Karla's Office, Saturday

[glacial_queen]

This was weird. This was very weird. Karla was used to having Saetan and Lucivar tromping through the halls to interrogate her teachers, not to be one of the teachers about to be interrogated. Sitting behind her desk, she made sure to have some papers out that she could shuffle through in order to look appropriately busy and important.

She'd decided that if any parents asked her questions she couldn't answer, she was just going to lie. Lie creatively and well. Sure, she'd gone to college. Graduated Magma Come Loudly, or whatever. Experience? Loads of it! Her age? None of your damn business, that was how old.

Maybe she'd send the adults she didn't like to Hannibal. Or Eric. With little signs that said, 'I'm delicious!'

Yup, this was how your teacher prepared to meet your parents, class. By making plans to have them eaten.

Look, everyone needed a hobby.

[Open to everyone, guests, students, and teachers alike! Will pick up pings in when awake!]

Comments

[notamascot]

"They just started writing themselves all over me one day."

She was very very quiet for a moment.

"Everyone else they appeared on turned up dead shortly after they appeared."

[glacial_queen]

"So there have been more of you," Karla said. "At the same time? Or just throughout history? Did you and the others have anything in common that you know of? Is it still happening?"

Finding out what Kaylin had in common with the others this had happened to might give clues as to why it had happened at all and what it meant.

[notamascot]

"One a month," Kaylin said softly. "They killed one a month for... a long time. I'm the only one who didn't end up dead. The only thing we had in common was our ages and that we all lived in the fief of Nightshade. No one heard of them happening to other kids - or people - before."

This came way to damned close to talking about Steffi and Jade - and him - and she couldn't think about them.

"No one knows what they say - it looks like writing, but no one can read it."

[glacial_queen]

"I'd like to ask you more questions, including about how they died," Karla said, letting go of Kaylin's arm to grab her hand. "I know it seems callous to make you speak of such things, but the manner of death might reveal more."

She set the completed paper airplane in front of Kaylin, then grabbed another sheet of paper and a pencil. This was not for a toy, however. Karla was compiling notes. "So, it seemed to only affect children? From a fief called Nightshade. How old were the children? Was there a general range? Did the writing appear on one child at a time, continuing throughout the month until they died? Or did it strike several at once, with a different child passing each moon? And I take it that Nightshade is poor? Dangerous? Known for anything in particular? Were the afflicted children from all over the fief, or from just one neighborhood. How big is the fief exactly?"

See? You weren't the only one who could shoot off rapid-fire questions, Kaylin. There was a reason that Karla didn't mind when you did it.

"Feel free to take your time answering," she said. "In whatever order you wish. I can repeat them if you like. And, when you're ready, if you think you can, tell me about the way the children died."

[notamascot]

[Oh right, make me drag out my book since there is no wiki entry or anything on this series - I swear I'm going to have to write my own!]

"They were my age," Kaylin said, making herself as small as possible in the chair. "The marks just... they appeared one night on the inside of my arms and my legs and on my back. Winter solstice. The year I was ten. Stef-"

She cut herself short and looked down. "We - I saw them write themselves on my arm and we were terrified. Two weeks later the first child died. A boy. Ten years old. I knew him. I knew all of them, at least to speak of. None of them lived too far away, but then you can walk all of Nightshade in half a day. And they all had the marks on them when they were found dead. All of them the age I was - from when I was ten till I was twelve."

Her voice was hoarse and she rubbed at her face for a moment before she went on. "Thirty-eight children. One every month for almost three years and every month we were terrified that I would be next.

"The fiefs... not everyone was poor, but we were. It was dangerous. Ferals hunt the streets at night and the ruler of Nightshade, well he was Barrani and a lot of his guards were and they could be... cruel. It was not a good or safe place to be. There were no rules, no laws, no safety, nowhere to turn."

It hurt to talk about it. Hurt to even think about what had come at the end. She'd never told anyone that.

"They were all disemboweled. ... Karla? I don't think... I can't talk about the rest. I don't think I can even say it out loud. Not even to myself." She had all but disappeared into herself and the emotional pain was written in every inch of her tense body and what little could be seen of her over-bright eyes.