Amidst the school's siren blaring through the walls stained in blood where the bodies of Gloria's classmates slumped, she ran through the corridors desperately to outrun her fate. Her hair was a tangled mess, and her skin was melting, slick with sweat. Her legs were close to giving up, but she did not stop. She couldn't.
She would not be spared if she stopped now. So the only sound that echoed through the school was her heavy breathing and occasional gasping, thinking every dark figure was him.
Him– she ran from.
Gloria held onto a stool in front of the gym area, just to the right of the gate. As tears fell from her eyes, she could not stop her body from shivering. This was insane. Adrenaline pulsed through her veins as her body burned with heat.
Her quivering eyes looked around the corridor, hoping. Praying. She whispered all the mumbles of prayer she remembered, hoping that something would hear her and rescue her from this nightmare.
The hallway was in chaos, and the lockers were dented, papers scattered like dead feathers, fluorescent lights above flickering in fits. A broken fire extinguisher hissed smoke from the floor. Blood smeared the walls — dark, dragged, fresh.
The air reeked of sweat, rust, and something sweeter, like iron and rot. Her shoes slip on a red handprint stamped across the tiles, still warm. She stabilized herself. She wished her heart would stop the crazy beating inside her chest so she could focus on her escape.
She closed her eyes tightly. The doors were locked from the front and back. The windows were shut tightly with rust when they were perfectly fine yesterday. Only if she could manage to ignore the dead bodies of her classmates, maybe then she could try to break the lock on the main door.
Gloria's eyes heated at that thought. All because of me, she thought. Only if she avoided him, only if she did not insist on studying at this school, only if she didn't exist–
Something metallic clanged deep inside the gym, startling a tear out of her eyes. She did not dare to look back.
She did not have a choice but to think of so she ran. Her feet were swollen and her back hurt, but she did not want to see him. She wanted to go out, somewhere far from school, but not home. She knew she could not let him locate her family, but–
What if he did? She shook away that thought.
She was not successful in avoiding the dead eyes of her classmates, so she burst out crying amid the run. As the light from the flickering bulbs started to slowly vanish from her eyes and sunlight crept, a little hope warmed in her chest.
The exit door glows at the end — salvation, just a few steps more–
And he's there.
He steps out of the shadows like he was carved from them, blood on his knuckles, blazer torn, shirt half-buttoned, and soaked in someone else's red.
His eyes—pale, merciless—lock onto hers.
He doesn't smile.
Her eyes turned stone-cold as she slumped down to the floor, her body giving up. Her eyes were tightly locked with his as he crouched down to meet her eye level.
He looks like a war dragged him in and begged him to stay.
But his face—God, his face. Cut from ice and sin.
High cheekbones, cruel mouth, eyes like winter steel—cold, unreadable, sharp enough to draw blood with a glance. He's breathing hard, chest rising, lips parted just enough to reveal that slight, mocking smirk he wears like a weapon.
His hand drags a piece of chalk across the stone floor, drawing a circle around her like a ritual.
"I'm not here to punish you, Gloria. I'm here to remind you. Who you belong to. What you cost me."
His slender hands run through her shiny hair in a hot mess as he fixes a few strands away from her face to reveal her eyes– oh her eyes– those eyes he fell for that showed no pity and no fear.
And in the silence between chimes, she realized — he hadn't come to hurt her.
He'd come to finish what they started.