I Fell In Love With A Girl Who Died Before I Was Even Born

I stood in the hallway, watching a scene from one of my worst nightmares slowly, grotesquely unfold like a cursed origami frog.

Skuzz was gurgling to himself in a mix of joy and necrotic phlegm, holding his pile of cursed yearbook negatives like they were some kind of holy text of madness.

"I need to get to the school copy room," he rasped, licking what was left of his lips. "I've got work to do. If we print enough copies, we can spread the madness like glitter at a rave. Crazy people are easy to manipulate, you know. You just have to smile and scream louder than they do."

Then he wandered off, giggling and stapling his shoulder back together as he went.

I didn't stop him.

I should have stopped him.

But I needed backup, and I only knew one person unhinged enough to stand a chance against Skuzz's Walking Dead Xerox Machine of Doom.

I turned the corner and found her.

Shion.

Locked in what looked like an aggressive diplomatic negotiation with Obie the Bitter Dwarf—janitor, eternal grump, and custodian of all things broken and resentful on campus.

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"I saw you kick that door!" Obie shouted, pointing a stubby finger at her like she'd insulted his grandmother. "You dented it!"

"It's a door, Obie," Shion snapped, arms crossed, not even pretending to look sorry. "If people didn't want to walk through it, it would've been a wall."

"It's my door!"

"Then your door should toughen up."

Obie's whole face turned the color of a pickled tomato.

"I work hard to keep this place as nice as it is!"

We both glanced around at the mildew-stained ceiling tiles, the flickering demon-possessed lights, and the haunted motivational poster that whispered insults if you stared too long.

"…This place is a dump," I offered helpfully.

"Thank you," Shion said, throwing up her arms.

"That's not the point!" Obie shouted, stomping so hard the floor tiles protested in ancient tongues. "I'm a bad ass. I keep this dump together. You wanna find out just how much more of a bad ass I am than you?"

Shion cracked her neck.

"I'll fix the door," she said, brushing past him. "But only because I respect you as a fellow bad ass."

Obie narrowed his eyes. "That's… actually pretty bad ass. Now get your ass to fixing it."

I stepped forward. "Shion—we've got a bigger problem. Skuzz is heading to the copy room. He's going to use the yearbook photos to mass-produce some kind of cursed yearbook that'll drive the entire school insane."

Shion didn't even blink.

She just slowly turned and swept her hand toward the hallway.

One tanuki was cartwheeling through a flaming hula hoop. Someone else was upside down and being painted by a sentient brush with legs. Natsumi had set off the fire alarm again by vaping pure glitter.

Shion looked me dead in the eye.

"Are you sure we're not already too late?"