Regret ever thinking anything was going to be okay.

Your head smarts just a bit from meeting the door of some poor girl's locker. Nothing you can't tough out, though. You've taken worse.

But physical pain isn't the only thing that's just hit you. The realisation that you'd let your guard down is worse. The fact that you'd lulled yourself into a false sense of security, let yourself believe the lie that this would be different somehow. No. It was going to be just like everything else.

And who's putting you back in your place? Well, you can only see one of them. She's roughly as tall as you, with hair that's so dark it's almost purple, tied into twintails and with streaks of white running through it. She wears an expression that displays determination, single-minded thought, and - you're sure you're not imagining it - just a bit of malice. Naturally, given that she's the one holding your shoulders back against the locker. You can't see the other, though you can sense her presence, oppressive as it leans against you to the side.

"Well, well, Lacie, looks like this one isn't putting up a fight~ It's a shame, she was so strong yesterday~"

Yesterday? You don't recall having talked to Lacie - or her counterpart, taunting you right in your ear - yesterday, or even having looked in their direction. Everything was a blur that day, being dragged in one direction by Alex and in the other by your brain telling you that something was clearly wrong here.

The voice nearby speaks up again. "We had our eye on her, didn't we? And she didn't give us a second glance. Too focused on that crane-legged whore. She's already sucking up to the so-called popular girls, even though she'll never be one of us. You know what that makes her? Tell her what that makes her, Lacie~"

Lacie at last opens her mouth, her voice entirely emotionless. "A stuck-up bitch."

"That's right! A stuck-up bitch~!" You wonder how she can speak so sweetly and yet with such venom. "And you know what we do to stuck-up bitches?"

"We break them, Gracie."

"That's right, we break them! We make them hurt. And you look like you'll just snap any second. Because it's your fault. You're the one who wouldn't pay attention. It's All. Your. Fault."

Your brain is pretty sure it didn't need this Gracie character to tell you what you already know. It's all your fault. It's all your fault for believing, even for a second, that your life could be anything but torment and isolation. And it all starts here. Again.

Until a voice cuts through the darkness. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?!"