It hadn’t seemed like a special day when he woke up. Same old alarm. Same old dorm room bed. Same old bleary eyes staring blankly into the mirror as the toothbrush buzzed across his teeth. Even still, something just felt off about everything he did.

Perhaps against his better judgement, Atlas ignored the feeling and went about his day. He worked on a paper as the morning passed, turned in a response on a discussion board, and intermittently watched episodes from the 2001 Justice League until his alarm for the first class of the day went off. With the depression of a Monday morning compiled with the ever-increasing feeling of offness in everything he did, Atlas just knew it was going to be a shitty day.

And a shitty day it was. The teacher for his first class of the day never showed up, having forgotten to cc him in the email, only to realize after class time had started that he had done so, but Atlas would still need to finish the 1000-word essay he’d assigned in exchange for the free class period done by the end of the day. Then in his ceramics class, a fellow student had knocked over the project Atlas had been working on for the last week, sending it shattering across the ground. Atlas had just barely managed to restrain himself from killing the guy.

Needless to say, Atlas was completely drained by the time dinner rolled around, and the headache pounding against his skull certainly didn’t help matters. It seemed to be spreading too, going from his head down to the rest of his body. At a certain point, the pain had reached beyond physical and become an emotional ailment too. It almost felt like Atlas’s very soul was screaming in pain. So, of course, that was when everything went to shit. Across the room, a loud crash rang out, causing everyone to turn and look. Against his better judgement, Atlas followed suit, and he could already see a problem on the way if the scared, food-covered woman standing in front of the school bully was anything to go by. Considering that everything had been just fine less than ten minutes before, he couldn’t help but wonder what had happened.

~~~

Sarah swiped her school ID into the cafeteria and started looking for an open spot, trying to keep her head down. She found one in the corner across from a boy who held his head like it was being torn apart. and set her backpack down, claiming it. She walked back and got in line for the spaghetti. She didn’t really like tomato sauce, but it had the shortest line. She pulled up the hood on her sweatshirt as she grabbed a plate and put a small scoop of spaghetti with some broccoli on the side.

She walked back towards her table thanking whatever gods existed for no problems when a voice called out behind her. “Oh my god! Look who it is!” Sarah let out an embarrassing squeak as she warily turned around. Even though she knew whose voice she’d heard, Sarah still felt her heart sink at the sight of Lara Young, the school queen bee and Sarah’s tormentor. Standing behind her were two of Lara’s ever-present gaggle of yes women, though Sarah didn’t recognize either one.

“H-hi, Lara. H-how are you?” Even though she wanted to simultaneously cry and crawl into a hole and die, Sarah still tried to be polite. Lara would just make her life worse if she didn’t.

“Sarah! Honey, why are you, like, acting so nervous?” Lara said with faux concern before a cruel smile crawled its way across her perfect face. She leaned in and whispered, “Nothing’s gonna happen to you as long as you did the homework for my psychology lecture today.”

Sarah’s eyes started to well up as her fear started to overwhelm her. “Y-you never gave me any homework,” she squeaked out. What happened next surprised absolutely no one.

Lara's smile dropped and her brow furrowed. “After all I’ve done for you, you can’t even do me one little favor?! You ungrateful little slut!” With an upward slap, Lara knocked Sarah’s tray out of her hands and sent the spaghetti flying all over her. Lara put her hand over her mouth in an expression of fake remorse that fooled no one before she spoke in an overly loud voice. “Oh my god! I am so sorry, Sarah.” In a much quieter voice, she added, “Maybe next time you’ll do what you’re told, right?”

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Though every survival instinct in her body told her not to, Sarah couldn’t stop herself. “What else can you do to me? Kill me? You already make my life a living hell. Nothing else you do can possibly be worse!”

“You think you’re good enough to talk back to me, Adams?! You’re getting awfully big for your britches, little girl. Especially for someone who’s here on a school scholarship.” Lara’s cruel smile flashed back on her face at her words.

Sarah’s face paled. “You wouldn’t,” she whispered in horror.

“You wanna bet? I own this school! No one’s willing stick their neck out for a waste of space like you and risk pissing me off. I could beat you to a pulp right now, and no one would care! In fact…” Lara raised her hand and curled it into a fist.

Sarah closed her eyes and prepared to take the punch, the risk of losing her scholarship taking all the fight from her. She waited for the strike to land… and waited.

She slowly opened her eyes to see a hand stopping Lara’s arm right before her fist could hit Sarah’s face. Sarah looked past the fist to see Lara’s shocked face before her eyes moved to track the hand of her savior back to their face. It took her a second to see past the long, blond hair that covered the face of her savior and realize it was the boy from earlier.

“I think that’s enough for today. Don’t you, ladies?” Compared to the agonized expression he had worn when she’d seen him only a short time ago, the boy now had a smug smirk.

Lara ripped her arm from his grip and sneered. “Driscol, what do you want?”

“Just a calm lunch. Now, are you gonna back down?” His voice dropped and almost seemed to reverberate in the air around them.

“You don’t get to tell me what to do, Driscol. Between my boyfriend being the head athlete and Daddy being the head of the school board, I’m untouchable. I’m the queen of this school, and there’s nothing you can do to stop me.” Despite her defiant words, Sarah thought she heard nervousness bleed into Lara’s voice.

“Oh?” The boy, something Driscol, raised an eyebrow, and his smirk turned a touch colder as he leaned closer and his voice changed to a cruel whisper. “Is that so? Then, I guess it doesn’t matter if I start spreading those recordings from Freshman year.”

“You promised you wouldn’t do anything with those,” Lara hissed back, all confidence gone.

“True, but what about those ones of your boyfriend with whats-her-name from the registrar’s office? Oh! Oh! And that one I caught of “Daddy” taking a cash “bonus” when no one was around.” By the time he finished, Sarah could barely hear his voice much less the countless people trying to listen in. “So, still think you’re invincible, or are you willing to walk away and start playing nice with people? I don’t like what I’m doing, but don’t think I’m just going to let you and your little cult of elites torture everyone without repercussions.”

Pale as a ghost, Lara could only nod before she backed away without another word and left. The boy watched her go for a moment before shaking his head and turning back to Sarah, whose eyes tracked him warily.

“Sorry about that. About the only way I know how to handle Lara these days. You okay?”

She flinched a bit when he spoke but responded after pulling herself together. “Y-yeah. Thanks for that. Aren’t you scared of what she’ll do to you though?”

“Don’t you worry about me. In case you couldn’t tell, I can handle it.” He gave her a cocky smile before his expression changed and he snapped his fingers. “Oh, that reminds me. What’s your email?”

A little stunned at the sudden change in topic, Sarah mumbled out her email before she realized it. “Wait, what do you need it for?”

“Just giving you a little protection,” he responded before clicking something on his phone. “There we go.” The buzzing in the back of her pocket let Sarah know that whatever his protection was, he had just sent it. “See you around.” With a little two-fingered salute, the boy began walking off.

Sarah was about to call out to him when he randomly spun around, causing all the eyes that had finally been about to give up spying to snap right back to him. “I forgot to put away my plates!” Sarah couldn’t help but giggle as everyone else nearly fell over at his words and could only watch with incredulity as he sprinted back to his seat and gathered his plates before leaving again, any sense of grace he had before now completely gone.

After she watched him go, she gathered up her own stuff, deciding to head back to her dorm and change out of her spaghetti-covered clothes. After she deposited her plate, she remembered to check the email the boy had sent her. It was titled, Insurance and only had two video attachments that she could guess the contents based on what the boy had said. Taking one last look at the name of the sender, she muttered, “Atlas, huh?” before exiting the dining hall with a big smile, for the first time feeling like some of her problems had finally been resolved.