"Sofia? You with us?"

I jolted up at the words, my eyes snapping toward professor Noir, who was staring at me with a thoroughly unimpressed look as she crossed her arms under her chest.

"Y-yes, sorry," I muttered, trying desperately not to flush in embarrassment. The middle-aged professor just sighed, running a hand through her hair even as several of my classmates chuckled at my misfortune, the bastards.

"Right... Just don't do it again." She said, shooting a look at my classmates before scowling. "As for you, what exactly do you find so funny, huh?" She demanded, receiving a rather predictable silence as an answer.

I melted into my seat, cheeks flaming red even as I lamented my stupidity. I shouldn't have stayed up so late last night, damn it! Now everyone's gonna remember me as the weird girl who fell asleep in class on the third day.

It was such a silly mistake to make, too. I'd been texting with my old friends and had just lost track of time, and by the time I'd realized that it was already 3am in the morning, well, I couldn't exactly go back in time now could I?

I sighed quietly, eyeing the board as the professor resumed the lesson. Great, now I had no idea what we were talking about, and if I asked I'd look even more like an idiot.

Fuck, and now the stress was giving me a headache. Great, just fucking great. Now I'd have to go through this class feeling like shit, too.

Except... As the seconds started to tick by and my headache very pointedly didn't go away even as I let myself relax into my seat, instead only growing more and more painful, I started to grow a bit concerned.

And when the headache grew to the point that it felt like someone had decided to just start using my brain as a punching bag, I couldn't help it anymore.

Shakily, I raised my hand. "P-professor? I, I think I need to go to the nurse..." I spoke up, wincing as another throb of pain lanced out through me.

Professor Noir, who had been in the middle of a rant about Rome's roads or something, just gave me a deadpan stare before letting out a long-suffering sigh. "Sofia, this isn't high school. If you need to leave, just go." She said, her tone a mix of patience and annoyance.

At her words, it felt like I was going to die of embarrassment right there and then... Or, well, I would if the headache didn't kill me first, as a burning sensation spread to my eyes, causing me to tear up.

"S-sorry..." I gasped as I pushed myself to my feet, stumbling my way to the side as I was unfortunately forced to avoid my classmate's chairs and backpacks.

I could hear the professor saying something, her voice growing increasingly concerned as I finally made my way to door, only to trip on nothing and land in an unshapely sprawl right before it.

I moaned in agony, my breaths coming in short and quick as the pain started to spread through my whole body, and before I even knew it, I found myself unconsciously curling up, grasping desperately at my head in a desperate attempt to stop the pain.

People were talking, the sound of their voices only intensifying the pain, and I could do nothing but squirm, my eyes clenching hard enough that it felt like my eyes were going to be crushed.

Then, a familiar voice spoke. Professor Noir. She was... close. "Sofia? Sofia, talk to me. What's going on?" She asked urgently. "Mike, could you run down to the nurse's office real quick? Tell them to send someone."

Mike. I knew him. He was the loud boy who liked to speak a lot and was part of the track team. "O-of course, Professor." He answered her, his voice causing me to curl even tighter as the pain only intensified even further.

W-what in the world was happening to me!? Why wasn't the pain going away!?!

Then, as if to mock my thoughts, it was at that moment that the pain reached my spine, and all of a sudden, I realized that I'd actually been having it pretty damn good.

Because what I felt only a few seconds ago wasn't even a fraction of the agony that I felt now as the feeling of thousands of burning-hot spikes impaling me from the inside out spread through me, and this time, I didn't resist as I let out a tortured screech.

I think I started to trash, but it was hard to tell as my awareness of my body and everything else around me faded away, leaving nothing behind but the burning-hot agony crawling its way through my body.

From my spine, it spread to my arms, then to my hands. Then, down to my legs and feet before expanding outward, encompassing my skin and making it feel as though I was being burned alive by the hottest fires imaginable.

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My back arched upward as the pain in my spine grew so strong that, at this point, rational thinking had already left me, leaving behind a mewling mess. It arched and arched until, all of a sudden, I heard a loud snap, causing a flare of pain so intense, so brutal, that it eclipsed everything I'd ever felt up until that point, leaving my mind to white out for an impossibly long moment.

And then, just like that, the pain was gone.

For a moment, I simply lay there, stunned and uncomprehending as the world slowly faded back into awareness around me even as my mind struggled to regather itself.

However, to my immense surprise, regather itself it indeed did as an unnatural yet empty calmness filled me while I pushed myself to my feet.

And while I did that, my hearing finally started working again.

"... -LY SHIT! WHAT IS THAT?!"

"Hurry, someone help the professor!"

"I knew it! I fucking knew it! It's the aliens! She's an alien!"

"-No, I'm not fucking kidding! Please, send someone up here! T-they look really bad!"

I reeled in surprise as a cacophony of sounds filled my ears, leaving me disoriented and confused as I looked around, blinking several times (or at least, trying to) before my eyes finally took in what was going on.

People were screaming and backing away from me. The desks near me all looked as though a particularly angry and powerful bear had decided to pick a specific bone with them, considering how destroyed they looked. The various laptops, phones, and notebooks that always rested atop said tables had not been spared either, I noticed with an odd sense of detachment.

Then, my eyes shifted toward the side, and my heart came to a metaphorical stop.

Because lying off to the side in a pool of growing blood was none other than professor Noir. Bones stuck out from her body at disturbing angles, and she looked as though she'd been folded in half from the side, with horrifying gashes bleeding far too much blood.

I stared for a long moment, struggling to understand why she looked like that. Then, I felt a light pressure on my hip, and I looked down.

Someone had thrown a book at me. I had barely felt it, however, and it was hard to pay attention to such things as my eyes suddenly found themselves glued to my body.

My clothes were gone. In any other situation, that would have been embarrassing, but right now, I was far more concerned about the fact that my body looked like pitch-black smog.

I reached out to it in horrified fascination, only to pause once again as my hands came into view. Or at least, what once used to be my hands.

Now, instead, they looked like five-bladed blenders, my fingers having been replaced by sharp claws. Tentatively, I tried to close my apparent new hands, and sure enough,  they closed, the blades that my fingers had become passing through each other like they weren't even there before melting into my palm, leaving me with a clenched fist before me.

"S-Sofia?" I heard someone call, their voice somehow managing to reach my ears even through all the screams.

My head snapped toward them, my body remaining still even as my head turned 180 degrees, the action coming to me so naturally that I didn't even realize I'd done it until a few heartbeats had passed.

The first thing I noticed about the speaker wasn't the fact that he was someone I knew. Lucas, a blonde-haired, tall, and muscular boy that was in several of my classes, and one that I'd nursed a small crush on ever since I first saw him at orientation.

No. Instead, the first thing I noticed was that he was small.

It only took me a moment, however, to realize that that realization was wrong. Lucas wasn't small, far from it.

I was the one who had become big.

"LuCaS?" I garbled, wincing as my voice cut through the screaming, sounding like the grinding of metal on metal mixed with TV static. "WhAt Is GoInG oN? wHaT hApPeNeD tO Me?"

"I- You- Uhh..." Lucas stammered, taking several steps back, eyes wide and pupils shrinking into pinpricks even as his head swiveled around, clearly trying to find support from the other students.

He received none.

"MiRrOr!" I suddenly shouted as a desperate need to understand whatever the fuck I'd just become overcame me. "MiRrOr! I nEeD a MIRROR!" I repeated desperately, not that such an emotion was possible to decipher in my voice.

With an urgency born of desperation, I practically threw myself toward the doorway, ignoring Lucas' call as I smashed the door aside, ripping it off its hinges with a single motion before hurling myself across the hallway.

Students screamed in terror as I passed by, and I could hear the alarm bells ringing across the school, filling my ears with noise.

Even then, I pushed on. I moved with a grace and speed wholly foreign to me, who was used to having a weak, unathletic, and thin-as-bones body, but at that moment I could barely pay attention to it.

Finally- After almost twenty seconds of running and dodging frozen students, I reached the bathroom. Once again, I found myself smashing the door and a large portion of the wall aside as I barreled through it, coming to a sudden halt right before the wall of mirrors.

And, finally, I looked upon what I had become.

A face made entirely of pitch-black smog greeted me, my eyes meeting the ones in the mirror, and I finally realized that they weren't actually eyes, but instead two glowing red orbs of the same smog that made up my body.

My mouth opened slightly, revealing two rows of teeth that looked more like 2d triangles than actual human teeth. 

I leaned forward, fear and horror gnawing at my heart, only serving to add further panic and confusion to my already fucked-up mind. Desperately, I reached up to my face with my hands, sinking my bladed fingers into it and watching in dull horror as they melted into it with no issue.

I... I was...

Just then, the sound of a stall opening tore me out of my thoughts, causing me to twist my head around and stare at the direction of the noise.

And indeed, from one of the stalls, a boy came out, headphones over his ears as he nodded to a rhythm only he could hear.

Said nodding was quickly cut short, however, as the two of us met eyes. The boy paused, staring at me with a nonplussed look for a moment before squinting.

Then, slowly, oh so slowly, he backed off into the stall once again, slowly and carefully closing it, the creaking of the swinging door audible over even the wailing alarm.

And I... Well, I just couldn't help it.

I started laughing, and laughing, and laughing.