'The short, saddening story began with the likes of me. Those who have suffered through uncertain times. Those who have become aware of the true meaning life holds. It was a sickening journey. But worthwhile. The destination is worth the anguish to reach, even if you die trying. In fact, life itself is short—'

I typed into my old laptop. Attempting to finally write something worth paying attention to. Or literally pay for to read.
But sadly, what I was pouring onto the blank white rectangle etched into the screen did not intrigue my weary eyes.
I sighed and slumped back into my chair, my arms tired of leaning against the tiny table that occupied the corner of my rather small room.

It was half past midnight according to my laptop. I have been on it for three whole hours but still hadn't figured out what to input into my supposed brand-new book project. Not that I've written any to be honest. I aspire to become a writer. But I had later realized how hard writing itself can be. As a result, I only wrote chunks and pieces, start stories and never resume them. I would shake my head disapprovingly when I check my files to find each of them end with 'To be continued' and they disappointingly never end up continued. Instead all the piles that I had accumulated stayed as they were, incomplete. Honestly, if I could gather all the time and effort I largely spent on occasionally writing these, it would have resulted in a full entire two hundred pages long book.

But expectantly and rather unfortunately, that wasn't going to happen. It never did and it never will.

I simply wasn't the kind to dedicate my time and energy into one work and finish it. When I make up ideas, I start writing them, then I jump into other ideas and jot them down too. Whether it be on a paper or laptop, which I infrequently used in my residence to be frank. The landlord of the place I reside in, a man called Mr. Park, sadly doesn't permit the usage of electronics—says something about the waste of electricity. As ridiculous as that sounded, I found my way through that problem eventually.

And unfortunately, I still wedged myself into another one, the
consequences.

Recently I was caught red-handed sneaking in my laptop that I stored somewhere at school. Now Mr. Park wants me to pay him a fine. An extra charge for the use of the excess power he says. However how many times I told him I recharged my device elsewhere, he would still insist. Now I was sitting here, on my scruffy chair in the corner of my room, brainstorming what to write so I could maybe create something, sell it and earn something from it. With the help of the device that put me in this situation in the first place. So, I could pay him his demand. Else, I'd get evicted. Kicked out of the place with zero sympathy and emotions. Sadly again, I was making zero progress.

Here I am, my back was hurting. I exhaled a breath of defeat, resting my head on my arms on the small study table in front of me, pulling down the screen of my laptop before I did.

Today had been the same like my past days always were. But instead of being as boring as them. Today was quite an interesting day...

And rather tiring at that...

* * *

The name (Carrie Never) and a small portrait of a blue-eyed brunette staring at the camera unsmiling, etched on the student ID card I often carried around campus with me. It reflected off the school chef's glasses as I stretched my arms to let her have a good look at the card that I had picked out from inside my eerily green schoolbag. I never chose that colour myself.

Mrs. John adjusted her slightly transparent glasses and stared intently at the card before nodding, "Clear." She said in her usual monotone voice. "Now pick up yours and get out of my sight."

I sighed, earning a glare from the chef and a few 'move's from the rest of the students waiting behind me. I gradually reached out to collect my supposed breakfast—it was meant to be lunch, but since I hadn't eaten anything since, it was now officially breakfast—on the tray that rested on top of the cafeteria's counter.

"Do you mind?" Another student whispered into my ears. "Would you like... move? Are you a robot or something? Did you hear me?"

"Oh." I breathed, shaking out of whatever trance I caught myself in. I Quickly took the full weight of the tray on my hands and walked towards my regular seat at the corner of the cafeteria, sighing deeply again as I sat down and placed the tray on the sadly unfilled table there. The table in front of me had always been empty for the past few weeks.

Of course, no one was going to sit with me after what happened. They still hadn't gone over that.

Even the one person I called my best friend wouldn't sit with me. She wouldn't hang out with me. She wouldn't talk to me either. Heck, she even switched classes from me. Everyone else I was acquainted with had distanced themselves, like I had done something terribly wrong. Like they had suddenly discovered that I was some sort of... criminal.

I shook my head in disbelief, a criminal? How dumb and stupid have I become that I'd even brave considering that?

To the point of using it to justify why my so-called friends have abandoned me. How very woeful of me. I was disappointed in myself. Suddenly, I lost my appetite. The food didn't really look that promising. I wouldn't have given it a single taste if I wasn't that hungry to begin with. Why did I even collect it anyway?

Instead of dumping the food in the trash like every other student would've done. I pulled out a small empty lunchbox from my schoolbag and shoved all the contents of the tray into it, barely filling the interior as I pushed the lid on top of the lunchbox. I wouldn't stand wasting fresh food.

Mr. Busher looked briefly at the figure he had carefully drawn on the whiteboard glued to the wall, turning his head to face the class, explaining what best he could about the characteristics of some type of microbe off the diagram for a really long time. That wasn't the only thing he had been doing though.

Mr. Busher's dark orbs gazed through his glasses that were as translucent as Mrs. John's, examining every single student in the classroom. Passing through each one of them from front to back, row after row, past twenty pair of eyes and finally lasting on me, seated at the back corner of the class. That had never been my choice either.

"Miss Never, you're undivided attention to the topic, please." He remarked after he finished scanning the room. I winced at the mention of my name. "In fact, I need all of you to pay attention, dear students. This subject is of utmost importance." Mr. Busher spoke with a gnarled British accent, most of the time I would wonder if he was really speaking with the intonation. He would gnaw and twist at his words several times, it was truly hard to decipher.

"Since I have spent a good time dwelling in the clarification of this topic."—he continues to say— "I would like to stage a series of queries regarding it. Not answering the questions correctly meant that you haven't been truly paying attention in class, which will result in detention of course—oh, that rhymed—It is simply unavoidable. But, lucky for the smart, focused ones among you, you get an extra mark for accuracy, is that clear?" He waited until every head tilted up and down.

The whole class nodded.

Without a single sign of protest.

Mr. Busher was not the one to make idle threats.

So, they had decided not to make things a lot worse for themselves.

They didn't want what happened last time to happen again. That was why I was relocated to the farthest back of the classroom in the first place. That was why everyone avoided me, glowered at me, never spoke to me—if they ever did, they'd say things that don't ever seem to be that nice.

I caught a short glimpse of one of my classmates, the only one beside me, at my right. Apparently, he was the same student that had told me to move at the cafeteria counter. The same boy I loathed and wished to never ever have to see again every single morning before coming to school. He was glowering his eyes at me, hatred and loathing burned profusely in them. It's okay, the feeling was mutual after all.

"You're that confident in yourself, aren't you?" he muttered, annoyance surrounding his tone.

I slowly turned to glare at him. "What if I am?" I retorted.

"Then I'd make you lose it."

"How do you think you'll do that?"

"However I can."

"Oh really?"

"I will. Try me."

Before I had the chance to respond to that, he flashed a boring look at me and raised an arm, swinging his hand about like he was waving goodbye. "Mr. Busher!" he shouted.

I panicked. What was he going to say to him?

Mr. Busher turned towards him and sighed. "Kyle Rennerds, if you wanted to speak there was no need to shout..."

"I would like to ask, what if a student doesn't answer your questions at all?"

"Simple. The student receives double the detention and an extra hour of scrubbing. It's that simple really." Mr. Busher narrowed his eyes, wandering around the class. "Who here intends to do that?" He said, his voice suddenly as rigid as ice. "I am not playing a joke. Who here would dare not answer my questions?"

No one even so much as blinked.

"Now. I'm questioning you. Won't you think I would be disappointed if you didn't respond?" He halted in his tracks.

Someone from among the front rows shouted a response in the affirmative. I didn't really bother that much to know every single person who studied in my class. Unless I get unexpectedly paired with one of them, but unfortunately that was never the case. All the teachers who have ever taught in the class vowed to put me in projects with Kyle, whether they were paired or group projects the two of us would be forced into literal living hell doing them together. At least for the group projects I managed to add my best friend into the mix of torment and misery so she could be with me. She didn't have to suffer anyway, since she outrageously has zero resentment in her heart for him. Now that I no longer had ties with her and she was no longer in our class. Things just got a whole lot harder than they'd normally would've been. This was how pathetic my school life was. I couldn't agree more after the event that changed everything...

"Miss Never." Mr. Busher's sharp voice cut through my soaring thoughts, rocketing them back into the abyss of my mind as I realized my surroundings—and the trouble that I was in...

"You seem to want to cause trouble for the past few weeks. So, I'd make an exception for you." He paused, his glasses eerily reflecting off the light happily streaming through the windows (but they didn't look too happy when their ends hit the glass) as he held a biology textbook in his hands. He must have been asking me a question from it and I probably didn't answer it because I spaced into my own train of thoughts again. I waited for him to announce my punishment.

"Which will be decided later. In the meantime, you are free to stand outside. I can't bear watching my own student spacing out in class again."

This one statement made all the students turn to glare at me. I had annoyed the teacher and probably them more so.

Kyle was the only one to regard me with an annoyingly smug smirk as I picked up my things, my biology textbook, not and my pencil case since I might not need them anymore. I rolled my eyes at him and lowered my head, going for the exit.

Right before my hand reached for the round metal of a doorknob, Mr. Busher called out. "Oh, and Never? Count on going for a nice visit to the Principal's Office in fifteen minutes."

Fifteen minutes felt like fifteen plus a hundred hours.

I leaned my back against the tiny space of a wall stuck between the classroom door and the bulk of a locker—and rows more following it, sighing when I realised that twenty minutes had already gone by. Mr. Busher might not be idle with threats, but neither could he bother to be on time.

Ten more minutes had flown by. I heard from no one. I was even beginning to assume that Mr. Busher wouldn't come out until the biology class ended. That was good, it might give me a chance to run after all.

The classroom door creaked open, killing my hopes and revealing someone else instead of Mr. Busher.

"Kyle?" I muttered, realizing what might have transpired in there without me. I rolled my eyes and swiftly turned away.

"Crazy?" He said a second after I did. His expression showed that he was shocked, then he quickly morphed it into bleak infuriation. "What are you still doing here?"

I didn't answer the question. I hated when he called me crazy like it was my name and personality. Right, he probably thought it was. I still had my back to him.

"Afraid of what the principal might do to you?"

I turned towards him. "No—I... Then... why are you here?" I manage to say.

"You think I'm here because I want to be? Dream about it, Crazy. It's so simple."

I looked at him incredulously as he walked past me. What did he just say?

"Hey! Where do you think you're going?" I shouted after him.

"Where do you think I'm going?" he yelled back, still adding to the distance between us. I didn't bother following him as he walked contently away.

"What are you still doing here, Never?" Mr. Busher's gnarly voice said behind me as I turned to find him peeking through the door.

"Oh um... I was just waiting for you, sir." I checked my watch, it had already been thirty-two minutes since I left the class.

"Go find yourself with Kyle. You're lucky enough to have a companion for the punishments you're both receiving." He began to retreat back into the class.

"I don't understand. Why is he getting a punishment too? Don't tell me because he had something to do with me."

"No, I'm not going to say that. In fact, I am impressed by how you speak to your seniors, especially the one who gave you the punishment."

I bowed my head and stared at the ground.

"Now. Go catch up with him. You don't want the principal letting him off easily if he goes to her without you."

Mr. Busher gave me a smile and disappeared behind the wood of a door.

As I would like to always admit, at times Mr. Busher can be kind and considerate. It was just when it came to study and work that he was rigid and serious. If that wasn't one of his downsides, he would have topped my list of the teachers I thought were the best in the school. He was a close second. But in terms of teaching, he passed the top with flying colours.

I used what Mr. Busher said to give me the courage to propel myself forward into the hall. Half-expecting Kyle wasn't waiting for me there.

And there he was, leaned against one of the lockers lining half the walls. We said nothing to each other. I walked past him and he followed. It was like we never had anything between us. That's what it felt like. And strangely, it felt good.

The synced stomping of each of our differently designed canvas shoes echoed around the eerily empty hall as we went for our destination. To reach the Principal's Office we had to take a special route. Down the hall we were walking in into another hall at the side of the wall cut through to make the path and then to a dimly lit corridor leading to a flight of stairs that could take us three floors above the ground.

It was an odd route to be honest. Parents and teachers needed to find it easy to meet the principal. But unfortunately, someone thought it was a good idea to have to make students and parents alike dread their meetings. That didn't falter me in anyway. I knew who we were going to face. The principal was a rare breed of a person who wouldn't even be able to swat a fly. That was Ms. Toffy. Her large enough family were the owners of a large candy factory named 'Toffy's'. Instead of inheriting the family business, she had taken the path of becoming a principal because she claimed that she loved it, that it was her dream. I doubted sitting in the middle of a dusty room, in a dusty seat, resting her hands on a dusty desk amounted to happiness. Perhaps it was the work itself. Having to sit for twelve consecutive hours typing into a hard-ridden desktop computer or skimming through files, papers, folders, anything regarding the students of the school. Or it could be the pleasure of doing just that, seeing children everyday and knowing all about them. Ms. Toffy even cut her assistant's job and made her assist teachers, students or parents through the path to her office instead, but of course, not brutally cutting her salary in the process either.

For some reason, Ms. Levi was absent today. It was rare. Ever since her work had changed from handling the student affairs to handling the students and people themselves, she'd work back at school for as long as Ms. Toffy would, at times even longer. She was also a steady weekends' worker too. The school was still opened on weekends, for students' activities or that sort. Ms. Levi would never miss those days. Even when she was sick, she'd wear a mask to prevent the spread of a random flu she'd catch every now and then. Holidays weren't an exception either.

That made me realize how much more work was actually added to her list. But it didn't look like it bothered her. She took care of herself remarkably well. It just took a little time-managing and solemnness to get through it. She was probably happy with what she was doing. Her life was a series of blissful calculations. What happened now?

I was pondering that question for longer than I would've liked. Forgetting the fact that I was heading for the principal's office and also that I had long passed my locker, where I wanted to empty my arms of the stuff I carried with me.

Oh, I just remembered. My locker was located at the first floor.

I also didn't realise my eyes were closed either. It was until my feet hit solid concrete that I did, the impact almost throwing me off balance. I was gratefully able to keep the balance that was threatening to hurl me head-first into the stairs that was now visible in front of me. I grunted in pain while I stared at my feet covered with the adhesive front of my canvas shoe, if it weren't for its protective properties I wouldn't have been able to celebrate how lucky I had become.

"Are you going or what?" An exasperated voice sounded from behind me. It was painfully familiar.

I twisted my neck to look at the person and instantly regretted it. It was my best friend—Or she was. What was she doing here?

"Rill? What are you doing here? Where are you going?" I asked her, obviously knowing the answer. It had just been a long time since we'd actually talked.

"Nowhere." She said distastefully. Not bothering to look at me or even at my direction. Like I was invisible. Like she was speaking to a deranged ghost. "Move out of the way." Not waiting for a reaction, she shoved harshly past me and climbed up the stairs only to bump into something else.

"Don't you have eyes?" I heard Kyle complain. He was already up the stairs.

"Oh. So sorry." Rill apologized. She apologized. That was the weirdest thing that could have ever happen at the moment. I heard her hurry off.

The stuff that I had been carrying with me had dropped and scattered on the floor. The only one who didn't have the eyes was sadly me.

I slowly reached down to pick them one by one, taking my free time doing that while I contemplated what just happened.

I bumped into my best friend, who shoved me away like I was nothing.

I sighed and rushed up the stairs, three fleets of them waiting for me.

And, as expected, Kyle wasn't going to wait for me again. I never really wanted him to though. He could go do all he wanted. I would never care.

That was why my last name was 'Never'. That was another scenario I wouldn't want to risk my safety dozing off of again. A really, really long story.

At last, as I climbed up the stairs, I was received by the wide opening of a small hall leading straight into a corridor. There was a weird series of tiles stuck on the ground to make the floor. The tints of oddly bright red dotted among peach and white. They looked a bit different than how they were when I used to describe my surroundings by writing. The ceiling was blank. There were blackened windows on each two sides of the hall. The hall was noticeably dimly lit.

So as the corridor itself. I hadn't spotted a single sign of Kyle until I approached the Principal's Office through a door at the far corner. He was leaning against it, scowling at me.

"What took you so long?" he grumbled. I ignored him. Walking past him and turning the doorknob to the dreaded Principal's Office. Ms. Toffy had too many ideologies herself. She might be kind and sweet but she could also be quite hard to deal with when she witnesses a fault. The only thing I had to do to get 'myself' out of this mess was convince her that there was nothing wrong in the first place.

The dull, dusty atmosphere of a small room came blowing at my face. How was anyone able to stay in here?

The Principal's Office was less petite than it should have been. Though it had shown signs of space filled to make the concealing walls. It spoke otherwise.

"Good morning, Ms. Toffy." I greeted. It was the best I could say.

"It's almost afternoon. Shouldn't you be saying otherwise?" A familiar voice resonated from a figure that had been concealed by the high-back of a leather chair propped behind a beaten wooden desk. "Morning had passed hours ago, why were you late?" The figure sounded irritated. It was rare for Ms. Toffy to be irritated.

Except it wasn't her.

The figure dragged the leather chair round to reveal herself, like a super-villain twisting to meet the super-hero from a cheesy comic for the very first time. I found myself half-expecting to find a cat rested in her hands as she stroked it. There was none.

"Ms. Levi?" I and Kyle exclaimed in unison.

"It's 'Principal' Levi to you now." Ms. Levi—Principal Levi raised her arms over her desk, resting her chin on her palms. "Is that clear?"

"Principal? When the hell did that happen?" Kyle demanded.

"APPAPPAP! Watch your words, Rennerd!"

"How can I? I can't watch my words, I just speak them!"

"Then speak your words properly!" I have genuinely never heard Principal Levi raise her voice ever in my life. I've been in this school for far more longer than I would've fancied. There was one question I wanted to ask though.

"What happened to Ms. Toffy?" Though my voice was quiet enough, it still cut through the small space of the office and their arguing.

Principal Levi realized that and straightened on her seat, clearing her throat before answering the question. "I have no idea." She sounded like herself again. "Yesterday—and the whole week back—she was here. But the next day—that is today—she wasn't. I was contacted by the school management and they told me to take her place. I hadn't heard from them since. They told me not to announce it until the end of sessions."

"Won't anyone see you here? Like us?"

"Don't worry about that. I made sure no one was able to come here. You two were an exception, I knew you wouldn't tell anyone but he—" she gestured dismissively towards Kyle,"—I'm not sure about him."

"You think I'd want to brag about 'you' being our principal now?" Kyle smugly responded.

"Well, it doesn't matter. The school day's almost over. There's nothing to worry about. Given the fact that you two had a history, in this school, where you caused a big amount of trouble just a few weeks ago. I wanted to deal with you two myself for a really long time." She paused, collecting herself before she continued. "So, what can I do for you?"

"Do for us?" I queried, incredulous.

"Are you serious?" Kyle chimed in. It made me almost want to kick him out of the office room, he was starting to become a nuisance. Though what he said probably expressed how I felt.

"Of course, I am. Besides, I feel like I owe you two something. What can I do for you?"

"Um—Let me off the hook?" I was shocked at my own statement.

"Let you off the hook...?" she seemed to be considering. "Sure." I felt my shoulders drop. "But what about 'him'?"

I glared at Kyle and he glared at me back, "Do anything you want to him."

"Hey! Not fair! How do you get to boss her around?"

"Because I just did."

"Busher told me everything that happened. Honestly, I see no fault on Carrie's part. I've been watching her for a long time. I would know when something off normal happens. I refuse to believe she had anything to do with the incident few weeks ago except that she might be involved in some other way. It's bizarre."

"I don't care?"

"Don't. Please. Now, the thing is... I owe you something too."

"What's this about owing?"

"Even though what you did was quite... literally unspeakable. You still did me the great deal of a favour. So, I owe you. End of story."

"What's it that I've done for you? I wouldn't give a second glance to the thought of doing that. Goodie two-shoes here might. Crazy looks like she wants to hug you big." Kyle raised his arms around himself and mimed a huge hug, an epitome of what you'd give to your mama. If he were aware, and he probably was­, he would've felt two pair of eyes burning at the sight of him furiously. I found myself wishing I could punch him away up and up into the abyss of outer space, screaming good riddance after him.

Finally, he paused, sparing a second before rolling his eyes and staring into the distance—the small distance, at least—across the room, avoiding our gaze. I looked at the new principal questioningly, awaiting the answers. What was she talking about? What did we ever do for her? I hope my eyes were able to convey those questions.

Principal Levi heaved a titanic, massive sigh and shifted in her seat again, clearly uncomfortable. Why make us come then?

"If I may enquire..." She said, carefully picking her words, probably going through many more choices in her head and eliminating each one of them until the right words were formed. She began clicking her desk with her index finger steadily. It was one of her long-term habits, nervous or confident, I wasn't able to confirm.

"What really happened between you two?"