• BAM!
    Tessa looked up with surprise. Narrow stood over her desk, smiling widely. She glared at him. After she passed the test in the gym he had thrown her back into the small secluded room where the screaming beast had been replaced. She stayed in there for a week, getting used to the smell of death, the sound of it, and the feeling of blood on her body. When the teachers finally had it with Narrows’ torture they reopened the door to find she was lying on the floor, reading a scroll by flashlight and jotting down little tid-bits of information.
    “Do you know the answer to the question at hand?” Narrow asked, pointing to the board.
    Tessa rolled her eyes. “Five pi,” she said loudly, “over three.”
    Narrow nodded. “Good. If you want to sleep go to the nurses office, if not I will put you back in the room for double the time you slept.”
    Tessa stood quickly. She grabbed the scythe and walked toward the door.
    “Wait!” Narrow shot at her. She turned quickly, eyes glowing crimson red. “Meet me in the football field after school. I want to show you something.”
    “I haven’t slept in weeks,” she hissed. “Unless you want me to randomly explode, I suggest you cool it down with these sessions.” Narrow raised an eyebrow at her. She gave a sigh. “Fine, I’ll be here at six, but no earlier. The least thing I can do is get three hours of sleep.”
    Narrow nodded, but wore a concerned look on his face. Tessa turned the corner and walked toward the nurses’ office. As she walked several people cowered away from her. She knew why. Not a lot of people saw the scythe as a scythe. Most saw it as a staff of sorts and those who could knew they had something wrong with them that could cause a deadly reaction from her.
    She walked into the office and gave the nurse, a young demon, the reason she was there. She explained the room with little detail, but even then the nurse was confused and sickened. Tessa was allowed to sleep until five thirty. But she found once she had laid her head down they filled with murderous thoughts that sent her into fits of monstrous giggles.
    She took out a small notebook and jotted down the thoughts until they didn’t come quiet as easily. She circled the ones she liked lay back down, falling into a light sleep.
    At five thirty on the dot she awoke with a start. The nurse looked at her with shock as the teen took the scythe in her hands and ran out the room. She ruffled through her pockets and pulled out her I-pod. Turning it up loudly, she threw the scythe as far as she could. She remembered not wanting it, hating it and the very thought of killing people. The feeling came back like a tragic heart attack. She remembered after she killed the soulless demon and begging for more. She didn’t want it anymore; she just wanted to be human again.
    The scythe came back with double the force, catching her foot as she ran. She went tumbling over, landing in a bed of rocks. She hissed as she picked shards out of her leg as it bled. After a second the bleeding stopped and the gash vanished with a puff of black smoke. She felt dead on the inside, alive in the deep pit of her mind that praised the death curse. At night she would find her soul crying, begging someone to save her from a fait like the one she was going through, but also praising the fait and making new catastrophes.
    She pulled out her notebook and read through the list, her scythe suddenly floating behind her. She circled something’s she liked as the apocalypse; black hole, nuclear war, invasion, super flu, airborne aids; the list went on. The scythe dipped down and touched the nuclear war and then super flu. It etched out the airborne aids.
    “I know,” Tessa whispered. “I’m terrible. I actually think it would be funny to go up to someone and whisper ‘you have aids…’” Her stomach turned. She stood quickly. “We have to go meet Narrow, now.”
    The scythe pushed her along as she lagged reluctantly. At one point it scooped her up like a witch on a broom and flew to a new height.
    “WHOA!” she screamed as her sudden weight caused them to do a barrel roll several times. She held on tightly. It kept gaining altitude until they were suddenly in the vacuum of space. She gave a sudden gasp of nothing and the scythe dived steeply.
    “HOLY MOTHER OF JESUS!” she screamed. She pressed her body against the scythe, eyes watering as the air rushed by her. She saw the field was surrounded and remembered something that made her curse Narrows’ name; that night was the begging game for their football season and she was their mascot.
    “Pull up!” she shouted. The scythe fell faster. “No! Not faster, pull up! We’re going to crash if you don’t! I don’t wanna die!”
    Around three inches from the ground the scythe pulled up suddenly, turning into a sudden barrel roll that threw Tessa across the field with such force that she felt every atom of air collide with her body. Impact, though, was like landing in a bed of pillows stuffed with the softest cotton.
    Both sides of the crowd screamed in panic. She lay in the center of the field, motionless for a moment and then jumped to her feet.
    “Ow,” she said. She looked down, finding her leg twisted all the way around. She gave a sigh and twisted it back, something she learned in an old show. It gave a sickening crack and a few seconds of fiery pain, but she could walk on it.
    “Freakin A,” Narrow rushed out towards her with a clipboard. “That was the best entrance sense the season of 2010 when the mascot landed in a wood chipper!” He scribbled a note on the clipboard.
    “You are not making me fly into a wood chipper!” Tessa shrieked, looking over his shoulder. He looked at her and erased quickly. “And what was that! This thing does not like me! It just tried to kill me!”
    “You can’t be killed,” Narrow looked at her with intense eyes. He jotted down a few more notes and then escorted her to the side lines. “Well, unless someone takes the scythe and just owns you. Besides that, no; you can’t die.”
    The referees looked at her with shock coloring their eyes. She gave them a scowl and they turned back to the field.
    “I made you the half time show,” Narrow smiled.
    “Are you kidding me?” Tessa hissed.
    “You verse the other teams’ mascot,” Narrow said.
    “This isn’t a fight to the death, is it?” Tessa asked. “Cause you know I’ll kill him without trying to if I don’t know.”
    Narrow laughed. “No, it’s a battle of who can kill the most. You see,” he pulled out a map of the field, “we’ve put several hundred rats in a maze system under the field. The point is to see if you can solve this puzzle without help from me.”
    “Help!” she howled. “You call locking me in a room with a harpy help!? I call it torture!”
    Narrow wasn’t listening; in fact, he had left her side. He was coaching the game with quick words and shouts. Tessa sat on the bench and watched as both teams were at each others throats and the game became a bloodbath. She was hoping for more every time someone was hurt, hoping for more blood whenever there was a touchdown and even hoping for a serious injury. She was jotting things down in her notebook without noticing.
    Halftime came as a surprise to her. The field was cleared and the referees stood in the center. A young man wearing skates bladed across the air into the center. Narrow looked back at Tessa with a smile. She stood and dashed out quickly.
    “Both mascots ready?” the referee asked.
    “No,” Tessa said. She looked across at the boy, his bright blue eyes and dark skin made her skin crawl and her heart flutter. She gave a small bow. “I’m Tessa.”
    “I’m Spencer,” he returned the bow. “But most call me Spin.”
    Tessa smiled. “Let the game begin!” the referee shouted, running off the field.
    Spin jumped back quickly, throwing what seemed to be a marble at the ground. Seconds later Tessa found herself engulfed by smoke. She took her scythe in her hands and looked around wildly. The tally was going up quickly. Spin was already at fifty and she was at nothing.
    She threw the scythe at the ground. Hers was up to ten and his to seventy. She cursed him and thought quickly.
    ‘If I don’t do something I’m gonna loose and look like the worst death to ever live,’ she turned the scythe over in her hands. ‘Damn it! I wonder what the other death would have done! Damn it! This reminds me of the Pied Piper…!’
    She smirked widely to herself, hitting the ground with her scythe, another fifteen for her, but Spin was at a hundred. After a moment she backed out of the smoke and the scythe changed into a flute.
    “What are you doing?!” Narrow bellowed.
    “It’s my secret talent,” she whispered and placed the flute to her lips.
    The field was filled with the sudden, yet dreamy sound of music. Spin stopped throwing the small explosives as the sound tangled him in its web of soft melodies. Tessa stood there, playing quickly. The rats poked their heads out the ground, looking around towards her. They scurried, passing Spin as he stared at her in wonder. Once they crowded around her, she stopped playing and snapped her fingers. They whole lot died on the spot.
    Narrows jaw dropped. Spins’ eyes widened in horror and excitement. Tessa looked around, gave a bow, and walked off the field. The mass of rats turned into a puff of crimson smoke that floated into the sky and made a mall skull signature.
    “Freakin A,” Narrow whispered as Tessa passed him. “How did you-?”
    “Secret of the trade,” Tessa smirked. She walked away quickly, thinking hard of the long time she would have to sleep after the performance.