat of the moment and the inevitable confrontation with her peers, the counselors, and her mother, it was then that Lara realized that she would have to prevent that no matter the cost.