When I was a little girl, a bad man did bad things to the kids in my town.
I am (or was) a product of that man's experiments.
Which influenced my April Fools prank.
Imagine spending your afterlife stuck in high school.
Luke was watching me again. I wondered if he was waiting for me to pass on.
I had my reasons for staying behind.
Death means peacefully sleeping, but I don't think I deserve it.
It's not even that.
I can't pass on, even if I wanted to.
Four years ago, I became a victim of my own April Fools prank, and managed to take half of my school with me.
I won't say I killed them.
Killing would have been merciful.
Still though, it's not like what happened to our school is on anyone's radar.
The disaster was covered up, and a brand new academy was built on the skeleton of what I destroyed.
Luke was one of my victims. I was pretending not to see him, though he was pretty obvious, sitting on the wall outside the main entrance with his feet dangling. It took me two and a half years to actually talk to him, and he still keeps his distance. When I'm not looking though, I can sense his eyes digging holes into the back of my head.
I have told him multiple times it wasn't technically me who killed him, but try explaining that to a nineteen year old ghost with serious trust issues.
The guy was glaring at me, sandy blonde hair tucked under his hood.
It was a daily occurrence, I had gotten used to it.
He was brighter than usual, the blue and gold of his letterman jacket catching my eye. It was pretty, until I noticed he was too bright. Under the early morning sun, Lucas Aisling looked almost ethereal, bleeding streaks of light catching his hair. The guy was practically a beacon. There were live students walking around, and the veil between life and whatever we are is getting thinner every year.
Two years ago, a girl saw me.
She thought I was a senior, talking to me like we were friends. I should be turning 20 years old in September.
Still. I'll take the compliment.
The problem was, though, nobody else could see me.
The poor kid was called a freak for weeks until she stopped coming to school.
According to whispers, a junior girl had been hit and killed by a drunk driver.
So, people teetering on the edge of death can see us.
If Luke wasn't careful, someone closer to death was going to glimpse him.
There was a lot more ghost activity, I noticed.
It made sense.
Even those who have passed on tend to leave footprints, especially near anniversary days.
Sitting in my usual spot under the shade, I offered Luke a smile. I loved sunny mornings. When I was alive, I never got to see the sun. I was always trapped inside Dr. Mycroft’s basement.
Clinical white walls that are suffocating.
Needles in my arm, in my neck, in the backs of my legs.
I had to sit on an observation table every day and prick my finger on a needle.
Does it hurt?” he would ask me with beady eyes.
Yes.
But hurt didn't mean hurting in my mind.
According to Dr. Mycroft, I had a severe neurological condition.
That was his excuse to fuck with my brain, and my Mom was none the wiser.
“Luke!” I mimed at the boy to get out of the sunlight before someone saw him.
Sometimes, if I look too closely, I can see what I did to him, especially when he's sitting right under the sun's rays.
Initially, he was just a shadow bent over himself kicking his legs.
Closer.
I started to see him shift, reality taking over. I am a firm believer of the afterlife editing away your injuries, your scars, what killed you. I'm still too scared to look into a mirror in fear of what I look like. I want to. I know what I used to look like. I had dark blonde hair and pale skin. My eyes were a little too far apart, and I hated my nose.
I saw Luke's eyes first, hollow sockets carved into him, dark and empty and wrong.
Luke turned to me, and I glimpsed thick black tendrils still streaked across his face where the virus polluted his bloodstream.
I know it's dead. I know the virus is no longer hurting him, but I can see what it has done to him, poisoning his veins and blood, a vicious streak snaking around his skull. His mouth split into a scowl, and I glimpsed stringy pieces of flesh hanging from his teeth. There were chunks taken out of his cheeks where he had ripped at his own skin, tearing flesh from bone, a cavern at the back of his head where his brain burst from his skull. The virus was gone.
What he had done to himself while under my influence, however, was still there.
When the boy turned to me, shuffling back into the shadow, he was back to being an outline. I still didn't understand why he was yet to pass on.
Luke shot me the bird, a small smile curving on his lips.
I couldn't tell if he was being an asshole.
He probably was.
Slowly, I lowered my arm, my stomach twisting.
I mean, I did kill him.
So, he had every right to be pissed.
I remember Luke’s death in too much detail. I remember every death. Every infection. Every student who lost their minds, and gave into my influence.
Even post life, this thing still won't let go of my mind. When we were kids, our town doctor diagnosed a group of us with the exact same brain condition, successfully gaslighting our parents into believing we would need weekly check ups. Luke was one of those kids.
I've tried to talk to him about it, but he's not interested. I ask him if he remembers the experiments and headaches, the pills that tasted like barf, and the memory loss.
I just got a weird look in return.
“Okay, so you don't remember group therapy when we were kids?” I asked him one day, the two of us sitting inside Blackwood’s cafeteria. The new academy was a step up from the old one. It was a pity I was dead, or I would definitely try the cheesy mashed potatoes.
Luke was cross legged in front of me on the table itself, his gaze on some kid’s raspberry pudding. Ghosts get hungry too.
“I have no idea what you're talking about,” he muttered, his gaze following the kids spoon. I could tell he was avoiding me.
“Dr. Mycroft.” I said, louder. The sound in the cafeteria was deafening, I could barely hear myself speak.
“You don't remember him giving us weird candy that wiped our memories?”
Luke lazily met my eye. “Isn't that the point of memory loss pills?”
“No,” I said, “I mean–”
“Why are you speaking to me?”
His words stung.
I swallowed down a petty retort, holding my tongue. “I'm just bored, I guess?”
“You killed me, Aurora,” he said, for maybe the thousandth time that week.
He had eternity to forgive me, and I had a feeling Luke Aisling wasn't planning on offering a truce for at least a hundred years. “Why does it matter?”
Luke scoffed. “You keep talking to me about experiments and mind control and evil doctor's, but that doesn't change the fact that you fucking killed me, dude. Your shitty prank destroyed our school.”
He laughed, and it felt like knives sticking into my spine.
“Even better, you made me want to die! You made me want to mutilate myself, and you're sitting here trying to fucking apologise? Do you even understand what you did? You turned our school into that, played with our minds like we were your dolls, and… made me do this?” he pulled up his letterman sleeve, and I could see where he'd carved layers of flesh from the bone. I remember him shrieking with laughter, revelling in every slice, the blade going deeper and deeper into his skin.
Something sour squirmed up my throat.
Luke pulled down his sleeve violently, his eyes searching mine, frantic, terrified of me.
“Do you even care?” he leaned forward, icy breath in my face.
“Because I'm yet to hear a fucking apology.”
I jumped when he stood up. I could see it in his eyes. He had been talking to others, who called me a psychopath.
They probably got off on telling him I enjoyed what I did. Hannah, who haunts the school gym, and Levi, another of Mycroft’s old experiments.
They were the usual suspects. Luke was getting emotional, his voice breaking. He was trying to speak, tripping over his words. The poor guy was getting red in the cheeks, eyes filling with tears.
“You don't care.” Luke said, his voice breaking into a sob. The lights in the cafeteria bathed him in a sickly golden glow, and once again, I could see his infected self bleeding through. I saw his skeletal grin, bright red oozing down his chin. The bulbs flickered above him.
“You're a fucking psycho.”
Ouch.
But he was half right.
Part of me knew what he was going to say.
Luke was still in agony.
Death didn't take that away. It didn't take away the mental turmoil of being possessed by a mutant virus tearing into his skull. I had no idea how to make it better for him. Sorry isn't strong enough, and he's already fucking dead.
What does he expect me to say?
I didn't need that speech. If I heard it, I would break and allow myself to be selfish.
I was in agony too. And not just mine. My friend’s.
Their thoughts, their memories and sensations.
I can feel all of them. And they never stop.
Luke didn't deserve me being selfish.
So, I offered him a smile and walked away.
I've been trying to find a way to tell Luke it wasn't my fault.
But every time I sit down and ask if we can talk, I end up spewing useless excuses.
Luke didn't remember being part of Mycroft’s experiments.
What he did remember, however, was his brutal death.
Luke Aisling was right.
I did make him want to die, to rip himself apart and cannibalise himself.
I forced him to stab at his flesh until he was writhing in pain, pleasure, that satisfied that parasite inside his brain. If he actually listened to me, he'd know that it wasn't me who killed him. Instead, someone was trying to save him.
There was a student among the infected, hiding inside a classroom.
Still conscious and aware of himself, this student attempted to save an infected Luke.
The virus didn't like that, so it destroyed Luke’s brain, killing him instantly.
His death was a warning. If they tried to save an infected person again, it would kill the host.
I don't know how to tell Luke that.
I’m responsible for him being in that state.
Why he was tied down to a desk, giggling through a mouthful of blood.
Telling the student to kill him, to hurt him.
Begging.
There's not a lot of ways to say, I'm sorry I turned into into a braindead freak. without coming across as insensitive.
There's not much to do when you're dead except miss the days you're alive.
Except being alive to me was waking up every day as a test subject. I won't go into too much detail, I don't deserve or want sympathy. I want to tell Luke that my state of mind wasn't even mine. It was twisted and contorted. I realized something was wrong with me when I was seven years old and stabbed myself with a pen. Mom asked if it hurt, and I said yes. But it didn't hurt. It felt good.
I killed my best friend’s cat with my favorite book.
When I was asked why I did such a thing, I said I didn't want it to be sick anymore.
Another lie.
I told Dr. Mycroft that it made me happy, so to him, I was considered a success.
Slowly, I started to get weird thoughts.
I imagined what my third grade teacher's brain looked like, fantasising cutting open her head and peeking inside. Mom bought me a bunny for my birthday, and I watched it get mauled by a dog. Dr. Mycroft told me pain was a good feeling, and I wanted to test it out.
I tried it on myself.
Eleven years old, I stabbed myself in the knee with a kitchen knife.
I did feel pain, bad enough to make me cry.
But they were happy tears.
I did it again.
Then I killed my mother.
Dr. Mycroft said Mom would like it. It was the best thing I could ever give her.
I wasn't the only one who killed my parents. All of us had been carefully moulded and groomed into murdering our Mom’s and Dad’s, with Mycroft and the town covering it up. He even brought his own son into the experiment. Mycroft wanted to create a whole new state of mind, and we were bis guinea pigs. My best friend quickly fell victim to his brainwashing.
She became a different person, unaware that she was being puppeteered and had killed not just her mother, but her closest friend in freshman year.
Mycroft used her like a toy, forcing her to remember and then forget, contorting her mind into his.
She ended up like a shell. Mara still looked like my best friend, but there was something hollow carving her inside out. The other kids were the same. Connor in the school newspaper club. Joey, Luke, Levi and Ben in junior varsity. Mycroft had moulded their brains since they were kids, making them kill on command, murdering loved ones and being forced to forget.
They came to school and acted like themselves, but with one single word, or a flick of a button, Mycroft could send them into a manic daze, happily tearing people apart for the thrill of it.
Revelling in pain.
That's what they were. Mindless zombies that thrived on their own agony.
It's weird. I think I was the only one awake.
Mycroft didn't need to erase my memory, because killing didn't faze me.
Mycroft’s son, however, was the opposite.
While we had been turned into mini sociopaths, Mycroft’s son, who had his mind fucked with so many times he was both completely oblivious and chronically narcoleptic, would be the light who would lead us out of the dark.
According to Daddy Mycroft.
This psycho saw the other kids as nothing more than mice inside a maze.
And I was the cat.
April 1st 2021, I was excited to prank the whole school.
Yes, I was a psychopath. Mycroft insisted on sessions with me after school.
Sometimes they were in his office, while others were at home.
I met his son multiple times, though the boy was usually too out of it to even notice me, sliding downstairs with his blankets wrapped around his head.
“Daaaad?” he would grumble, immediately sticking his head in the refrigerator. “How long was I sleeping?”
“Two days,” His father would reply, offering his son apple juice. He downed the whole glass. Mycroft gestured to me. “Say hello to my patient, Aurora.”
The boy’s half lidded eyes raked me up and down. “Hi.” he said, through a mouthful of chips. This kid really had zero idea his father was an evil mastermind turning the town’s kids into murderers.
Not me. At least, I was still aware of myself.
My April Fools prank was completely innocent. Initially, I was just going to put shaving cream in everyone's lockers. It was cute and funny, and I planned to film the whole thing.
I got a text the day before from an anonymous number which simply said, “April Fools prank? I can help you.”
Who is this? I texted back, intrigued.
“Call me J.” the text said, If you want to prank the school, meet me in the IT room tomorrow before class. Bring a memory drive or I can't do it.
Okay, but what is it?” I asked.
Instead of answering, he sent me a link to a website where you could purchase viruses. It looked pretty legit. The description simply said, A fifteen second video of your choice which will send your loved ones to sleep! Perfect for celebrations, or April Fools Day!
Mara was sceptical when I told her on the way to school.
“It sounds shady,” she mumbled, her gaze stuck to the ground.
Mara wasn't acting herself, though it's not like I was surprised.
Sometimes, I caught her staring down at her hands.
Like she could see her mother’s blood staining her fingernails.
I had witnessed my best friend remember killing her mother already.
It tore her apart into tiny pieces, pain that was so hopeless, twisting Mara into a monster I couldn't wake up.
If I told her about the blood on her hands, it would trigger her to wake up.
As Mycroft’s perfect killer.
So, I held my tongue and smiled, wrapping my arms around her.
When I got to school, I headed to the IT room.
Mara was following Connor around, which was cute.
The two have known each other since they were kids, and yet had their memories wiped of every meeting.
Mara was the first person he came out to, the first person he trusted.
I think the two of them had emotional memories, binding them together.
Somehow, even without memories, they were still friends.
I watched my friend join Connor Marlow’s side, the two of them already comfortable with each other. Mara had been gushing over the boy for months, and I had no idea how to tell her he was gay, and crushing on Joey Summer’s.
Mara did know.
Like I said, Connor came out to her in freshman year.
But Mycroft screwed with her memories, turning Mara into a shell of herself.
The whole school knew, and she was completely (stupidly) oblivious.
Before I could watch her embarrass herself (again), I slipped into the IT room.
It was empty, so I slumped down at a PC and downed my morning coffee. It tasted bitter.
“You're early.”
Twisting around, a shadow stood at the door.
I blinked. The shadow waved awkwardly, and I realized who had been texting me. Mycroft’s son entered the room, swaying a little. I could tell he’d had one of his episodes. He fell asleep a lot, sometimes even standing up. The boy offered me a small smile.
When he wasn't high on medication or his father’s obvious brainwashing, Mycroft’s son looked good. His hair was a mess of light brown curls, a beanie fitted over the top. The kid dropped his backpack before falling into a chair next to me, almost toppling over. His eyes were a little too dilated.
“Did you bring your, uh, stick thingamabob?” he snapped his fingers, frowning, “Memory drive. That's what I mean.”
I couldn't stop myself. “You're J?”
The boy cocked his head. “Jasper.” he said, “I thought that was obvious.”
He blinked at me, rubbing his eyes.
“Wait.” Jasper’s lips broke out into a grin. “Aren't you that weird girl who hangs out with my dad?”
“Aurora.” I handed him my memory drive, and he slid it into the back of the PC.
“Huh.” he shrugged. “Small world.”
I nodded. “So, what does this thing do?”
Jasper cracked his knuckles, playing with the mouse. I watched his gaze frantically flit from file to file.
“Nothing serious. It'll just send the whole school to sleep for like, fifteen seconds. They'll have no idea.”
I was suddenly giddy with excitement.
“Really?!”
He shot me the side eye. “No, I'm joking.”
“What is it though?” I whispered, leaning closer. “How can this thing do something like that?”
“Dunno.” Jasper had major toothpaste breath, “I don't really understand it myself.”
He wafted at me to move back. “Personal space,” Mycroft’s son muttered, before jumping up. “There. Just click start and it'll be on everyone's phone. Happy April Fools.”
I frowned at the screen. All I could see was code. Hesitantly, I placed my hand on the the mouse.
“Where's start?”
“It's literally right there,” Jasper prodded the screen impatiently.
I saluted him. “Okay, so you're a computer nerd, I get it.”
“Thanks.”
This guy spoke fluent sarcasm.
I didn't click yet, my stomach in my throat. “What if it's, like, dangerous?”
Jasper folded his arms. “They're going to sleep for fifteen seconds at the most,” he rolled his eyes. “It's barely nothing.”
“And if it's not nothing?” I turned to him, “You'll know what to do?”
“Yes.” he curled his lip. “Maybe.” Jasper sighed, running his hand through his hair. “Okay, no. But this isn't a nuke, dude. It's an April Fools prank.”
I nodded, bracing myself.
Okay, sure, I thought, sweat trickling down my neck.
Barely nothing, right?
I clicked start and immediately backed away, hysterical giggles escaping my mouth.
“Fuck. I did it!”
Jasper was smiling, but only slightly. “You evil genius.”
Turning to the screen, I squinted to see some kind of change, but nothing happened.
I peered closer.
“Maybe it was a dud?”
My phone suddenly vibrated in my jeans, and so did Jasper’s.
Outside the door, I could hear ringers going off.
Pulling out my phone, there it was on my screen.
There it was…on my screen.
There it was… on my… screen..
The thought didn't stop. It was stuck, like a broken record.
I was aware I was still holding my phone, my eyes glued to the screen.
I couldn't look away.
“Aurora?”
Jasper’s voice faded, collapsing into white noise.
There was something creeping inside my head.
Slimy and tangled, a leech clinging on for dear life.
“Aurora!”
I blinked, and Jasper had pulled the phone out of my hand, stamping on the screen. It was still there, dancing between splinters, on every single screen, and it was getting harder to think straight. Words were tangled on my tongue, some of them mine, but most of them were garbled nothing, a string of letters and numbers jumbled together. Mycroft’s son was standing in front of me, except the boy didn't feel real. “Hey, what's going on? Dude, you're blanking!”
He was shaking me, and yet I couldn't move. I couldn't breathe. I could still feel it, a sentient thing twisting itself around me, bleeding into my skull.
It was testing me, burrowing its way inside my brain to learn who I was. I screamed, barely aware of being on my knees, my fingers clawing at my eyes, blood already running down my face.
I touched my cheeks gingerly. Did I do that? Did I scratch and claw at my own face?
“Turn it off!” I managed to shriek, blinking rapidly. “Did you do this?”
“What are you talking about?” Jasper hissed.
“Your dad!” Squeezing my eyes shut, an array of colours were still there, blinding me. “Did your dad do this?”
“No!” he yelled back, “I mean… I…I may have gotten it from one of his guys, but he said it was just something that could send you to sleep!” Jasper was panicking. I could sense him pacing back and forth. “Fuck. What did I do? What did Dad do?”
Jasper pulled the plug, throwing the monitor on the floor. He started towards another monitor, stumbling back.
“What the fuck is that thing?!”
He tried to grasp the memory drive, but it was stuck.
“Fuck. It's not coming out!”
Outside, screams erupted, running footsteps thundering past the door.
It was in my head, feeding from me.
Burrowing deeper and deeper, until I was ripping my hair out.
It told me to spread it.
“Get out.” I managed to choke out.
“What?!”
Before I could reply, the door was swinging open.
Dark figures emerged, grabbing Jasper and yanking him back.
“Hey! What the fuck are you doing? Get off of me!”
His cries fell into a faded muffle cry. I saw the flash of a shot.
It was so quick, a prick of silver slicing into the back of his neck, the boy crumpling to the ground.
I watched them carefully place him on the floor.
Mycroft.
Whatever this was, the bastard was in control.
And his son was unknowingly part of it.
When the shadows twisted towards me, I stumbled back.
By now, the thing inside my head was in control.
The monitor was lifted back onto the table, switched on, and I found myself staring into oblivion, vivid explosions of color exploding in the backs of my eyes.
I think that is when this thing fully took over, learning from my already contorted mind.
Her name was Luna, and she was hungry.
She was fascinated by humans, and my thoughts in particular.
Luna wanted to copy herself inside every student’s head.
The virus wanted all of them to crave the urge to rip themselves apart.
The virus grew inside of me, mutating into a physical thing, spreading itself across school. It made me its Queen.
I was only aware of myself on two occasions.
The first, was when the virus spoke through me. When Mara was at my mercy inside my new playground.
She asked me why I did this, and I didn't have an answer for her except the truth.
It started as an April Fools prank. I never wanted to hurt anyone.
But. I couldn't deny the feeling of pleasure that came from seeing my best friend just like me. Mara was a puppet of mine for a whole year, destroying herself and others, mutilating her body and carving herself into pieces. It was exactly what I had been feeling like my whole life.
What Mycroft turned me into.
Now the whole school felt like that. They were part of me, one whole mind.
Jasper Mycroft tried to kill me, kill it so I took his mind too.
Right in front of Mara.
His father tore a lot away from him, traumatic memories of a childhood with experiments. When I dug inside his skull, splitting his brain in half and forcing those memories to the surface, he had no choice but to join me.
Embrace her.
Luna.
I watched him break, and it was beautiful.
The virus and I as one laughed at him rocking back and forth, such a steely mind coming apart at the seams. Jasper’s screams of agony morphed into euphoria, biting his fingers off one by one. I enjoyed the sensation, his sensation, of his teeth biting down, chomping through skin, muscle and bone. One memory in particular drove him more and more insane, until he was frothing at the mouth, clawing at his skin.
We made him tear off his own flesh, wearing us instead, a plant-like tendril which wrapped its way around his skull.
We forced Mycroft’s son to terrorise Mara, puppeteering his every move.
He did something bad when he was fourteen.
Under his father’s influence, slicing the throat of Mara’s best friend.
He never forgave himself, and that just made him easier to control.
Part of me wishes I never took the mind of Mycroft’s son.
Luna preferred him to me, growing bored of my mind. She started to retract, slowly, but I was too far gone.
She wanted a King instead of a Queen.
The second time I was aware of myself, was my death.
Yes, I died. Pretty brutally too.
Though maybe I deserved it.
Towards the end of Luna’s lifespan, my body gave up.
As a host, I broke apart, splintering into bloody mounds of festering flesh on the ground. Luna’s followers tore me apart, glueing and stitching pieces of me onto their own bodies. They were my disciples, my followers. Mycroft’s original subjects. There were two types of infection inside our school. The majority of our school became mindless, psychotic killers, while Mycroft’s subjects kept their consciousness.
Zombies, with coherent thought.
Mara did stop us in the end. Movie ending.
Explosions.
Well, controlled ones.
Luna was destroyed when the school was blown to pieces. Thankfully, no many casualties.
Just a lot of infected kids quietly being shoved into a white building.
Our town is out of the way, so it's not like anyones noticed.
And the remnants of her, of me burned.
She let me go, the physical and mental chains around my skull coming apart.
I could rest.
Well.
I can't call stuck on the campus rest.
Mycroft and his connections have been covering up Blackwood since.
You can't even find us on a Google search. We do not exist. Unless you look for the other academy we are now.
It's got a different name, though I still don't know what it is. It's in Latin.
So, here I am, stuck, no longer poisoned by Luna.
One day, I will find a way to tell all of this to Luke.
We were just a really unlucky group of kids under a mad man's microscope.
I don't think I'm ready to be forgiven yet though.
It takes time.
I went exploring around the new campus yesterday. Usually, I stay on the first floor where Luke likes to chill out.
They have a new English teacher.
I know he can see me. When I slinked inside the room and situated myself in a seat, his eyes snapped to me, recognition sparking in his expression.
He's older, maturer in the face, no longer hiding behind his beanie.
Everything about him screamed his father. The black suit moulding him into the perfect heir, his hair slicked back, a pair of raybans perched on top.
Jasper nodded at me, his lips twitching into a smirk.
I wondered why he was there, why he was teaching at only twenty years old.
Didn't college come before a job?
When he projected his laptop screen onto the wall, however, I realized I was staring at my April Fools video.
Now a series of bright colors and twisted shapes, it was the perfect trigger.
This thing had been modified, perfectly cut and edited to create the opposite of what I did. Instead of violently killing each other, these kids sat very still, their eyes glued to the screen. They might have looked fine, but I could sense Luna already clawing her way through them.
One boy's head jolted to the side, his hand slipping from where it was resting under his chin.
I noticed a blonde girl's eyes roll to the back of her head. She didn't fall or collapse, her body suspended on puppet strings.
The front row broke out into an eerie smiles.
I should have known Jasper Mycroft would be a product of his father. I just didn't want to believe it. The last time I saw him, he was both aware and not, in limbo between life and death. Mycroft’s son sacrificed himself to destroy me and Luna. I guess his Dad got to him.
Jasper spent two years clawing out of his manic father’s control, only to slip back under.
I barely recognised my old high school friend.
This man had that exact same glitter in his eyes I saw in his father when he was poking and prodding me in his office.
Jasper leaned against the wall with his arms folded, revelling in my fear.
“Fuck.”
Luke was standing behind me, his eyes wide.
“What's he doing to them?”
I met Jasper’s gaze, my stomach twisting into knots.
“Nothing good.”
Luke stepped into the classroom. “That's Jasper Mycroft, right?”
“Yep.”
“And he's…”
He trailed off, but I answered. Mycroft’s son was enjoying my clear discomfort, what was left of his mind poisoned, ripped apart by his own father. I wondered if this was his job now. Was he tasked with spreading Luna through schools?
Subtly creating not just soldiers, but a whole new state of mind craved pain.
“He is.”
No matter how much he fought to kill his father and end the experiments, they got into his head in the end, successfully grooming him into Mycroft’s successor. Jasper Mycroft didn't look healthy. His cheeks were pale, shadows under underlining his eyes. I could see the strain in his face, make-up hiding writhing tendrils spiderwebbing across his face. As if he was reading my mind, Jasper placed his sunglasses back on, turning to the screen.
Only those who can see us are close to death.
Mycroft’s son was struggling to stand. Luke pointed it out.
A thin line of red dripped from his nostril. Jasper swiped it away with his suit sleeve.
I stepped out of the classroom when Jasper gestured for me to, “Shoo.”
Luke followed, and for the first time in three years, this guy is actively talking to me.
“What do we do about Mycroft?” He joined me, sitting under an early sunset.
“I have no idea,” I told him truthfully.
Luke’s gaze fell on the sky, vivid yellows and oranges reflected in his iris.
“Should I talk to the others?” He said, “Maybe we can all try talking to him.”
I turned to him, noticing a scarlet blush spreading across his cheek. ”Others?”
Luke’s smile was sickly. “The others are avoiding you.” he paused, “But, I mean, you don't seem as psycho as I thought.”
“Wow.” I said. “What a compliment.”
Luke stayed with me for most of the night, the two of us sitting in comfortable, almost heavenly silence.
What do I do about Jasper Mycroft?
Maybe his host body is dying.
Which meant he’s either following orders, or planning to go out with a bang.
I'm terrified he's going to turn his class into what we were.
And history repeats itself.
You can stop him, Mara.
That’s why I'm writing through you.
You came back here at the right time, and I need you to know Mycroft’s son is going to try again. Please save these kids.
You CAN stop him, right?
Right?!