Original Stories Fan Fiction ❯ Defy and Comply ❯ Lesson 21: Brutal Havok Pt. I ( Chapter 22 )

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Defy and Comply

By: Melissa Norvell

Lesson 21: Brutal Havok Pt. I

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Prasuna swung her axe down as the blade dug itself into a student's head, splitting their skull as the male student fell to the ground. Blood splattered across her bright red, strapless, short dress. It got on her toned legs, across her breasts, each one covered with the curve of her dress. Some stained her white, flipped hair and speckled across her face. Standing, she heaved as her axe dripped with blood.

Thoughts began to take over, engrossing her in the situation as she beheld the spectrum of the full picture, laid out before her.

'I live with this darkness every day, as I have been since the killing began. All of the bodies would stay in their places for a while, then mysteriously disappear. I guess that's the school's way of cleaning up. I wonder where they all go when they're taken away. I'm suspicious as to what's going on and whether or not this is a military operation or not. The staff has mysteriously vanished as well. Some are killing out here and some are in their dorms, waiting for the madness to end.'

'I never wanted to be in this mess and now I am.' Her thoughts ended as she darted into the school from outside, running up the stairs and into the one of the halls. One of the guys from kendo class, still clad in his uniform, rushed towards her with a large sword. Prasuna's features hardened as she drew back her axe, slicing open his mid section as the sickening sound of moist organs hitting the floor filled her senses.

'I can't even go to the bathroom without getting blood on my hands. Our numbers are fewer now. Kageki, Santa, Aoili and Kokken are all gone, and there are some people that I haven't seen in a while.'

'The last time I saw them, Kiyomaru went off with her.' The thespian felt herself ignited with a wildfire of hatred. A burning anger sizzled in her as she thought of Sunoma. Prasuna scowled as she picked up the pace. Her red heels clacked on the floor in a more rapid pace. 'That bitch!'

She slammed the axe blade into a girl's side who had jumped out and tried to catch her off guard. 'If I can get away with it, I'm going to kill her. I just have to do it without anyone finding out. Then Kiyomaru will rely on me. Everyone has killed, and they speak not of who. It will merely be an unanswered, unspoken injury.' Her red lips twisted into a devious smile. That was exactly what she was going to do. Prasuna was going to murder Sunoma, and rid herself of that damned lolita for good.

'We were friends when we were younger. We've known each other for a long time. When I had to go and perform on stage, my world seemed empty without your personality to brighten my day.' Prasuna smiled at her fond memories of happier times between the two. She was always the center of attention, commanding applause and Sunoma was her number one fan who clapped from the side-lines, standing front row and center. 'I spent my life becoming the epitome of perfection. I made them love me. I became a true goddess on stage, and I made men fall to their knees.'

'When you started hanging around Kiyomaru and everyone began liking the two of you together, I tried to be supportive. I didn't want to be upset that you stole the man I loved. You just had to rub it in my face, didn't you? You had to tell me how wonderful you thought he was. How happy you were to be close to him. You called him your best friend.' Prasuna bore her teeth, her perfect figure shaking with livid anger. 'Then you had the nerve to ask me why I was crying? I told you I hated you and I left. I didn't want you to be mad at me...but I didn't mean it.'

Stopping after she turned right. There was a male student laying there, taking his last breath as a female in blonde pig tails held a lifting weight above her head and slammed it down with a horrible smack, ending his life as blood soaked into her black uniform with cold and white accents.

'At night, I've been hearing it, people dying. Bangs and thumps in the night, yelling and screaming of those who stay out past curfew, doomed to stand trial. How many trials have passed? How many executions have been shown in the monitors? I hear voices; they whisper dark deeds into my ears.'

'Maybe if I keep killing, my head won't feel like it's about to burst. Maybe. Maybe, I should hit one of them over the head because the voices tell me to. Or maybe...Maybe I told the voices to tell me this. Maybe the voices told me to take Hideyoshi and knock him out with the blunt end of my axe and tie him up with old ropes I found in the theatre. Maybe I thought they would leave me alone, and I could finally sleep.' Visions of that day infiltrated her memories as she recalled the day she committed an unspeakable act. A detached look crossed her face as she darted down another hall. A crazed, unusually excited look crossed her face as she ran, wielding her axe.

'I don't remember the last time I have slept...My beauty diminishes by the day. Maybe if I stabbed him a little, that infernal screaming would stop. I only hit him with the blade once. I was entranced by the blood it shed. There's a haunting beauty about its color. Maybe the voices told me to keep going. Maybe the voices would stop if I made my first kill. Maybe I liked hacking his arms off and how he screamed and pleaded. Despair is such a wonderful feeling.' Prasuna smiled wide, showing all of her teeth with a wild look in her eyes. She felt an overwhelming happiness shoot through her when she recalled those moments. Never had she felt so free, and never had she wanted to laugh out loud with bliss as she had in that moment. 'The voices told me that he would not be allowed to see the rest. I only wanted him to feel the sensations. Feeling is amplified without the aid of sight...so I gauged at his eyes with a small knife I found. I laughed when I did it. The kill certainly brings out the most barbaric urges. I was curious about the taste. The voices told me to lick the knife. Maybe it would taste good. Maybe it did.'

'I untied him and watched him run around the room blindly. He screamed and cried blood as his armless body ran around the room, littering it with blood. He eventually slipped and fell in his own blood. Maybe I liked the way he tried to get up but kept falling. Maybe the voices liked it, too.'

'Maybe I liked the way he screamed loud and louder when I kept swinging the axe, over and over. That lovely squishing and tearing was a sweet symphony. Maybe I liked the way I reduced him to a quivering, pulsating, useless pile of flesh on the floor. Maybe I thought I could make him scream louder. Sublime torment of unfathomable anguish. Maybe I liked chopping his legs off, hearing the sweet snapping of bone as my axe cleaved away at his destroyed flesh. Maybe it was funny how he twitched and undulated. Maybe the voices thought so too. Maybe I like the way his body went still suddenly on the blood-smeared floor. I was absolutely delighted, grinning ear-to-ear, shouting in vicarious ecstasy as he died. Maybe I enjoyed watching him die. Maybe the voices did too. Then again...who is to say that there were any voices at all?' Prasuna put her foot on top of a dead student's head, draping her arm over her bent knee as she held her axe in her other hand, swung over her shoulder. The dark, unstable smile still crossed her face. "This school will be a stage I dance on...alone."

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Kraki sat at one of the long tables in the library reading an excerpt with one of her books. However, this was no ordinary book. She read the words with deep interest, transfixed on them as she continued to research.

There is evidence that certain sound waves called FLF or extremely low frequency waves can effect brainwaves. Waves that are six to ten hertz, the same that a human brain produces in the theta and alpha states. Theta means frequencies below eight hertz. Those waves are associated with creativity and insightful thought. Alpha waves are eight to twelve hertz and are meditative, relaxed states. Beta waves are above one to two hertz and those are analytical thoughts.

Could populations be affected by an ELF transmitter? Could it alter someone's state enough to make them do things they didn't want to do?

Green eyes skimmed down through the article.

Test results were inconclusive. Some subjects reacted to all of the waves, some to only low frequency and some to high frequency. There were also those that didn't react to any of the frequencies. There is no hypothesis to predict who is susceptible and who is not. There is no hypothesis to predict who is susceptible and who is not. The brain is sensitive to a wide array of intensities. The waves are shown to alter moods but it's subtle.

"Maybe they're testing out something that has to do with this? Did I just find a crucial piece of evidence?" Kraki sat the book down. She could hardly believe what she had stumbled upon. When she started thinking about it, the more that she read, the more she was able to tie things together.

Nothing weakens or stops ELF waves. There was something once researched by Dr. Puharich about how whole populations could be controlled with ELF waves, like behavior modification. Adverse ELF waves can be linked to the death of cattle as well and are used in the military communications for submarines and radios across the world. Electromagnetic impulses can start or stop the heart. It can also trigger cancer and disease. In 1976 the Russians emitted an ELF cocktail that caused people to feel depression. The sound was nothing below eleven hertz. At the right frequencies and durations, whole populations could be controlled by ELF or killed by them.

It would make bombs obsolete and you could defeat an army without any damage done. Weapons like this have not been perfected yet or research is cloaked in the highest levels of secrecy.

Kraki's eyes widened as she looked up from the book. "No way..." Horror ran through her, causing her blood to run cold. Her heart pounded against her sternum and she felt an immense anxiety wash over her. "Does that mean that the military could be experimenting with these waves to control the public? Maybe that's why no one remembers or cares about the murders that happened in the school.”

"Maybe that's why no one remembers or cares about the murders in this school. Maybe that's why the police can do nothing; Maybe they can make a specific wave to delete certain memories. However, that would mean that to do that, they would have to have sent the waves right before Leonardo graduated. The dome must protect us from those waves...but parts of that theory make no sense...or maybe they do...People remember that Taiga has a brother but what do they remember past the scope of what Taiga has told them? Last year, we attended school with them, but none of us truly remember the graduating class. That means the only ones with memories of what really happened..." She paused momentarily. "...are Taiga and Leonardo."

She closed the book. "It all makes sense now; I have to tell the others of my theory!"

Just then, the door opened behind her and she glanced over her shoulder to see Prasuna standing in the doorway, covered in blood with her axe swung over her shoulder. A small smile crossed her face as Kraki exclaimed her name with a hand up to her chest.

"You're in here at a late hour." Did Kraki know what time it was?

"I've been doing research," the green-haired girl arose from her seat, scooting it out a little. "I was wondering why you've been out." Usually, people were in their dorms at this time of night. That was why she chose such a time to do research because there were few people around wandering.

"I needed some air. Don't worry; I took this axe with me just in case anyone tried to get the idea that Prasuna was defeated so easily. After all, I have an alternate agenda." That dark tone in her voice unnerved Kraki and sent a shiver through her body.

"You're planning on going through with graduation?" That was an easy deduction made by the amount of blood that already stained her short dress.

Prasuna cocked her head, her voice happy and detached. "Aren't we all? We always have a plan B, even if it isn't apparent. I have already killed. The blood on my hands has stained them from far too much to walk out of here with no deaths on my shoulders. Surely, you realize how unrealistic of a thought that is."

Green eyes watched the thespian's every move as she came closer to her. "I realize that. Don't think I didn't come down here with weapons," she pointed down to two round blades with handles that leaned against one of the table legs. "I had to kill Kiyonagi on the way here."

She recalled that moment with clarity. He tried to beat her with a baseball bat and she evaded the attack, slashing his throat with her blade and darting off into the library as he lay on the floor, blood pouring from his neck. "I didn't think anyone hasn't killed so far. Everyone has descended into madness." It would have been immature for her to make such an assumption. Either that or she would have had to have been more than blissfully unaware of the situation to not believe that.

"It's not anyone's fault they're all a little off that they come to like the gore and killing, taking the lives of others," Prasuna stopped before the girl. "You get that way. The desire to kill anyone who looks you straight in the eye. Nothing differentiates us or our social class like before. We are no different than the yakuza or the bosozoku. It's a strange obsession that you come to love." She held out her hand with a confident smile, painted red nailed curved in slightly.“ The screams and terrified yells become music to your ears."

"You're insane," Kraki backed up, bumping into the table. Prasuna had surely lost her mind. She gave into the bag head's genocidal plans, and immersed herself in the love of the kill. She didn't think that the thespian would have been the one to change so quickly or so much, but she had and it was frightening. It was like staring down a convict or known serial killer.

"You would think that I'm pretty much insane, but you have it all wrong," Prasuna defended herself and rested her hand on her hip. Shifting her weight to one side, she stared down the girl with cold eyes.

Kraki turned to get her weapons. "I'm leaving," she didn't feel safe with the white-haired woman standing over her, daunting and carrying that blood-stained axe like a psychopath. She wanted to get as far away from her as she possibly could, especially when the thespian was talking like that.

Before she could turn back around, she felt a jolt into her back. Pain shot through her, causing her to drop her weapons and the book she was carrying. The items fell to the ground in a clatter. There was a moist sound as the axe blade retracted from her back and Prasuna was splattered in a new, brilliant shade of scarlet. She fell forward over the table, red blood leaking out across the back of her snow-white dress.

Prasuna held a hand to her red lips, painted in a pleasent smile. "Oops, I accidentally slipped. I didn't mean it. I'm sorry." She said in a tone of faux sympathy.

"Wh-Why?" Kraki whispered as she tried to keep her concentration, only to have everything in her sights blur heavily. The colors blended together, indistinguishable.

"Isn't it funny?" The thespian mused as she swung her axe over her shoulder. "When the soul is driven by hatred, how horrible your thoughts become? You often talk of wishing the worst on people, torturing them if you could and how and who. I want to kill you slowly and painfully."

Prasuna raised up her axe high above her head, bringing it down into the green-haired girl's body once again. "I can't have you telling them I'd kill my fellow student council members in a blur of blind passion, now can I?" Kraki let out a gurgled scream as tears ran down her eyes.

White brows creased as her voice still remained in that false caring tone. "Awh, don't be sad! I promise it will be over soon. Won't it be wonderful to die in this place? You practically live in here."

After all, Kraki did so love to be in the library amongst the literary material. Prasuna had always found the curly-haired girl with her nose in a computer screen or a book. If there was knowledge to be absorbed, Kraki was doing it.

The girl was silent below her, and it was really grinding on her nerves. She struck her with the axe again with a cross expression. "It's rude not to speak when spoken to! I demand attention!" She stabbed her again and again, hacking away at her back until Kraki no longer gurgled, no longer breathed and slid from the table in a streak of red blood, falling onto the floor.

Looking down at her, Prasuna bent over to examine her more closely. "Perhaps I was a bit too forceful with my demand. You're such a good friend. I hope you'll forgive me. I didn't mean for it to end this way," she made it out of the room, stepping on her glasses as she closed the door, sealing Kraki up in the library.

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The door to the library opened, revealing the brutalized girl lying on the ground. There was blood everywhere, a large streak on the table, a pool on the ground and the victim's chest and back were covered in blood. It leaked from her body crusting on her long, evergreen curls and her dead eyes stared up at the ceiling, glassed over with death. Gaz wondered where she had gone, and he found his answer in the most horrifying way.

"Kraki!" He shouted and stumbled backwards. Shock crossed his face as he gritted his teeth. 'She's been killed. It's still morning...that means...' Just then, a realization hit him. 'Someone broke the rules. Shit! There's going to be another trial!' The rock star turned and darted out of the library, his feet carrying him as fast as he could. "I have to tell the others!"

At the cafe, their usual group had been gathered. They were all sitting at one of the long tables, all eating cakes and drinking tea that had been prepared for anyone who came into the cafe. Some of them happily munched on their food, others picked at it and most of them sipped on the tea.

"Don't you find it odd that there is no staff here, yet there is always food prepared?" Sunoma brought up the topic a she took a sip of tea.

Kazoo was shoving his mouth full of cake, but stopped long enough to respond to the question. "Who gives a shit? I haven't eaten in days!" It was like heaven to be able to eat anything without being attacked.

"Are we the only ones alive?" Taiga noticed that their group had gotten considerably smaller since their last meeting.

"I thought there would be more of us," Tsukimi put her hands in her lap and looked down. She hated thinking about her classmates that had once been alive. She wanted to believe that they had managed to survive, but when they were all together she could feel their absence.

"The student populous is dwindling significantly. Now it is not uncommon to see no one in vast stretches of the school," the initial start of the murders was immense, and Kiyomaru knew that the only students that were left now were those who were resourceful.

"I don't think any of my guys are alive. A couple of days ago, I found them with all their limbs hacked off and their eyes gouged out," Taiga informed as Prasuna looked particularly interested in that piece of information. It seemed that he had found the present she left for him after all.

"That's overkill," Leo commented.

"How horrible," Tsukimi visibly cringed.

"Who are we to judge? I smashed a guy's head in with a weight." It was an eye for an eye around there now. Taiga knew that everything was fair in senseless bloodshed.

"We all did shitty things," Leo agreed. At this point, to act like any of them were saints was just denying the truth.

"So much for the innocence of the youth," Ame said simply, sipping her tea as if they were having a nice tea party, opposed to a brutal slaughter. "By the way, how are you all resting?"

"We're not," Kazoo glared at her and gave her a look that insinuated that she should have very well have known the answer to that inquiry. "You can hear people screaming at all hours of the night."

"Or you hear bumps and crashes. People have been disregarding the rules," Sunoma knew that to be a fact. Not only thtat but their trials played on the jumbotron outside. She had seen a few of them happening when she went outside to encounter other students on the battlefield.

"There was a dead body against our door this morning. We had to kick it open to get out," Leo mentioned that little fact. He heard the girl screaming that night. She must have gotten murdered against his dorm room door and slid down it, dying there.

"I think someone got killed a couple of nights before, too," Masato noted. "Some student was bangin' on my door, real scared. He begged me to let him in but I knew what would happen so I didn't. I pretended I wasn't there and he kept on screamin' and then nothing."

"So, this is it, huh? History is doomed to repeat itself and there's not a damned thing we can do about it but kill each other," this was exactly what Kazoo didn't want, and yet it was coming to pass yet again.

"No, there has to be a way," Tsukimi slammed her hands down on the table at the same time and shot up.

"I agree!" Kiyomaru stood up and held a fist into the air dramatically. "We cannot give up hope!"

"We can't cover for each other forever. It's inevitable that it happens. The only reason we haven't is because we all have some semblance of sanity, but what happens when it runs out? What happens when we're the only ones left?" Ame wondered how they would all react to having to kill each other. With each student that died, the time grew closer to their own eventual deaths. Everyone would kill until there was no one left. It was only a matter of time before they turned on each other.

"You sound fascinated by this," Leo noted, his eyes darting to the spiral-haired lolita.

"Oh, I am," Ame smiled quaintly. "Don't you see? This situation is futile. We can never hope to find out our true reasons for being here. The only thing we can do is wait...then it will come down to us. Tell me, Mr. Graduate, can you make that decision again? Can you retain your humanity?"

"I-"

Sunoma interrupted the two, cutting off Leo. "Stop it, Ame. This gets us nowhere."

"Your life here is like a game of Russian Roulette, you never know when the gun will land on you, and you only hope that you don't shoot yourself in the head," Ame made the grim comparison.

"It's disgusting that you can say that with such a calm look on your face," the more Tsukimi looked at the lolita, and the more she listened to her talk like everything was so simple, the more angry and ill she got. Ame sickened her and so did her logic.

"Fool," Ame could tell that they were still in denial. When would they just accept the fact that this was how things were and there was nothing they could do about it?

"What did you say?" Tsukimi growled, holding her fist up menacingly. If Ame wanted to fight, she would drag her out by her spiral drill pig tails and kick her frilly ass right now.

"Shut the hell up," Taiga growled, sick of hearing the two of them go back and forth. "You're both pissing me off with your garbage."

"He's right," Kazoo agreed with an irritated expression. "We don't have time for this shit."

"Who called us here, anyway?" Masato asked from the end of the table, where he had his feet propped up, one laid over the other.

"I did," Gaz drew everyone attention to him.

"Why?" Kiyomaru was curious.

"Kraki got killed."

"A lot of us died. Why is this case so special?" Ame didn't really figure that she needed a special gathering. Kokken, Aioli, Kageki and Santa didn't get any of their own.

"Someone killed her at night," the rocker's voice darkened.

"How do you know that?" Taiga questioned him. If someone was murdered at night, then he knew that he was going to wind up in another class trial.

"I found her at nine this morning. The blood was dry, like she'd been there for a while," Gaz noted. Everything was dry but what blood was still running out of her. Most of it had turned a dark color.

"That means we'll have another trial," Sunoma's visage hardened. She hated that she had to be involved in something like that. The lolita didn't want to convict her classmates any more than she already had to.

"If none of us did it, then it shouldn't be our concern," Prasuna waved her hand in dismissal.

"We were all around her. We'd be thrown in as red herrings just to see who'd want to convict and execute us." That was what happened last time. Taiga knew that he was somehow going to be involved in this trial whether he wanted to be or not.

"Why would anyone kill at night? Everyone knows the rules," Tsukimi would think that people would pay attention, especially if they valued their own lives. For someone to kill at night was just idiotic.

"People forget," Gaz noted. Maybe they didn't forget but there were a lot of people who got caught up in killing and more than likely forgot what the bag-headed man had said to them initially.

"Either that or people don't care," Kazoo knew that some of them didn't have much to live for. Maybe they gave up hope on escaping and decided to just kill people mercilessly. Maybe they didn't care if they got trialed or executed. Some people were like that.

"Maybe they do," Prasuna knew that they had it all wrong. She cared about living; she just wanted to get away with what she did.

"What do you mean?" Kazoo looked to the diva in question.

"There's more than one way to escape this hell hole," she noted. If she could fool them all in a trial, it would be easy to systematically eliminate them and get away with genocide.

"If you die, then you get out," Leo noted. "Technically we all escape at the end."

"Leonardo gets my logic," Prasuna beamed. She did Kraki a favor; it wasn't like she wasn't going to leave anyway. Everyone leaves, just not in the same way.

"I don't agree," Kazoo frowned.

"Why?" Prasuna asked.

"It's undetermined what happens to the bodies-" Kazoo was cut off.

"They reside in the graveyard. That means they do not leave," Kiyomaru pointed a finger into the air, as if he was stating a fact. Why wonder where they were when it was apparent?

"Are there any other graveyards besides the one for the last class?" Gaz asked. If the other class had one, then their class also had to have one, right? "I mean, it's weird that only they have one."

"That is odd, now that I think about it," Kiyomaru looked thoughtful. Were there other grave yards? What about classes that came before the one that Leo was in? Were they involved? Were there other graveyards that they didn't know about? What was up with that one being in the middle of the school, and why had no one ever noticed it existed?

"Maybe it was put there to freak us out," Gaz wanted to think that was its intent. Those bag-headed guys used a lot of scare tactics, so why not that one? It rectified the fact that they were serious about the students killing each other.

"Why would they put it in a secluded area?" Wouldn't they just put it out in the gardens where everyone could see it if they were trying to prove a point? That's what Leo would think anyway. It wasn't as if they were secretive about what they were doing.

"It's just weird. I wonder if there are even really any bodies there," Tsukimi looked thoughtful. It seemed so new, and there was no fresh dirt. It was as if the graveyard had been there for ages when it would have existed for a year at the least.

"What did you say?" Taiga's eyes widened as he froze in mid-pose. A bolt of anxiety coursed through his body at the thought of there being no bodies in that graveyard. If they weren't there, then where were they?

"Kazoo's grave obviously doesn't have a body...What if the others don't either." When Tsukimi thought about it, Leonardo's grave didn't have a body and neither did Taiga's. What if they were just fake and they were keeping the bodies somewhere else? What if there were no bodies at all?

"Then where would they be?" Taiga had to know! He had to know where they buried his brother, or what they did with his corpse.

"I'm more worried about the immediate issues, like what's going to happen at this trial. Who is going to hang high and dry," Kazoo quickly changed the subject. He didn't want to dwell on the subject of that place for too long. Besides, it was better off that they worry about it later. The trial was upon them, and they had to prepare for it and gather evidence.

"You didn't kill her, did you?" Prasuna leaned in, leveling him with a curious expression. After all, Kazoo had killed before and he had been trialed for it. If he was found to be guilty again, there was no chance that he'd survive another execution.

...To Be Continued