Ripping, yanking, smashing, beating, shoving till I’m bruised. Air knocked out of my chest, sucked in by a dying frost giant, my skin as cold as his. A soft tingling kidnapping my fingers, wrenching them from my body, consuming my arms in a burning rage of fire. My eyelids flutter, butterfly movements unseen by the blind giant. Rolling back into my head, my eyelids slip down and I lose my sight. I taste the bile and blood oozing into my mouth. The only thing I can hear is the obnoxious buzzing of my Alarm clock shrieking for me to wake. My eyes slowly open only to stare at my blank ceiling and mundane walls. My Alarm lets out another blood curdling shrill, as if I was in a coma and couldn’t hear it. I curse, missing the frost giant already.

“Yong Shi, hurry up the bus will be here soon,” My mom tossed my lunch at me as I trudged down the stairs.

“Mama, I don’t want to go, no one likes me, I have no friends, I’m not goo--”

“Bai Yong Shi, I’ve told you this before, you need to go to school, you’ll make friends, work harder you’ll get better school, now go,” My mom cut me off. I hesitated and she motioned to the door exacerbated, “quai yi dian la,” She told me to hurry up in her native Chinese tongue, I heard my brother ask what she said. I glanced at the little monster that was my brother, green haired and slimey.

“She said to kiss my as--” I snapped

“Yong Shi, I will not have that language, now go,” My mother pushed my shoulder towards the door, my brother asking what I was trying to say. Mama picked up my five year old brother and tickled his stomach. I licked my lips only to taste bitter resentment, a fiery snake hissed towards him, coiling himself around my leg, rooting me to the spot.

“Shao Shi,” I heard my nickname from when I was little ring through my ears, “don’t do this now,” Caleb’s voice was like touching smooth porcelain.

I spun on my heel and dragged my cemented feet out the arc in my hole of a house. I walk up the street to see Princess, a pink ball gown draped delicately on her.

“Morning, Yong Shee,” I hate her. She never even could say my name correctly, her denim jeans squawked as she walked towards me. I nodded a hello, teeth bared.

“Watch it, Yong Shi,” Caleb cautioned, “Last time, you weren’t even trying to be mean, she cried,” I put away my fangs long enough to jump onto the yellow pipe, taking me to prison.

Princess sang words of deceit next to me, all the while Caleb made snide comments about silly things she said.

“Are you even listening to me? Yong Shee?” I lolled my head towards her, my throat cut by the boredom I couldn’t escape. “No, I’m really not,” Princess gasped, offended by my three words and contraction, afraid to face the truth.
No, Princess, I don’t care about your outfit, it’s gross everyday
No, Princess, I don’t care about the weather, it’s too sunny
No, Princess, I don’t care about your boyfriend, he’s a tool
No, Princess, I don’t care about your classes, I’m not taking them for a reason
No, Princess, I don’t care about your little brother, I don’t even know him
No, Princess, I don’t care if your boyfriend is cheating on you, and even if he was, I wouldn’t tell you

Princess looked away from me, tears budding in her eyes. It’s not like I said my list out loud, what a wimp. We stepped out of the pipe, onto burning asphalt, melting my shoes. A jock adorned in jerseys wrapped his arms around Princess’s waist, oh great it’s Mr Sir Knight.

“Morning, Sarah,” He cooed in her ear, a disgusting sound like honey dripping into a pool of acid. He brushed her perfect hair out of the way and pecked her on the forehead.

“Woah guys, watch the PDA” Caleb whispered into my ear, I waved him away irritated with how Sir Knight was picking up Princess, placing her on a pure white stallion and how they were riding down through the rainbow hallway. I lingered on the school lawn just a little longer, staring at the dark prison, inmates frothing at the mouth. The dark castle reaching its fingers towards my throat, my jugular exposed. Dark knights and shadow wizards lurking in the shadows, waiting. I was the maiden being smuggled into the tower of terror, a trial of my own strength. My feet slowly moved through the pits of fire towards certain doom.

“Bai! Get to class!” The darkened wizard shouted his enchantments towards me, unable to fight his strength I moved towards my first period English class.

~First Period~

The class clapped, a sea of sound rough to the ears. “Yong Shi Bai, you’re up,” Mr Stevens motioned towards the front. I hesitated and the wizard cast me a warning glare.

“I don’t have it ready yet,” The words came tumbling out of my mouth, I’d only known I said it when I heard it. There was no conscious movement of my lips.

“It’s due today, you’re the last presenter, get up there,” The wizard was exhausted, endless hours of teenage animal exposure had worn him down.

“I got this, Bai, repeat after me,” I heard Caleb say when my shaking feet touched the floor at the front of the class. Clowns greeted me, sneering faces covered in impermeable masks of make up.

“Dorian Gray was...” I trailed off feeling Anxiety creeping on my back, he ran his slimy tongue on my neck, daring me to make a mistake. The clowns snickered at me, not understanding the pain I was in.
The Picture of Dorian Gray is a novel written by the controversial genius, Oscar Wilde. It depicts the story of young Dorian Gray falling into the back abyss of corruption because of his need to fit into society. Dorian is friends with a painter named Basil, Basil paints a picture of the youth which is then given to Dorian. As Basil was painting the picture Dorian meets a man named Lord Henry Wotton. The man begins incepting his own ideas of beauty to Dorian. Corrupted by his words Dorian, this beautiful man who is unable to age, starts destroying his life with murder, drugs, and prostitutes, never being caught by anyone because of his beauty. Life is shallow and though people say otherwise, looks definitely do matter. If it weren’t for the fact that Dorian remained youthful and the Picture sucked up all of his imperfections, Dorian would have been caught. There was a time Dorian’s life was directly saved by the fact that he didn’t age. Those powerful words Lord Henry planted into the young Dorian’s mind destroyed his future and shows us the power of speech.

The words stopped and I finally had control of my mouth again. The class sat, mouth agape at everything I’d just said. Mr. Stevens rubbed his temples, “Yong Shi, you didn’t follow the guidelines,” I told you it wasn’t ready. The wizard moved his staff towards my seat and I crept towards it. I heard mice cheep in my backpack. There lay my fully flushed out report on the Picture of Dorian Gray, laughing at me.

“That went better than expected,” Caleb laughed.

The Bell let out a shrill, I bet it was dating my Alarm. The wizard asked me to stay after class. His long gray beard limp in front of his blue robes.

“Yong Shi,” He paused sitting on the desk in front of me, “Are you alright?” The wizard raised his eyebrows at me, mock concern on a face of treachery, “You seem distracted, and your work has been getting progressively worse,”

“Mr. Stevens I’m fine, there’s nothing wrong,” My head tilted down and I pretended to use laser eyes to burn pictures into the floor.

“It’s not that you’re a bad writer, you’re very creative and I love what you’ve done with your pieces, but your grammar usage is bizarre and the words you’ve used are broad and you refuse to adjust them,” He rubbed his head sympathetically. “I think you should focus on your grammatical edits before you alter them,” He handed me back my essay on A Tale of Two Cities, an angry F printed with pique.

My stomach ripped open, acid rushing into my veins, shame-riddled acid tears dripped from my eyes, my nails digging into my legs.

“The essay itself isn’t bad at all, I really liked it, but a lot of these grammatical details are hard to ignore. I understand Dickens himself did some of this, but you took it to a bit of an extreme, and these points you drew from the text...they’re...not something people normally see and it’s hard for you to back them up. Plus, this claim worries me: Madame Defarge is the epitome of how life will consume you with Hunger, Anger, and Hatred because everyone has an inner need for the Vengeance.” Mr. Stevens read the line tentatively, glancing at me ever so often to see my reaction.

“Also, what’s with these Caleb says parts of the essay? They’re just inserted here and there, I suppose it’s alright if you had someone else peer review your work but it looks like you just left all the edits he read and didn’t see what he said at all. He had some good points too, maybe if you have some spare time you could read what he wrote, they might help you.”

“I read them, my cousin, Caleb, is too concerned about grammar, the pronouns capitalized are because Dickens stressed the presence of those abstract ideas in society, those commas are omitted because I wanted an asyndeton there; the anaphora is to show how the complaints of the lower class were repeated because they were never heard until the breaking point, right there, when I placed in an apostrophe to show that the Marquis was no longer human but an object of corruption and a crown that must be taken before it corrupted the entire kingdom,” I explained the parts highlighted in red.

“Look, I love what you’ve done with your analysis, but honestly this wasn’t a creative assignment, I’ll allow an edit of this essay because I know you had good intentions, go to second period the bell is about to ring,” Mr. Stevens walked back over to his desk to grade papers.

My hand shook, my knees were fighting the urge to buckle over and fall face first into the muck of the swamp. I wonder if there are crocodiles here to eat me. As I exited the torture chamber I heard Caleb whisper, “I’m not your cousin,” Like I didn’t know that.

~Second Period~

The owls hooted on about chess as I stumbled into the hall of study, stealing a computer for edits. “If he wants me to suck this essay dry, that’s what I’ll do,” I wrapped tenacious fingers around the text’s neck and rung it dry.

~Third Period~

Numbers swirled in a hurricane of lost pencil and paper, it hurled students against their desks and walls, cracking open their skulls to eat their brains. I ducked, scarcely missing Chuck Norris’ roundhouse kick of another failed test.

~Fourth Period~

Mud and gunpowder splattered my face, explosions behind me kept my feet from stopping their sloth like march through the trenches. I touched the other side, the safe zone.

“Pick it up now, maggot!” Caleb laughed behind me. My eyes sweep over the obstacle course, students falling and tripping over blocks and flailing to try and stay upright on the balance bar. The extreme hell hole of a gym class gone wrong, the drill sergeant mocked maggots into submission. I felt Caleb’s invisible hand touch my shoulder, “Fight,” a whisper shivered into my ear. I groaned and dived back into combat.

~Fifth Period~

Obscene lettering covered my locker. The basilisk crept slowly in and gnawed deadly words into the paint. Left untouched these words remained meaningless. Yet somehow the most innocent looking pieces of humanity were able to pick them up and grind them down into a poisonous powder which they sprinkled on the victim of their choosing, only to be overlooked by society because they were blessing us with pixie dust. Most of the times I could be invisible, most of the time. This particular twoface was never so kind. I’ve been dodging her since sixth grade. My fist coiled into a tight ball, ready to be launched if necessary. “She’s cruel, Shao Shi, you could just tell on her,”
Well that’s cheating now isn’t it.
“You don’t have to fight your battles alone,” A sinister plot crossed my mind. “Bai Yong Shi, it’s never okay to do something like that,” Caleb argued.
This won’t happen if she’s dead.
I felt Caleb’s cold, stern stare burn into my back. Fine.
I quickly yanked what I needed out of my black cage before storming off to my Safe Haven. The kind faeries motioned to a seat in the back where I normally sit.
“Aren’t you going to eat?” Caleb asked, concerned.
What’s the point? Narcissa put me in a bad mood.
“She’s just cruel because she can be, it was completely wrong of her to vandalize your locker. Don’t let her get to you, Yong Shi, fight,” I felt Caleb’s presence next to my side. “She’s not worth anything, you know I bet when she gets home she cries because she’s not as strong or smart or pretty as you.”
Cut the crap.
“What does she have that you don’t?” Caleb demanded.
You. I stared directly at my imaginary Caleb and he dissolved into a mist. I sighed and suddenly realized I wasn’t in the magical faerie land of safe haven, I was just in a library, no safer from the rest of the world than I was before.

“Hey, Yong Shi!” the actual Caleb bounced over, excited as he normally was for our lunch cram sessions. “So I got this new book, look at it,” He pulled out a copy of The Fault in Our Stars. “Everyone’s super excited for it, you wanna read it after I finish? I’m about halfway through,” he smiled at me in his usual cute way, “How have you been?”

“Awesome, what was our Chem homework? I think I did the wrong one,” I yanked the homework out of my backpack. He smiled and I remember he belonged to Narcissa. He wouldn’t even tell her we were friends.

“What happened, Yong Shi?” He pulled the seat out in front of me and looked at me sternly, “You don’t care about Chem at all. What happened,” I froze looking to the floor, lie, just lie. When I glanced back up Narcissa was standing outside the window, glowering at me. Caleb caught sight of my surprise and frustration and chased after Narcissa. I stared after them. She clung to his arm. They just talked, I couldn’t watch anymore.
The bell rang. I was back in reality now, s***.

~Sixth Period~
Mundane.

~Seventh Period~
Boring.

~Eight Period~
Shoot me.

~After School~

The clock struck three fifteen, snapping me out of my hazy dream state. I sprinted out the door, jumped on my bus and went straight into my room.

“Was today busy?” My mother shouted up the stairs, it was three thirty, I don’t feel the need to respond or to be nice.
After three thirty I don’t feel the need to paste on empty smiles, pretend my mind is mindless, pretend the pasty paint on my fake face isn’t itchy
After three thirty my homemade mask makes no attempt to stay alive
After three thirty I don’t need empty people filled with empty words, consoling, controlling.
who try to preach perfection into my ears, building bonds weak and breakable to the touch
who say they speak truth when behind backs they slowly break apart broken bits of hearts
who snap judge, snitch, snatch, snare, snobs and snakes when in reality what were they?
who were they,

to wrap wrecked people in their bags of tricks

to capture capable people and convert them into a mindless nix

to steal stolen goods for a single fix
who could mix together a combination of crumbling crust and dripping dip to make a ticking time bomb, bobbing in disguise as designer jeans.
After three thirty while they flail, feeling life flash before their eyes
I break
After all, when one’s track record is as good as theirs how could mine even compare?
Impossible, freedom was just few pills away. I opened my bedside table to find the little bottle pink pills. I’d labeled it a few years ago red letters dripped off the surface, In Case of Emergency. The phrase ICE makes it all better takes a new meaning to me. I picked up the pills, thinking of my mother’s neglect, my inability to be heard, my dumb own self.
Mr. Stevens wasn’t trying to be rude. You need to build up your credibility. Satire can only be achieved by a person who knows the rules of the game.
I thought of Caleb, Narcissa, their perfect love. How he was so willing to cast aside our cram session and stampede after her like he hadn’t seen her in a million years. He always said we were friends but in a split second’s notice he chased after some hair flipping busty assed beauty who flutters her hair right and bullies the right people.
You never told me.
It’s been five years, sorry if I thought someone would notice the bruises after I see her in the bathroom. I’m sorry if I thought someone would see the nail bites dug into my arms like a fury of self inflicted wounds. Two years ago I asked for help, what did I get?
You’re after attention, you need to stop, you attention whore. They said.
Of course I was after attention, I wanted someone to see. The blind frost giant could see more than some of you fools. I tipped the bottle into my mouth and swallowed some pills in large gulps.
You’ll never see, will you Caleb? Me?
There was no response.
That’s alright. I’m alright. I swallowed the rest of the pills quickly, before Caleb could scold me in his sternly gentle voice.
Everything faded. I said hello to an old friend, the blind frost giant.

~Epilogue~

“Narcissa, what happened?” Caleb stormed up to the blonde beauty, “What did you do to Yong Shi, this time?” He was so frustrated with her all the time. She spread rumors, about other people, she even started spreading something about the two of them, and she was never caught. She was known as the student body president, the perfect honor roll student, the lacrosse star of the team, she could do nothing wrong. She stood there across from the library with a little group of her friends. Caleb glanced back at Yong Shi through the glass wall of the library before he turned back to Narcissa.

“What are you talking about?” Her smile was suffocating, her heels clicking it’s way over to him. She looped her arm on his and whispered in his ear, “I’m coming over tonight,” She grinned at him.

“Please don’t invite yourself over to my house. What did you do to Yong Shi?” Caleb demanded, stern.

“Caleb, stop accusing me of things, we are dating, your home is like my second home,” Narcissa nuzzled her head against Caleb’s shoulder. He squirmed away separating his shoulder and her head.

“We’re not dating, what did you do to Yong Shi?” Caleb asked in the same stern voice.

Narcissa, however, got frustrated, “Why do you keep asking about her? Girls don’t like it when their boyfriends talk about other girls too much,” She pouted and her friends crossed their arms, backing up their gang leader.

“You did something to her and I want to know what it is,” Caleb stated blatantly.

“Why don’t you just ask her since you two seem to be such good friends,” She let go of his arm and folded hers tightly against her chest, “sometimes I feel like you’d rather she was your girlfriend.”

Caleb let out a dry laugh, “Again we’re not dating, and yes I would, now tell me what you did,” the repetition of the question started to irritate Caleb now.

“Fine, I wrote it on her locker, ya happy? I just told her what she was, she knows it. Who the hell does she think she is? You’re never at lunch anymore, you just run off to see some crazy chick who I heard talks to herself all the time. It’s not like you need her for school, you’re a straight A student, plus I hear she’s failing all her classes. And I hear Mr. Stevens keeps her behind all the time, who knows what they’re doing. So yeah I put it in her locker, I carved it in so she’d remember, fag.”

“I’m not sure that word means what you think it means,”

“Caleb, you’re the best and you deserve the best, I’m the best, I’m perfect!” Narcissa shouted in unison with the bell. Students flooded the halls, out of the corner of his eye Caleb saw Yong Shi slip out of the library.

Caleb’s voice was almost lost in the chaos, “Yeah, you are perfect, Narcissa, and for so long I’ve been searching for perfection, until I met Yong Shi. She’s far from perfect, I know, there’s nothing perfect about her at all, but when I think about what I want, the last thing I want is perfection. More than perfect Yong Shi is real, she might be wrapped up in her own made up world all day but that’s just because she sees more than anyone else. Narcissa, you may be perfect but you will never be as good as Yong Shi,” Narcissa let out a peep in protest as Caleb stalked off, sealing, healing, saving his emotions for Yong Shi.
Tomorrow he would tell her.
Tomorrow.