Survival Of The Fittest

Andrew was seated with the circular desks listening to some ole’ fashioned rock through his iphone. Thin Lizzy. Could never go wrong with their albums like Bad Reputation, or Johnny the Fox. It all depended on his mood, though now he was all about that Jailbreak. He’d made his way down side 1 and about to start side 2 with “The Boys are back in town.” Classic.

He had developed a tendency the last few years of listening to it while working late and nearing sleep, back home he’d be holding his guitar which would keep his head from doing it’s dance, but here? He did not stand a chance.

It was a nice room, as far as he was concerned. People would talk about how the computers are actually up to date and all that, more than anything. Andrew was not about that life, however with computers and everything. Made everything weirdly impersonal, especially the music. Felt like everything was being made with a keyboard nowadays.

There was also a projector here. People liked futzing with it sometimes. More often than not it was teachers trying to work tech which was always worth a laugh depending on the teacher. But sometimes students would try it out

Now that he was here though, Andrew leaned back in his chair nodding off to himself. It was not a bad place to get some shut-eye. He could afford some now, actually, thinking about it.

There was a loud burst of noise from the desk in front of Andrew.

So, there he was. Eyes closed and leaning back in his chair, comfy as all hell and ready to let his mind wander for a bit to the sweet tunes of Thin Lizzy when out of nowhere, an abrupt loud noise came into existence.

Andrew had a jolt as the sudden burst reached his ears, going above his music. It almost caused him to fall out of his chair, but somehow, he managed to catch himself. He slowly straightened up and looked around the room with wide eyes that had a mixture of shock and anger in them.

Fuckin' figures that something like that would happen when he'd just gotten some shut-eye. Whoever it was, he was going to give them some angry-ass glare that was for sure.

He stood up from his desk and could see in front of him, the culprit.

The culprit was a girl sitting at a computer. She was wearing a khaki jacket and tights depicting a galaxy. Her taupe ponytail fell past the seat of her chair, the hair within looking like it hadn’t been washed in weeks. There were earbuds in her ears, but they weren’t connected to the computer in front of her. Her head was tilted backwards, her skull parallel to her spine. Her fingers were bent at varying different angles. The chair is half a meter away from her desk and the wheels at the bottom were facing away from it, as if she herself had been surprised by the noise. She looked around from side to side — and side to side, and side to side — before placing her focus back on the computer screen, properly connecting her headphones, and opening up a video on YouTube.

Whoever she was, she must have known that sound was loud considering how she kept looking from side to side, before she went right back to the pc. Andrew was tempted to loudly clear his throat behind her if only to send the message of being quiet in the room might have been a smart idea.

But, instead he stayed quiet and watched what she was going to do. Andrew folded his arms and cracked his neck to his right before peering over to see what she was doing. He could see her opening youtube... This better not be some cringe compilation or bullshit like that. He'd actually raise hell if he got woken up over something like that.

The first thing visible on the video — as the girl in front of Andrew turned the video to full-screen — are a set of logos from movie studios too indie to recognize. When they end, the first shot is of a dead set of legs inside a house. The camera pans towards a door with a black triangle on it, then smash cuts to outside as a young man rushes through it. He hits the ground and starts running from the house as a woman does the same thing, pursued by somebody within the doorframe. He takes one look at the woman, turns around, and continues to run as a bright flash shot out by the pursuer drops the woman to the ground.

The camera zooms out — showing the whole house rather than just the entrance — as the pursuer and another man come out of the house. While the other man looks down at the woman, his breath visible in the cold night, the pursuer walks to a car in the background of the shot, grabs a fuel canister, and hands it to his partner. He looks shocked, for a moment, but gets to work pouring gasoline on the woman as the pursuer smokes a cigarette. He’s buzzcutted, dressed for practicality, seems roughly in his 40s or 50s, and as he continues to smoke he stares in the distance and says something inaudible before walking back. He looks down towards the fallen woman, looks to the side at his partner, and takes one last drag of his cigarette before dropping it onto his quarry.

The pursuer walks back to their car, and while his partner takes a moment to stare in disbelief at the now-immolating woman, he too moves to leave, the car driving off as a white-hooded figure with the same black triangle as on the door observes the scene.

…

They were really doing this, huh.

Well.

All right then.

Andrew did not recognise what movie it was, but he sure as shit could recognise horror when he saw it, and the horror, well, it was weird. He’d give it that. Whoever this girl was, she had some screws loose if she was watching this kind of stuff at school, in a classroom, interrupting his sleep of all things.

Most unforgivable, really.

That’s when a smile etched into his face, a small smile that had a certain amount of deviousness behind it. Someone watching a horror movie, and there’s someone in the room that they have not known or taken account of? Well, that just makes what he’s going to do pretty easy.

Next time anything happens, sudden jump scare or whatever, he’ll just reach out to her shoulder. It’s the least he could do, really, maybe she’ll learn not to do this kind of at school and wake him up. If anything, he’s helping her… probably.

It would be pretty funny, though.