Geist

Chapter 2 Evyn

A day prior to chapter 1...

A pale, teenaged girl bowed her head against the fierce winter wind of Minneapolis, Minnesota. Odd, that's the same description as the girl from the picture in the last chapter! (This is for all the people who are a little slow on the uptake. If you've already realized that she is the girl Shamm was talking about, you can just skip this little piece in parentheses and move on)

Evyn Dimension's long, purple hair whipped about her face as the walk to school became that much more intolerable. Without warning, an evil, icy, and completely out-of-nowhere snowball smacked the poor girl right upside the face. Freezing slush temporarily blinded her and kept her from seeing the despicable snowball culprit catching up to her. Nowhere to hide. Oh, the suspense is killing me! Run Evyn, run!

Alas, Evyn did not run, and her attacker soon revealed her snobby, icky self. Shilby Rose laughed as only a remarkably rude person can. I can't even describe it. But it was very French, if you can go anywhere with that.

"Hey Dimension! I see you've been moonbathing again!" Oh, for someone who is pale, the term moonbathing (however stupid and undeniably immature it is) stings worse than that of winter's storms! Unless you're completely used to it, don't mind insults, and absolutely have a jolly time of it being pale. In which case, you and Evyn have something in common.

"Tell me, how pale do plan on getting? I'm just waiting for the day when I can see your brain through your head!"

Evyn rolled her eyes. Shilby was more than your typical air-headed valley girl, she was the true definition of evil. Yes, she was the rich, high and mighty type but she also possessed lovely little qualities like finding out all your weaknesses and using them against you until you cry like the pitiful little worm she's deemed you to be. Charming, no?

"Shilby, let me know as soon as you've come up with some better insults will you? As fun as they already are, I'm beginning to see a pattern developing," Evyn kept her eyes straight ahead, "like, they all suck."

Shilby, dumbfounded, tried to think of a killer and witty comeback. Evyn took advantage of her silence.

"So tell me something Shilby. How long did it take you to think up that 'brain through your head' line?" she asked, "This time, I'm guessing three days...with online help."

Still trying to think of that killer and witty comeback, the bully's mind raced. All that came out was,

"Oh...oh yeah?!"

Evyn shook her head and chuckled. People like her were so predictable. So predictable, that she was not in the least bit kidding when she had asked about the online help. Shilby crossed her arms but stayed farther back, pouting and plotting Evyn's doom.

By the time her school came into view, our hero's fingers and nose were groaning at their hinges. No amount of heat from the building could turn them back to their normal color of plain white. No, they had to stay red...like jerks.

Evyn slammed her black trenchcoat and scarf into the locker of lost knick-knacks and headed to her first class in a bad mood, not because of her encounter with the Queen of all things Vile and Pink, but because she detested macaroni and grease day. Who doesn't hate macaroni and grease day? That's what I wanna know!

"Evyn!" With an exaggerated roll of the eyes, Evyn spun around on her heel to see who had come to torment her this time. She apparently, didn't see hard enough.

"Why can't you people just leave me the he-Percy?" It wasn't just another stuck-up. Quite the opposite, though at that moment, she wished it was. Evyn's only friend, Percy Vall was rushing at her at mach four. Or at least, that's what it felt like when he collided with her, unable to stop himself in time. The book bag she carried over her left shoulder broke most of Evyn's fall, but Percy's bony body made up for the temporary lack of pain. What felt very much like an elbow jammed into her shoulder and his chin hit her so hard in the mouth, she swore some teeth were loosened.

Percy jumped up almost immediately, and (in a nerdy, comical sort of way) started apologizing profusely. His friend slowly got to her knees and was cautiously testing each tender tooth to see if they were still in their rightful place. Good news, they were.

"Oh geez Evyn, I am so sorry!" he exclaimed in a hasty, yet genuine tone, helping her to stand, "These shoes have absolutely no traction whatsoever and," he paused for breath, asthma taking over, "and I had something important to tell you and then...well...WHAM!" Percy pantomimed the little mishap by slapping his hands together. Then, whipping out a small inhaler, he sucked in a puff or two and slowly began to calm down.

Evyn smiled despite the biting pain in her shoulder blade.

"S'okay Perce," she said, tousling his curly brown hair, "I was having such a terrifically terrible day already, it just wouldn't have seemed right if I hadn't ended up on the floor at least once this morning."

Percy stared sheepishly at his shoes and mentally cursed them for behaving the way they did. That's the last time he'd trust mysterious shoe salesmen on the side of the highway. His eyes lit up after a minute and jerking out of his awkward reverie, he jammed his hand in his pocket.

"Oh hey, I almost forgot what I was gonna tell you," he pulled out a folded piece of paper, "some shady lookin' redheaded kid yanked me into the girl's bathroom this morning and told me to give this to you. And by told, I mean forced. She had a blowtorch." he shuddered at the memory.

Evyn poked the note with suspicious eyes but took it anyway and began to unfold it.

"This is weird," she muttered, "no one ever sends me...any..." her eyes careened down the contents of the paper and her voice trailed off. Percy rocked back and forth on the balls of his feet trying not to be interested, but his neck arched ever so slightly over his friends shoulder, clearly reading along. When she finally folded the note back up, he pretended he had been cleaning his glasses.

"Darn smudges" he grumbled. She gave him an odd look but decided to ignore it. There were more important things on Evyn's mind. She ran the words through her head again.

To the mortal with the purple hair-

He who enters this giant room

Exits not as easily as you might assume

Getting stretched is just the beginning

You thought that might be all?

Mash! It hits you. And you fall

Might think your clever, do you now?

Oh, but keep your eyes open

Remember

Only idiots

Never look for a deeper meaning

Evyn could easily say she was stumped about the whole deeper meaning part. But she disregarded the bell for first period and went in search of this mysterious room of torture. However, as she was heading down the hall, she realized just how dumb this was.

"What am I doing?" she wondered aloud, "either this redheaded girl is looking for a cheap joke or Percy's finally flipped his lid and she's just a figment of his imagination."

But as soon as she was done questioning her friend's sanity, (is that not what everyone does at one point or another?) she came to a fork in the silent halls. On the right was the cafeteria. On the left was the gymnasium.

"Hmm, the cafeteria...it gets pretty painful in there but..." suddenly, Evyn's eye caught something on the note. The first letters of each line were bolded. She'd once read about an entire note sent with a hidden message, using only the first letters of each sentence to write it. The rest could be about anything, as long as the very first letter spelled out a portion of the message. She tried it using that knowledge on her note.

T

H

E

G

Y

M

M

O

R

O

N

Evyn slapped a hand to her forehead and tore up the paper.

"Duh,"

Frustrated with herself for being so stupid, she marched right up to the gym doors and with a huff, pushed them open. It was empty, which was strange. From what little she knew of physical education, Evyn had always thought there was class here every hour.

All of a sudden, every light but the one she stood under flickered off. And everything happened at once.

There was a brief view of bright red hair, followed by a very low, menacing laugh.

"Say cheese, mortal."

The click and flash of a camera sent her seeing spots. The laughter continued to grow as the last light flickered, and everything went black.

A/N: If your wondering why I didn't do this chapter first since it clearly preceeds chapter 1, stop wondering. I can't give you an answer and even if I could, shame on you for questioning the author's methods. Just think of it as a Star Wars type deal. Earlier stuff goes last. So if George Lucas can get away with it, I can too.