< A Game of Coffee | HighSchoolOfShadows | A Clash of Cops >
Helena arrives outside the school later that night, winded and panicked. She crouches beside a bush and opens her bulging backpack to root through it.
Helena removes a small crowbar from the bag and works at the old window in the back of the school until the rusted latch gives way.
Helena puts the crowbar away, then retrieves a large set of keys on a keyring before zipping the bag up and crawling through the partially opened window.
<Mese> Once inside, Helena can hear someone whistling. Someone's here, inside the school, and pretty nearby....
Helena ducks into a nearby doorway.
<Mese> She must have done something, some small noise, because whoever was whistling stops, and calls out "Hello? Someone there?"
<Mese> It is dark in the school coridoors.
<Mese> "If there's someone there, you should say so now, or else I'll take a very dim view once you're found, kiddo!"
<Mese> Helena recognises the avuncular voice of the school janitor.
<Helena> "Marvin, it's me. Sorry if I frightened you."
<Helena> "I, uh, let myself in."
<Mese> There's a chuckle, low and deep. "If it isn't our little runaway! Hello, Laetitia."
<Mese> A light stabs around the corner; he's holding a flashlight. He tramps down the coridoor to walk up to Helena.
<Mese> His bushy grey eyebrows knit together into a frown.
<Mese> "Had to get away again, huh?"
<Helena> "Yeah, it's been a rough day."
<Mese> *Helena not Laetitia above*
<Mese> "Now you know I'm not supposed to let you do this..."
<Mese> "I ought to report this to the headmistress, you know." He looks at her, eyes glittering like shiny beetles in the torchlight.
<Helena> "I know, but you know that I really appreciate it. You're so good to me, Marvin."
Helena moves close to hug Marvin.
<Mese> "Oh, well now..." he smiles slightly, through a haggard face. "You oughtn't not to do that, either."
<Mese> "But I still don't feel right about this."
<Helena> "I guess I could just go home, if that would make you feel better."
<Mese> "Oh now, there's no call to be that way, I am just trying to help you, little girl."
<Helena> "Thanks, Marvin."
<Mese> He leans over. There's whisky on his breath.
<Mese> "Good little girls shouldn't be out at night like this, and they shouldn't have to sneak around, right?"
<Mese> He puts a hand, firmly, on Helena's shoulder.
<Helena> "I guess you're right..."
<Helena> "um.... Marvin?"
<Mese> "I'm certainly right, little girl."
<Mese> "Why I oughta spank your little be-hind for this."
<Helena> "I don't think this is right..."
<Mese> "Seems to me it's not right you should be here at all." he says.
Helena abruptly swings the heavy backpack at Marvin's head.
<Mese> He's caught entirely by surprise. The pack takes him full in the skull, and there's a crack as he flies against the near wall. Looks like he caught a blow on a fire extinguisher. He slumps back, unconcious, and that head wound is bleeding pretty bad.
Helena checks out Marvin's condition, then heads to the closet to catch her breath and collect her thoughts.
<Mese> As the adrenaline fades, Helena realises that she must have twisted or torn her arm somehow as she swung.
<Mese> It hurts pretty bad.
Helena cradles her arm as she lies on the shelf under her pictures, whispering to them through gritted teeth.
Helena stretches her good arm out to tear down a poster of a cat hanging from a branch to uncover an older, glamour shot-style photo of Aubrey Lake.
<Helena> "What do I need to do? Where are you?"
<Mese> Aubrey shakes her hair, in the picture. "Where am I? I'm dead, silly." She laughs, musically.
<Helena> "What happened to you?"
<Mese> "I got hurt. Hurt by someone close to me. Someone i thought of as a friend."
<Helena> ""Everybody is getting hurt. How can we stop it?
<Mese> She giggles again, put there's a paperiness to it which sounds unnatural, like a snake speaking.
<Mese> "A good start would be not hurting each other. You hurt Ashley today."
<Helena> "She hurt me first."
<Mese> "I don't think so. There are many types of hurt, Helena."
<Mese> "I got them all, before I died."
<Helena> "I'm trying to help, but I don't think I'm doing anything right."
<Helena> "Cole looked so upset last time she saw me."
<Mese> "Well, there's no helping ME, honey." She laughs again, and shakes her hair, doing that glamour pose. "I'm gone. But if you want to find out what happened to me..."
<Helena> "I'll do whatever it takes to get this school back to normal... whatever that means."
<Mese> "Oh, honey, this school was never normal."
<Mese> "It never will be while you and your friends are still in it."
<Helena> "Is that the answer?"
<Mese> She pouts, like a model, into the camera. "But I don't think it would be normal without you either."
<Helena> "If you think you know so much, answer this..."
<Helena> "What's wrong with me? Why wouldn't my father keep me?"
<Mese> "Oh honey, that's easy. It's like any parent. You disappointed him."
<Mese> "He made you wrong."
Laetitia is now known as willows
<Mese> "If you want to find out why..."
<Mese> "You'd have to talk to your sisters,"
<Helena> "My- My sisters?"
<Mese> "He didn't STOP, silly. What do you do if the first model comes out broken?"
<Mese> "You make another..."
<Mese> She blows a kiss.
Helena blinks.
<Mese> "You wanna know where to start? Look for the perfect people." S He? strikes a pose. "Right?"
<Helena> "Right."
<Mese> She smiles, with brilliant teeth. And then she feezes.
Helena rolls onto her side, favouring her bad arm, and shakes her head sadly.
<Helena> "Fucking pictures."
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