Warning: This work has been rated 16+ for language, violence, and mature content.
before we start i just want to say that this is not exactly canon to the novel(?) i'm writing. more-so canon-compliant. the missing college students part is alongside with the characters' personalities, thoughts, lore, and behaviour is canon, but the exact scene is not. this was merely written as a study between the 3 main characters and their dynamic with each other. its actually intriguing because the characters are a mix of people and characters i have met, seen, or known. enjoy!
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The missing cases in Rumport hadn’t stopped; on the contrary, the crimes had doubled from last week. Four missing college students turned into eight, and eight missing college students turned into sixteen, all from prestigious-esque schools. Port International University wasn’t prestigious, per se, but still high profile, and still deemed as a target. Logan Schmidt, who was a promising student and star athlete, had gone missing five days ago.
Sam sat in Wayne’s classroom. She had long abandoned the nails, and moved onto the skin on her slender fingers; one bite, two, then three– she peeled the skin off her fingers mindlessly. The wind slammed against the window.
Logan Schmidt her ass. Sam chuckled. All he had in that brain of his was sports and being the most insufferable prick ever. The news deemed him as a ‘devoted, loving boyfriend and friend’. Sam deemed him as the shittiest partner a girl could have; his endless insults, endless whining, endless, endless, endless-
The door to the classroom creaked open; Sam looked up. She expected Wayne to waltz in; tablet in hand, dressed in ‘school appropriate outfits’ with stains from breakfast (potentially), beer belly briefly hanging out from his tight trousers. She expected to inhale the scent of cigarettes and buttered toast. Instead, she was met with a mixture of dragonfruit and coconut scents.
“Huh? Wayne not here yet?” Megan asked, a playful glint clouded her eyes.
Megan was a girl that roughly stood at five feet four and had more personality than her height. She was lively, but did have a knack for creeping out Sam. Beside her, Andrea stood five inches taller than Megan; a thin girl, yes, but evidently healthy and exercise obsessed. The cargo pants and oversized jumpers made her look bigger than she actually was, and it often did scare potential criminals away. On the other hand… Megan was a thin girl; ripped tights, cropped jumpers and shorts, knee-high boots. Sam thought they were very much of an interesting ensemble.
“No,” Sam lowered her hand, “I guess the mandatory ‘how are you ever since your boyfriend has gone missing?’ therapy session is over.”
“Oh, a bummer. I mean, why would you be upset? Logan was an asshole and deserves whatever came to him. Me, personally, I’m quite glad he’s probably somewhere in a river dismemb–”
Andrea formed a fist with her left hand and gently punched the table; not out of anger, but to alert attention to herself. “You can’t just say that in a building with CCTV,” Andrea said, with no emotion on her face. “You’d make yourself a suspect. Don’t be stupid.”
Megan pursed her lips. On one hand, Sam wanted to agree with Megan. Logan could have been classified as the spawn of satan and she knew where Megan was coming from. Logan relentlessly provoked Megan and they did have a violent history, though verbally. Never romantic. Sam still didn’t understand what led them to this point, and who started the fight. Anyhow, Megan had narrowly escaped being classified as a suspect because of her cop father. Corruption at its finest. On the other hand, Andrea was the most sensible out of the three, so, she was more inclined to listen to Andrea’s reasoning.
Sam leaned back in her chair and threw a leg over the other. The classroom– for a therapeutic environment meant for university students– was surely childish. Drawings on walls, coloured seats, bright colours; Sam wasn’t sure if the mix of emotions from Logan’s disappearance or this room was the main suspect behind her urge to jump off the third floor balcony.
Megan jumped on one of the red tables and swung her feet while she hummed an equally nerving tune. Sam wasn’t sure what tune it was, but it sounded familiar. Oddly familiar. Can’t say she had heard it anywhere. Megan cut the humming short and asked, “What if he really was dismembered?”
“Christ,” Andrea spat, “What is with you and this obsession with him, specifically, harmed? Have you taken your medications this morning?”
Megan smiled eerily. “Well, I have. I’ll have you know that medications, especially prescriptions, don’t make you violent or anything. The person usually already has an incline towards it. I, uh, hm.. I did take them. You shouldn’t say this to anyone else, though, it sounds a little awkward.”
Sam wasn’t really convinced by Megan’s explanation. She knew the part where ‘medications don’t make you violent’ to be true, but did not quite believe the part where she said that she took them. There wasn’t really a way to tell, because Megan was approximately the same with or without.
Andrea seemed to have the same opinion. She asked, “Who upset you, then?”
“You really want to open that can of worms?” Megan asked, “Well, since you’ve implored like that. Well–”, Megan’s smile dropped, “--My piece of useless shit father should take a trip down to the river and never come back. You know, why have children if all you’ll ever do is make them feel worthless? Anyway, enough about me. I’m getting upset now.” Megan said as her smile returned. The corners of her lips didn’t meet her eyes.
Andrea crossed her arms and turned to Sam. “You?” She asked, “How are you feeling? With uh… Logan and all.”
Sam did not expect the conversation to land on her. Was she the scapegoat? Probably. How was she feeling? Sam hadn’t had time to sit down and really think. She hated Logan and was glad he was dead, but something still poked at her subconscious. Really, what could she say? She could–
“Glad,” Megan interjected, “She probably feels glad.”
Andrea turned her gaze to Megan, still emotionless, hardly, if it weren’t for her jaw briefly tensing. Sam wasn’t sure if Megan had seen it too, was acting innocent, or genuinely had not noticed it. “Stop talking for her.”
“I’m not,” Megan said, “She told us this morning, remember? Why would her feelings change in the span of four hours? Andy, come on, stop riding the high horse when you know he deserved it.”
Andrea blinked, paused, and said, “You need to fire your psychiatrist.”
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141,105 Literary Works • 674,105 Reviews
I’m very slowly going through my bookmarks, and your work was the next thing the dice chose. Let’s go =D
I feel like there’s something wrong with the grammar here, that this sentence as is now is incomplete. Maybe with “than her height suggested” or “had more personality than height”?When I read your title for the first time, I kept wondering if this is for a fanfic or smthing?
But it sounds like a potential AU for your original story right?
Oha that is a LOT of disappearances. Something like this is probably about to gain federal attention, right?
Okay, I can relate to Sam going past the nails and attacking the flesh directly XD I like how you end that paragraph with the wind slamming against the window. It kinda feels like a juxtaposition but also as if the two actions compliment each other!
It has been a while and I’m so happy to see an overuse of semicolons in the wild again <3 (Still think you are overdoing it and should make some of these into fullstops, but it’s refreshing and I love it too)
Okay my brain decided “classroom = school = underaged ppl” and so I was like “why would a student have a beer belly @.@ Is this not America??” and then got excited for bit that this takes places elsewhere were rules on alcohol are less strict. But this makes more sense. College students can be over 21 after all =D
I do wish you would’ve given a hint on why she expects Wayne.
This one is a bit too much on the telling side. Maybe there is a way to convey that through Sam’s appearance?
I don’t understand this. Is Andrea 5-9 then? I don’t understand American units so I usually go by vibes and I always thought 5 inches is pretty significant so… who is the tiny girl? What is happening???
UPDATE AFTER REREADING: you wrote “thin” and I read that as tiny. Well that is on me. But I feel like the semicolon is particularly bothersome here?
Ok so Megan is also thin, so… not sure why you thought to use that word as a distinguishing factor then? It feels a bit repetitive now….
u sure the “can’t” is the right tense?
I kinda feel like this entire speech is a bit awkward XD Like, why does she talk abt violent inclinentions when taking medicine when that hasn’t been the subject? She kinda says this out of nowhere which isn’t rly a good look. It doesn’t really feel like dialogue, spoken word, to me when I read this…
So, I think I recognised what my problem with Meghan’s dialogue is. The one I highlighted and also the one later abt her dad and how he makes her feel worthless: you have set up expectations in the opening paragraph abt the disappearances and Sam’s feelings on the terrible bf that disappeared (it was HER bf, right?) and so Meghan talking abt herself etc makes the scene lose focus and suddenly there is no real throughline. It makes her suddenly talking abt her dad come completely out of nowhere and you also don’t rly have the physical reactions going along with it to at least make that interesting.
Why…? Why doesn’t she expect that? Aren’t these her friends and is a “how are you feeling” not the most normal thing you ask each other? What is happening? O_O
Ok what??? Why are you bringing this up? Why is this written so awkwardly? @.@ Is this meant to make Meghan unlikeable bc you are succeeding!!
Okay so I think you had something nice going on in the beginning, you set the scene, you introduced your characters as if we were seeing them for the first time, and even had some sort of backstory for each of their action. That was working. But you totally lost me with that ending dialogue. It felt as if there wasn’t really any point to this, and that we also haven’t really learnt anything abt the characters themselves?