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🔞 ⚠️ CONTENT WARNING SEXUAL ASSAULT ⚠️🔞
Miles burst out of the library. His throat felt tight as if there was a snake wrapped around his neck. He didn't know where he was going, only that he needed to get away. When he got to the outside, body went limp and he found himself heaving down below some trees. Everything around him was a blur and his earing was ringing with a loud buzz.
Several things he had found out, all horrible, horrible things. They weren't theories or gossip; they were truths written down on paper for the world to see. Truths.
In reality, he could only blame himself. Who was he to act like he was violated when he willingly searched up this incident himself? He clicked his tongue, his own way of casting disappointment towards himself.
The girl's name started with a 'N' of all letters. Of course he could be overthinking it. It couldn't possibly be the only person he knew who started with a 'N'. No, it had to be someone else. In the first place, the girl was dead, and it had been almost two decades ago. There wasn't a chance that he had met something that wasn't real.
His fist gripped the grass. He ripped it from the ground as he stood back up, grabbed his backpack, and ran out. He was stupid. There was no way it was someone he knew. It was definitely a coincidence.
There are only twenty six letters in the alphabet, so there were millions of possibilities of names. 'N' just happened to be of someone he knew, and of someone who died. It was completely irrelevant.
Someone called 'N' lived years ago and was raped by her brother. Someone called 'N' committed suicide at the school, but no one knows where she did it.
It's these thoughts running amuck, he found himself standing in front of the sports shed, though he had no clue how he got there. He wasn't thinking of where he was going, as long as he was moving. But to bring him here of all places? A second ago, he recalled being in front of the library,
Dwelling on his surroundings, the weather had suddenly taken a turn for the worse. The once clear sky was suddenly overrun by a sheet of dead clouds brooding over him. Maybe the world was trying to make him feel even more unsettled than he was. It didn't help that the weather report didn't mention anything about potential rain. It was nearly summer.
Second to the moody weather, he noticed that the shed had clearly been cleaned or repainted because it looked quite nice to what he usually saw. The seasonal rust was suddenly blown away and the chipped metal was somehow looking brand new. Even the dents from countless flying rugby balls had been un-dented. He thought that maybe the sports department finally decided to take care of appearances around the field, considering the shed was around 20 years old.
Though these things were not uncommon, what was uncommon was a sudden loud shriek coming from inside the shed. As human as it was, it was a chillingly painful sounding scream that he would've normally ran away from. But for some reason, his body told him to go toward the noise. Pulling and drawing him in, he was like a mosquito guided towards the light. His feet grudgingly went toward the door of the shed and he peeked through the cracks.
At first it was pitch black and he couldn't see anything. Frankly, he hoped that he was really just imagining the scream, but as he carefully tried to calm his curiosity, he suddenly found something squirming around on the ground.
Nina? he thought in confusion.
"Stop it!" she screamed while struggling on the cold pavement.
His eyes widened in horror. A cold feeling took over him. Nina was lying on the ground and she was not alone.
"Rhys!"
Hearing her scream in terror made his legs itch. His first instinct was to barge in there, but he was so stuck on the name Rhys, as if he heard it before somewhere.
He almost slapped himself. Of course. How could he forget? It was her stepbrother.
"Let go, Rhys!"
Snapping back, he quickly tried to pry the door open. Though, through a frightening realisation, his world suddenly toppled as he found his own weight pulling him forward as he tried to touch the door. The door had gone through his hand. Not metaphorically, not even as an exaggeration, it had gone through his hand like it didn't exist. The door had become a figment of his imagination. Horrified, he fell face forward into the shed, right in front of them.
Whatever emotion he was feeling afterwards, he quickly kept it in. At the time, it didn't matter how he suddenly fell through an entire door, he just needed to strangle whatever person of whatever religion was in charge of the façade.
He whipped his head back and found the door was still closed shut, but he was now in the shed with them. Feeling his curiosity starting to crawl up inside, his short-lived fascination was brutally snatched by the horrifying scenes unfolding right in front of him.
Nina was pinned to the ground with her hands held down. Her hair was scattered all around her, and her clothes were messily arranged. What was even more horrifying, and frankly almost made him lose his guts, was the fact that he could spot her underwear, discarded onto the floor next to her.
In a flash, he got up and stumbled toward the two, shouting profanities out of desperation. He grappled Rhys with burning rage in his mind. His hands surrendered to his emotions, and they lifted towards Rhys with a heavy punch ready to be launched, only, his hand never landed.
As much as he couldn't grasp what had just happened, he found himself rolling through the couple and onto the floor once more. His back struck the cold cement and his head hit the edge of the hurdles tucked away.
His mind felt woozy. It pounded. He was like a foetus born once again, with legs struggling to walk, stammering until he had to take hold of something to lean on. It was the feeling of people overlooking over him and mocking him. He was never religious, but if there was a god, they were ridiculing his flimsy sense of justice.
He looked up to see that Rhys wasn't even the slightest fazed by this. The guy was either blind, deaf, or just purely disregarding him. Though, no one could ever just stand there and look like they weren't going to get punched. So, no— that couldn't be it.
They can't see me, he realised, his heart clenching in agony.
What he originally believed was a sudden god-given miracle to save Nina was just a taunting session for him. They dangled her body in front of him, taunting his uselessness in even this situation where he couldn't even touch them. If he stopped his wild thoughts, he thought that maybe he could have heard voices jeering at his futile attempts.
Watching her lie there was just as bad as watching a kidnapped take a child and doing nothing about it. It was so horribly agonising that he could feel his heart clench. What was he even here for?
"Someone, help!" she cried out desperately towards the door. "Please—"
Rhys put a hand to her mouth and gripped it shut. "No one is going to come, idiot," Rhys hissed. "We are all the way out here and classes are over. No one is going to come and save you."
Nina looked at him with fear and betrayal in her eyes. Tears slipped down the side of Rhys' hand, a metal hand that gripped so tightly around her jaw.
"Nrmph!" she sobbed in front of him.
All Miles could do was sit there in absolute distress and terror while witnessing his friend being raped. Even if she couldn't see her, it felt like she was condemning him with a cold stare that landed directly into his. He started to think that she really could see him, and when he thought about how she could see his shameful state, he suddenly felt something wet run down his cheek.
"I'm sorry," he stammered. "I'm sorry. I'm sorry."
While covering his ears to drown out her painful cries, he shut his eyes tight by forcing his head onto the ground and gripping his hair so tightly that his scalp felt numb. His teeth clenched together like it had been screwed shut, as it spewed a series of guilt-ridden apologies. He knew it was worthless for a girl who couldn't even hear or see him, but he didn't know what else to do.
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Colton and Christie both frowned. They looked at each other with worried expression. The look of 'What happened to him?' was plastered all over.
"Hey?" Colton called out in front of him.
Miles looked to the ground with a blank stare, completely ignoring him. His eyes seemed enclosed on the space below the desk, an empty space with nothing to see.
"Are you alive?" Christie said, waving a hand in front of him. When that didn't work, Christie sighed. She looked over to Colton who only gave her a shrug.
Miles sat there, silent— more silent than usual. His breathing was so steady that he looked like a mannequin with an ever-forward gaze. Mannequins had nothing inside them, they were hollow. Miles was void of any thought, so enraged by memories of yesterday that he couldn't even fathom what emotion to put on his face.
"Miles," Christie called out, putting a hand on his shoulder.
With that touch, it was like electricity shot through his body. He jolted out of his seat in terror. The sound of his chair screeched against the floor, making the two flinch.
"What's wrong?" Christie asked, a little fazed.
He looked over at Christie for the first time today, but his mind was so plagued by yesterday's events that he thought he saw Nina in front of him. The same worried eyes that she wore, were now reflecting a sobbing girl, screaming and yelling at him.
Miles felt something come up his throat.
The two instantly shouted and leapt towards him in worry. The classroom suddenly ran amuck as a people helped him out and others were running in and out of the classroom with towels and water buckets.
He couldn't remember what was happening next, but when he came back to reality, he was in the nurses office. Christie was sitting next to him, and Colton was laying on the chair in front of the bed, both preoccupied with either their phones.
At once, Christie noticed him awake first and called to Colton. "He's awake!"
Colton almost fell off his chair as his body jolted awake. He whipped his head toward Miles and quickly thrusted out of his seat towards him. Standing behind Christie, he made a frown. "Is he really awake?"
Christie knitted her brows. He was clearly awake, but he was so still and so quiet that someone would think he was sleeping with his eyes open. "He should be." When Miles looked over at her, Christie made a sigh of relief.
Colton patted his shoulder. "You feeling alright?"
He blinked and brought a hand to his head. "Sorry, what happened?". He didn't remember anything after seeing Nina in Christie, and even remembering that misunderstanding made him feel a little queasy.
Christie stammered for a brief moment. "You puked in class and passed out." She then gestured to Colton. "He carried you out to the nurse's office. It's already the end of the day."
He closed his eyes and leant back. "Seriously?" he said, sighing to himself.
"What happened to you?" Colton asked, concerned.
Miles squinted his eyes and rubbed his temple. "I just. . . ate something bad."
"Must have been poisonous," Colton chuckled. "Really had me out there thinking you were possessed."
"Yeah, no wonder you were so quiet. I thought I was talking to a ghost," Christie joked lightly.
Unknowingly, something inside him snapped. All his facial muscles tensed. His head turned to them in an instant, with a look of sudden distress and pain. "She's not a ghost!"
Christie jumped in fear. She slowly looked at him with concern. "Huh?"
Miles made a disturbed face and grabbed his face. The blood on his lip was seeping through again. "Shut up! I tried to help."
Colton looked between Christie and him before making a troubled face. His hand grabbed Miles' and he bent down towards him face. "Hey, calm down. What happened to you?"
With Colton's steady eyes looking into his, he calmed down. His face melted into a calm state where he looked like he was about to fall asleep. "Sorry, I just—," he paused. "I'm sorry. It's nothing."
The two glanced at each other with a knowing look but neither said a thing.
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