It was Alice's first day at her new primary school. She introduced herself at the top of the class and took the empty seat near the back. She kept her head down as all the other children inspected her. Their gaze made her feel uncomfortable. As class resumed, everyone turned their attention back to the teacher. All except the boy to her right. His eyes remained fixed on her. She was too nervous to look so she focused on the black board.
The day went by like any normal school day. So did the next day, and the next day. All was fine except the boy kept staring at her. All throughout class he stared. Even during lunchtime she would see him staring at her from across the yard. She was getting more and more uncomfortable with every passing day. On the 5th day at her new school she went up to her teacher, Ms. Madison after class. She told her about the boy and asked if she could tell him to stop. The mere mention of the boy, Joseph, changed something on her teacher's face, something that Alice didn't quite understand. Ms. Madison assured Alice with a shake in her voice that there was nothing to worry about and that she should just ignore Joseph's stares. So that's what Alice did.
Starting from the next class she tried her best to ignore Joseph. She sat facing slightly away from him so she wouldn't see his blank stare in her peripheral vision. This seemed to work and she felt herself easy into her chair a bit. Half way through the class she knocked a pencil off her table and onto the ground. Without thinking she reached down to retrieve it and was met with another face very close to her own. She jolted back from Joseph, who had leaned down to pick up Alice's pencil for her. His neck twisted up at an unnatural angle so his gaze never left her. Alice screamed and ran out of the room to the toilets. It wasn't long after Alice locked herself in a stall to cry that someone else entered the bathroom. She hushed her cries and watched the door. The footsteps moved over the floor slowly. A shadow appeared in front of her stall and lingered. The stillness of the person it belonged to unnerved Alice. They knocked on the door with a playful rhythm which perforated the tense atmosphere that shrouded Alice's stall. The shadow under the door began to move again. It grew larger and two hands appeared to meet the floor. Too small to be the hands of a concerned teacher, they must have belonged to a child. Alice covered her face with trembling hands, peering out through her fingers at the door. As thick locks of hair lowered into the frame of the gap she closed her eyes, not wanting to see who they belonged to. A moment went by and her curiosity got the best of her. She opened her fingers and peered down to the gap under the door. The wide, piercing eyes of Joseph peered back at her. His head wedged in between the ground and door. She shrieked in terror and slipped off the toilet seat into the corner of the stall. There she curled up into a ball, weeping quietly until a teacher came to get her.
A week later Alice still hadn't returned to school. To avoid rumours spreading of their child going crazy, her parents told the school that she had the flu. They did their best to tend to her in any way they could but it seemed like their attempts to make her better were futile. She sat up in bed all day and night, her eyes darting around the room constantly in a paranoid manner. A little after 3pm the doorbell sounded from downstairs and she heard her mother answer it. She couldn't tell who was there but her mother seemed to be leading them upstairs. Alice's door opened slowly and her mother filled the frame. "Alice, honey. One of your classmates is here to see you, to wish you better for your flu" she said as she nodded encouragingly. She moved back and a small figure walked into the room with a big card in their hands. Alice's eyes moved up from the card to their face. A wave of fear rippled through Alice's body as Joseph moved closer to her. "I'll leave you two be" said her mother as she closed the door behind him, failing to notice the situation she had just put her daughter in. Alice whimpered as Joseph stood at the foot of her bed. The same blank facial expression, the same cold, dead eyes. "Why is he here?" she thought. "We made this for you", his voice just as chilling as his gaze. Alice couldn't take this anymore. There was no escaping him. No end to his unnatural glare. She moved the cover off of her and stepped out of bed, keeping him in her periferie. She opened the 3rd story window and climbed up onto the ledge. The icy breeze clawed at her pajamas. With glassy eyes she looked back into her room. Joseph stood next to the bed, still looking at her with that expressionless face of his. He watched as she disappeared from the window frame. He moved to the window and peered down at the twitching body below, a scream rang out from somewhere below him.
"I win again, 43 games to 0. Nobody can beat me at a staring contest." he said, as a smile spread across his face.
