We all remember this cool kid. Had to keep this one a little simpler, thanks for understanding! Please support Paranatural on Patreon and Ko-fi, and thank you so much if you already do! Thank you for reading!
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[Transcript]
“Ahh, good,” sneered Devilora, rubbing her hands together with a crinkling crunch akin to plate tectonics. “It would seem that our next suspect has arrived. Send her in!”
“Suspect?” Cody scoffed. “They’re already convicts, thanks to you and your mock trials.”
“Your gratitude is welcome, Mr. President, but hardly necessary. I would do this job for free, while living in the walls—a creeping folktale scrawled in whispers and unsettling graffiti—were my passions not a lucrative pursuit.”
“Oh, well!” chirped Principal Pleezdoo. “Perhaps a pay cut is in order, then! The Art Club’s fingerpainting is breathtakingly Rococo, but I think that their milieu would broaden somewhat if the budget had the oomph to buy them brushes, Devi. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“I’ll dock your salary accordingly, then, my charitable Posy,” said DuNacht. “We can supplement your groceries with a scoop or two of cat food if your belt ends up too tight for you to buckle with such admirably spineless flexibility!”
“Oh! Yes. Yes, that’s. I do so love... to make a worthy sacrifice,” Principal Pleezdoo sighed in resignation. It was only fair that the Vice Principal could override her office’s authority. Every leader needed certain checks and balances, and Devilora cashed every check and spent the budget’s balance as she pleased.
A ruffled Aimee Archer was pushed into the room by a Student Council bailiff.
“Welcome, welcome! My reign of terror brings another writhing earthworm to the surface! Have a seat! The sidewalk’s firm, but more supportive than that dirty, soggy soil you’ve departed! HEH-HEH hyehhh...” Vice Principal DuNacht cackled ominously to make the frightened student feel at home (she often played such sounds on old cassettes to unwind in her own cobwebbed abode).
There was no easing the poor girl’s nerves, however, once her wide eyes had adjusted to the darkness. The Vice Principal was holding a folder with Aimee’s name on it; from its peak protruded old pop quizzes she had failed, her long-lost uncle’s birth certificate, and baby photos taken from her house and from the treeline just outside it. Principal Pleezdoo was standing rigid on a monumental pillar, presumably the victim of a power-grab-turned-taxidermy-project. A cute boy in a mask was staring at her with disdain, and Aimee had worn the sweater with the bleach stain on the elbow today, like some sort of unlovable GOBLIN.
Worst of all, though, was the gruesome trophy mounted on the wall: a headless student she knew well from last week’s hitball highlights, no longer levitating on his own. Aimee squeaked, the last gasp of a scream that died of fright before it left her.
“That could be you soon,” said DuNacht, meaning “her puppet” and not “decapitated,” but she didn’t have the insight or incentive to correct her misconstrual.
“P-PLEASE! I’LL DO ANYTHING!” a frightened Aimee tried to sputter, but the Sphinx of Truth prevented her from finishing the sentence, since she wouldn’t eat a battery or let her baby brother use her laptop.
“Miss Aimee Archer. A promising new sharpshooter in the Biddle School’s Archery Club,” Devilora droned, squinting down at her prisoner’s file. “I admire a striver whose name suits their skill. Things were BETTER in the days when you could trust a man named ‘Baker’ to sell you bread. Back then, you didn’t have to LIE about the threat of highwaymen and roving wolves when you were trying to scare children.”
Aimee Archer stared at the dusty floorboards in numb silence. She’d never realized that her name was a pun.
“However...” DuNacht continued, flipping further in the file, “your arrows AND your grades have missed the mark of late, haven’t they, Miss Archer? Has anything been... troubling you recently?” asked the Vice Principal, looking up from her paperwork with a wicked, knowing grin upon her face.
“...Y-yes,” the student stammered. Aimee blinked, startled at her own honest confession.
“Go on,” the Vice Principal grinned. “Speak your truth. This is an unsafe space.”
The statement served as a veiled threat, and therefore also as a substitute for proper reassurance. Aimee gulped and nodded, slumping slightly in her chair.
“I... I froze up at regionals. I c-couldn’t take the shot.”
“Fear,” hissed Devilora, “is an INESCAPABLE fact of life. Once you learn to live in FEAR of fear, you can PUT UP WALLS to hide in, like a clever little mouse. There’s no need to wonder if the cat’s away, my dear, if you simply never play or show yourself outside of sheltered safety’s narrow margins!”
“I... I wanted to show what I could do. I wanted to shoot, but...”
Devilora leaned forward with a hungry glint in her eyes, engulfing the purring Sphinx of Truth within her shadow.
“You were distracted by INTRUSIVE THOUGHTS? Scared that to TRY AT ALL meant you were doomed to LOSE?” she asked.
Aimee tried to meekly nod, but tears welled up in her wide eyes as the truth spilled out to contradict her.
“I was s-scared... that I would win,” she sniffed. “I knew I could.” This confession seemed to shock the girl who’d spoken it, who’d made every excuse to spare her feelings from the unpleasant truth of her feelings—a quarantine doomed from its subconscious start. “My best friend Beau... practiced so hard. I didn’t want to beat her. I didn’t want her to resent me.” Aimee hung her head in shame and sudden, unexpected self-awareness. “I want her to keep teaching me, and praising me, and being our club’s undefeated ace... even though... I already surpassed her months ago.”
“Oh, you sweet thing!” Pleezdoo sniffed, which startled Aimee, who’d believed she was a corpse.
“What a RIDICULOUS sentiment,” sneered DuNacht, crunching back into her chair. “The elite must rise into their proper place to make this proving ground, this Biddle School, a MERITOCRACY! To sort out the wheat from the chaff and the parasite PESTS in our midst!” She slammed a nasty hand down on the desk. “What athlete wants their rival to HOLD BACK and THROW THE MATCH?! Don’t you know RESENTMENT only STOKES the flame of friendship?!” Devilora unfurled with a series of snaps, intruding deeper into Aimee Archer’s personal space. “You have life’s true target in your sights, you fool! Don’t just DRAW BACK, LET LOOSE! Even Cupid’s arrow STINGS before its toxins reach the brain! SHOOT YOUR BEST FRIEND WITH A BOW AND SEE WHAT HAPPENS!!”
Aimee nodded in agreement with the Vice Principal’s volume, if not the gory details of her argument.
“Feh!” spat Devilora, folding back into her chair like some sort of percussive accordion. “There’s a simple solution to your simple child problems! The walls of the Detention Fortress have plenty of room for TWO crack shots with silly wordplay names... and we REWARD success and struggle in the Student Council’s hierarchy! Ours is a legion of winners AND spite-driven losers!”
Aimee blinked. She also hadn’t realized that her friend Beau’s name was an archery pun, and was beginning to wonder how much of her life was a government-subsidized psyop.
“Of course, there’s plenty of room for your friend in the YARD BELOW as well... if you’d rather share a DUNGEON than the PINNACLE OF MIDDLE SCHOOL EXISTENCE,” hissed DuNacht, undulating in the shadows like a snake. “The Student Council is a straight shot to Bayview Academy, and then on to Yalevard, and then straight to the GRAVE with too many EXPENSIVE DISTRACTIONS to CARE! You wouldn’t miss a shot like that, would you, Miss Archer? Not without regretting it again...”
“I... I don’t...” the student stammered.
“Having trouble saying you’re not tempted...?” Devilora oozed through a sinister smirk. “The Archery Club could use a bit more funding, couldn’t it? Could it handle EVEN LESS? You wouldn’t want the pretext that unites you and your BESTIE to dissolve, would you...? To watch all of your friends move on to a SQUANDERED YOUTH of KISSING BOYS and ROCK MUSIC and SHOPLIFTING ILLEGAL DRUGS FROM CHURCHES?!”
Aimee squeaked in panic. All of those things sounded awesome, but she WAS also scared of change...
“Admit it,” grinned DuNacht. “You’ve always thought the Student Council’s uniforms looked PRETTY SNAZZY, haven’t you?”
A quiver found its way to Aimee’s chin, a weight she’d borne without complaint upon her shoulders until now.
“Y-YES!” she wailed, tears flowing freely down her face. “I COULD TOTALLY ROCK A CHIC MONOCHROME FIT!”
“Acceptance is the first step to living in denial with a smile,” Devilora reassured her, handing the Student Council’s newest recruit a box of sandpaper-quality tissues.
“...I can’t stand this anymore,” said Cody, turning to depart. The young vampire scowled back at DuNacht with deep disdain. Even if her words were empty, she was still a twisted liar, a parasitic monster with nothing more than fear and spite behind her mask. “I can’t stand you.”
“...How twagic,” said a tiny voice. The Sphinx of Truth had spoken up at last. She glared at Cody, unseen by his eyes, and her blue gaze burned with recognition of the shadow of a hated adversary in his cast. “I wonder, Mr. Pwesident... could you cwaim you’re all that diffewent from the howwow weadership and wiwwing wackeys you wevile?”
Cody paused at the doorway back to the walls of the Detention Fortress.
“...You sound ridiculous,” he said at last, and shut the door behind him.
Devilora and the sphinx exchanged a glance.
“...The twuth hurts,” said the sphinx, and DuNacht nodded and shrugged with a creak and a sigh.
“Miss Archer,” the Vice Principal hissed, sniffing a dangling spider back into her now-drooping nose. She was determined to soldier on with her work and bear the burden of the President’s cruel words. Tweens could be rude and moody, after all, and was that their fault?! YES! Which meant it surely wasn’t hers. Cody would come around. Sooner or later, he’d realize that resistance was a futile masquerade. “Before I PARDON and DISMISS you, just to be CERTAIN of your INNOCENCE, I do have one last question you must answer...”
Aimee nodded apprehensively, and Devilora grinned a wicked grin.