[center][h3][color=00ff7f]RYAN MENDOZA[/color][/h3][/center]
[COLOR=SLATEGRAY][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]M A T H E R   M E M O R I A L   H I G H   S C H O O L:[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR][INDENT][sup][COLOR=SILVER]Tuesday, August 21[SUP]st[/SUP], 2018 - 02:52pm | The 'Loft'[/COLOR][/sup][/INDENT]
[indent]At the sound of the scream, Ryan had frozen, eyes wide as she watched Mr Lehrer run out of the room. That scream hadn’t been angry. She’d heard angry before, but that was different; more real. Terror, but even more than that… 

They sounded [i]hurt.[/i]

If Mr. Lehrer hadn’t told them to stay in their seats, the thought of doing the opposite would never have even occurred to her. But even that direction had at least gotten her thinking about a course of action, snapped her out of the rabbit-in-headlights panic that had kept her rooted in her seat. 

Her hands gripped the edge of the table, looking down at it with gritted teeth as she tried to get her thoughts together, grasping at anything she could make sense of. It helped to focus on things, something mundane and simple and not at all unusual. Particleboard underneath the laminate, cheap but durable enough to last several years. Frame, what was the frame, steel - not the most durable, but steel. Probably. She was only guessing, but she was pretty sure it was right.

You just learned how to tell, she supposed. And it wasn’t exactly a masterstroke to figure that out when the desk wasn’t anything out of the ordinary. There wasn’t much interesting about it, the way the parts all fixed together. The desks were all the same here. Bought in bulk, probably, nice and cheap. Simple.

It all made sense.

It was fine.

Deep breaths, quiet, going over memories of people she’d spoken to before. Volunteering, things being put together. A doctor, a stern man, who’d called her sharp-witted and yet always seemingly regarded her with a faint air of disappointment. On his break, looking at her with a coffee in his hand - black, nothing added - with a sigh and a shake of the head.

[i]“You’d do damn well for yourself if you took a little initiative, Mendoza.”[/i]

Advice she hadn’t known how to make sense of. Wasn’t it easier to wait? To make sure you didn’t annoy anyone? There were so many ways that taking action could go wrong when you weren’t certain it was the right one. 

But they’d sounded hurt. Maybe she could help, but Mr. Lehrer probably knew how to fix it. Probably. That was the sticking point, a word she couldn’t put as much faith into as she wanted. Probably, maybe, but maybe not as well and that was enough to keep her in her seat. He’d told them to stay there, and she didn’t want to get in trouble by running outside first.

What else was there? The pass card, a better distraction. She picked it up, turning it over in her hand. Plastic. No, there was more to it, maybe, if she could make sense of how it worked--

Her head was starting to hurt, so she put it down with a wince.

Needed to get better at that. Maybe she could ask someone for advice; there’d be someone around who knew how to figure stuff out. A trick to it, probably, there was always a trick. Funny how she’d never found anything online; she supposed maybe it was one of those things you were just supposed to ‘get’. There were a lot of those, and they never got less irritating over time. She liked having a method, a set of steps, directions.

But this was wrong. After a cry filled with so much pain, fear, agony… her voice came as a murmur.

[color=00ff7f]“It shouldn’t be so quiet.”[/color] She looked over to the door and spoke from what little experience she had. Hearing the wailing in person was so very different from video and impersonal research, of course. More harrowing in the way it cut through the air. But somehow, it would have been reassuring in its own way, at least when compared with the eerie silence that followed it. A frown was firmly etched across Ryan's features as she finally came to a decision after far too much deliberation. [color=00ff7f]“Not after that kind of scream.”[/color]

Tentatively, she got to her feet, glancing around the room. If someone needed help, maybe she could do a little. It wasn’t as if she was trying to break the rules, but if she wanted to be a doctor then helping people was what she was supposed to do. Supposed to. For some reason that thought had always been the one to drive her. What she wanted didn’t matter.

It never really had, had it?

So she reached the door and hesitantly exited the room, trying not to look at any of her classmates. If she got to the end and her help wasn’t needed, then she could just slip back into the classroom and hope no-one mentioned her leaving.

Making an effort to move as quietly as possible, she headed in the direction Mr. Lehrer had gone, making her way outside. That seemed to be the right direction, didn’t it? If not, she could always head back. She could still head back now. What if she got in trouble? Any problems and her parents would kill her.

But she walked, quiet, trying not to draw any attention as she opened the door to the faint sound of somebody crying.

And as she turned to behold the scene, her eyes widened and she froze stock-still, looking at the protrusion that could only have been the source of the initial scream. No doubt Mr. Lehrer would have heard her quiet exclamation, looking over the scene in quiet but curious horror. God, what was she supposed to do here? Of course she should have stayed; seeing as she’d given her presence away, she was guaranteed to have gotten herself into trouble.

She’d been stupid, hadn’t she? There was no fixing this, no way to make it better. Of course she’d expected something bad, but she’d braced herself for gore, broken bones and torn flesh. It was supposed to be something she could do something about. They weren’t supposed to be already dead. People weren't supposed to turn to stone.

[color=00ff7f]“I-- I’m sorry.”[/color] Apologising to Mr. Lehrer for following, to the sobbing girl for not knowing what to do, to the statue for not having any way to fix this. Disconnected, detached, heart pounding in her ears. Had to close herself off, be numb to it, but she couldn’t. It was too real, too unfamiliar, nothing like the things she’d let herself get desensitised to. It wasn’t an accident, wasn’t a mistake. This was a murder scene, plain and simple. 

Sebastian Scott had been killed by a hype, that was what they’d all been saying. And now, looking at this girl, even if she was jumping to conclusions...

Ryan couldn't shake the feeling that he had only been the start.[/indent]