The Corner
Authors: Shaine Lake
Tags: #girl, #horror, #ghost, #classroom, #corner, #anxiety, #disorder
The Corner
Shaine Lake
Published by Shaine Lake
Copyright©2015 by Shaine Lake
All characters and events in this novel,
other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and
any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely
coincidental.
All rights reserved
No part of this publication may be
reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic,
mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior
written permission of the author.
Book Cover Design, Effects and Layout by
Shaine Lake
Classroom Photograph by Thomas Nemcsek
(http://www.zeitfaenger.at/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwarz/),
licensed for use under Attribution CC:
creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Texture over Wordings by Carolyn Saxby
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/lovestitchingred/)
Scratched Texture by Elaine J Miller
(https://www.flickr.com/photos/elainejmiller/)
Both textures are licensed for use under
Attribution CC: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en
Darks Skyrim Font by DarkX ShadowX21
Chapter 1 Who?
The uncertainty was tugging at
my heart as I stepped into a hall the size of a football field. It
was filled with girls dressed in white short-sleeved uniforms. Many
were busy getting acquainted with their new classmates. There were
some who seemed to know each other, and they kept to their own
cliques.
Notwithstanding the run-down
state of the place, the cheery mood of the students was evident.
Well, not surprising since anyone would be thrilled to enrol in
Lawson Girls’ High, one of the top high schools of Accastle. I was,
of course, excited about it. Getting into that school meant that I
was among the students who scored at eighty-fifth percentile or
higher on the nationwide examinations.
Though I was surprised that such
a prestigious school had a really outdated architecture. Scratches
decorated the dull surface of the wooden flooring of the stage, and
the smell of mildew clung onto the wood whose cervices were filled
with dirt. The supposedly white walls were riddled with yellow
stains. The base of those walls even had algae.…
Many senior students, most
probably student councillors, were standing at the head of the
queues and holding up huge cards. One of those read “Class 1/5”,
which meant the fifth class of first year cohort. Knowing that it
was my class, I scurried to the girl with that particular card.
She welcomed me with a big,
friendly grin. “Hi there. My name is Cindy. I’ll be guiding you all
through the orientation for a week. Please queue up at the end of
the line.”
I did as instructed. The moment
I got to my place, an athletic-looking girl in front of me turned
around to introduce herself, “Hi, I’m Mandy Williams.” Even her
voice had the characteristics of distinct confidence that sporty
gals usually possessed.
She looked pleasant. I envied
her toned physique, that stylish bob haircut and her dark
complexion with a healthy sheen. Those made me conscious of my
frail body, pale, sickly-looking skin and dull brown,
shoulder-length hair whose boring look was salvaged a bit by a dark
blue metal hairclip that held up the side-parted fringe.
I answered out of politeness,
“Natalie.”
Then I turned away to observe my
surroundings. I didn’t know what to say to her. According to my
experiences in elementary school, it was safer for me to adhere to
the conventional wisdom: the less I talked, the less people I would
offend. Ruining the fresh start in my life was the last thing I
wanted.
“Where are you from?” queried
Mandy who refused to give up.
“One of those public schools …”
I felt uneasy talking about it because the girls would judge me
based on my background.
After all, most of them were
from those elite private schools. I had overheard my previous
schoolmates talking about how snobbish the rich were … in those
drama shows.
Surprisingly, she didn’t ignore
me right after knowing that. “Oh. Then you must be one of the top
in your previous school?”
I couldn’t tell if she was being
patronizing. I was never good at reading people. In fact, I totally
failed at it. So keeping to myself was the most fool proof method
to get through school life.
“Yes,” I mumbled while wishing
that she stopped probing into my privacy.
Good thing that a tall pretty
girl, whose silky blond hair was tied up into a ponytail, joined
the queue behind me. She wore a tag that had the name “Kelly Adams”
written on it. Mandy immediately greeted her with zest. The two hit
it off very well and went on to discuss about their favourite
extracurricular activities. All the yakking about sports were
getting on my nerves. I was never good at sports, and others’
enthusiasm in those made me feel so … weak.
“
How could you miss the ball?
It was right in front of you! What a dummy. You embarrass the whole
team. And Zain was watching … argh!”
I had actually stood there like
a dummy, not retaliating once as the insults were hurled at me. I
didn’t even cry to gain some sympathy. But who in the world wanted
to earn the nickname “cry-baby”? On the hindsight, at least Mandy
and Kelly were talking about sports instead of boys.
Boys are bad news.
Seemed like enrolling in a
girls’ school was the right choice for me.
Not wanting to hinder their
conversation, I gradually eased out of the spot between them to
stand behind Kelly. While looking around the hall, I saw an old,
thin woman tottering down the hall, with a bunch of teachers
following behind. White hair, thin papery skin and wrinkled
face—her appearance could rival that of the hundred-fifty-year-old
school building in terms of advancement in age.
She should be the principal. The
old lady did have an air of authority around her, but she looked
like a nice, amicable person. When passing by Class 1/1 and Class
1/2, she flashed an angelic smile that could melt a jaded student’s
heart.
However, when she reached Class
1/3, that beam faded a little. After that, she didn’t even bother
to take a glance at the rest of the freshmen and headed straight to
the podium.
Oh, so only the best among the
best deserved undivided attention?
I didn’t feel good about that at
all. I used to be one of the top students in my elementary school.
No matter how much the teachers and students hated me, I always had
my results to validate my existence. Those grades couldn’t be
affected by the prejudice of anyone. They were real and solid proof
of my worth. However, I just realized that I was only average in my
high school.
Was I of any value in that
place? Obviously, that kind of principal thought that I was of
none.
I must say that she was one
nagging old hag. Her speech was humdrum; I knew it the second she
introduced herself as Mrs. Olsen and went on to boast about her
personal achievements and her husband’s. She kept on repeating the
same old stuff about how awesome her school was, especially under
her management. The differences between each segment of the
ego-stroking talk were the phrases used.
Geez, she was like a walking
thesaurus!
By the time she had finished her
blabbering, fifteen minutes of my time was wasted on listening to
her. I did doze off during the rest of her speech, so my forty-five
minutes were considered to have been utilized for a good
purpose.
Then our respective student
councillors ushered us to the sloped grass patch beside the
open-air car park to watch the welcoming ceremony. We were informed
that the performances would take place at the clearing in the
centre of the car park. The cars were parked at the sides, along
the length of the area.
The loud speakers attached to
each side of the main entrance began to blast out a blaring music
that I suspected to be one of those that induced patriotic
feelings. I thought I had heard it before in one of those
documentary shows.
“This sounds like the national
anthem of a Communist state,” whispered Kelly as she leaned towards
Mandy.
Mandy made a small nod while
trying to stifle her giggles. I almost laughed when I overheard
Kelly’s remark. The irony was that we weren’t equal in the eyes of
the principal.
As the “grand” music continued,
twenty girls in dark blue uniforms marched out to the car park to
perform their drilling exercise. After that performance, various
uniformed groups took turns to present their portion of the show.
The excited Mandy and Kelly—their expressions were too obvious, to
the extent where even I could decipher them—were discussing which
group to join. The main thing on my mind was the counting down to
the end of the ceremony. My legs were aching from the standing.
Even a short interval for us to sit on the floor would be much
appreciated.
Following the ceremony was a
tour around the school. Despite the obvious signs of aging and
decay, the place was kept neat and clean. Though that was probably
the only merit of the physical aspects of the building.
Beforehand, I had wondered if
the car park was an appropriate venue to hold the welcoming
ceremony. As the end of the tour neared, I gathered that the car
park was the only area huge enough to hold a medium-scale event.
The school compound was only made up of classrooms, dark corridors,
main hall, canteen, library, restrooms, the car park and few
miniature gardens populated with dry, yellowish grasses and
withering potted plants.
When the tiring orientation was
done with, we had our lunch break. I kept myself busy with my
sandwiches, eating at a slow pace on purpose so as to avoid
engaging in conversation with anyone. After the thirty minutes
recess, we got to finally make our way to our classrooms.
The second the creaky, yellowish
blue wooden door was pushed open, a mouldy stench hit my nose. When
I peeked into my classroom, I knew that the sources of that
horrible smell were the rotting wooden tables in there. They could
be older than me.
Why were the tables used in
Class 1/1 to Class 1/3 different from ours?
I passed by their classrooms and
caught glimpses of those nice, new furniture. Alas, my assumption
that ours would be the same.…
Mandy tried to look positive and
upbeat, but she couldn’t hide the disappointment and disgust in her
eyes. Kelly didn’t mince her words when complaining about how bad
the facilities were.
Cindy ignored our downcast mood
and announced in a cheerful voice, “Your names were written on each
sticker pasted on the corner of your tables. So go ahead and find
your seats.”
My classmates began to file into
the room in an orderly manner, and I followed suit.
It was then I saw her, a girl in
school uniform, standing at the corner furthest away from the door:
a spot shrouded by an impenetrable darkness. Her waist-length,
tar-like hair pulsed, subtly. Was it due to the wind? But those
windows with smudged panels were closed. And those reddish brown
streaks running down the walls at that corner—they looked like
blood.
She was facing the sharp angle
where the perpendicular walls met. Unfazed by the buzzing activity
and the noise generated by the students, she didn’t move once.
Who was
she?
All the questions filled my
brain.
What was she doing there? A kind
of punishment by the teacher? But that was so weird. Any normal
person would try to check out what was going on amid the
commotion.
Strange that my classmates paid
no heed to her. Didn’t they see her?
A gritty wave of coldness crept
across my skin as I pondered over another possibility: she wasn’t a
human....
“
Only a ghost wants to
befriend someone like you.”
A ghost? Vengeful or friendly? A
corpse? An alien? What was she?
I stood frozen at the door, not
daring to move as the girls brushed past me, one by one, to find
their tables. After everyone had gotten to their respective seats
and was settling down, it dawned upon me that there was only one
empty seat left—mine, and it was located right in front of the
standing girl.…