The birds chirp happily in the trees for there's not a cloud in the sky. Such a nice day.

A woman sits on a park bench with a black cat upon her lap as a child races past. The woman glances over to the child and curls the corners of her mouth in contempt. Oh what it would be like to be young again. The woman raises her left hand and gently strokes the cat, watching as the child vanishes in the distance.

The child dashed into the school just in time for the bell to ring.

Late

The child sighs and walks to their locker, upset.

"Oh lookee what we've got here boys." A voice sounds from behind the child as she opens her locker. She sighs and turns to face the stranger behind her.

"What do you want Paul?" The girl crosses her arms as she leans upon her right leg, she rolls her eyes with disgust upon seeing the boy's face.

"You're late, missy! And you know what that means?" A grin forms upon the boy's face as his tone becomes more threatening.

"I'm late?" She retorts, not really wanting to deal with Paul and his lackees at the moment.

"No!" Paul cries out, annoyed that she didn't play along with him. He pauses before speaking again. "Well, Yes. But not what I was gunna say." He demandingly explains himself.

"Well then, what were you going to say?" The child replies, annoyed that Paul was wasting her time and also causing her to be more late than if he hadn't interacted with her.

"Ugh." Paul grunts before shaking his head. "I was gunna say..." he stops for a moment, as though his train of thought had been derailed. "It means I can do this!" He recovers quickly and lunges towards her with his arms outstretched in front of him. Quickly, he latches onto her bag and tears it out of her locker.

"Hey! Give that back!" The girl screams, jumping at the boy in an attempt to grab her bag back from him. He was much bigger than her, so it was also a lot harder than if they were they were the same size.

"Nope!" He pulls the bag away, just out of reach from his victim. "Finders keeers, losers weepers!" He cackles, holding the girl's bag high in the air where she cannot reach it.

"I said give back my bag!" She yells loudly, she lurches forward and slams her foot into his groin. The boy releases her bag and curls up while falling back, in pain.

"Mamma." He squeaks, holding his sausage area delicately while his legs are bent and raised in the air.

The girl catches her bag before sticking her tongue out at Paul.

"That's what you get for messing with my backpack!" She humps before returning to what she was doing before he interrupted her.

Unknown to her while she unpacks her books from her bag, Paul had recovered just as quickly as he did when his train of thought derailed and was now towering over her. Anger and revenge floods his eyes as his left hand thrusts towards the girl and slams her into her own locker.

"Ya shouldn't have done that missy." A growl bellows from him as he glares down upon his victim. The girl slides down against her locker as the wind was literally knocked from her.

She inhales deeply, her chest feels tight as a cough escapes her. Her eyes glance up at the boy in front of her just before he shoves his foot into her face.

"Now yah gotta pay for what you did." He squeezes her head against the lockers with his foot. "I'm not gunna stop till you apologize for what you done."

"Bawse. Don't you think you're going too far?" One of his lackeys pleads, gripping his hands together afraid of being caught.

"Yeah Bawse, you don't want to get caught an' then made to scrape all of the dried gum from the undersides of all them tables? Especially since we were the ones that put them there." The boy's other lackey also pleads for him to stop. Paul sighs and lifts his foot from the girl's face.

"Fine." He turns to face his boys.

"Big mistake." The girl coughs, propping herself up onto her arm. The boys turn to face her and the expressions on the lackies' faces beg the girl not to go on. But she does. "Once I'm done with you..." she slides up the wall of lockers till she is standing on her feet. "You'll be begging to be given the gum scraping punishment." The girl coughs into her hand and glances down at it, she does not react to the fact that the palm of her hand now held a scarlet liquid.

"Oi. Are you asking for a death wish?" Paul narrows his eyes towards the girl. His arms stand loosely by his sides as his hands ball up into fists.

"Yeah. I'm asking for your death as my wish." The girl says matter of factly, crossing her arms again while hiding her blood stained hand from the boy. Not wanting to give him the satisfaction of her being hurt from him.

Paul growls and throws his fist towards the girl's face. But she ducks which causes the boy's fist to slam into the closed locker door behind the girl.

"Agh!!" The boy calls out in pain as he recoils his fist back to him, he then glares at the girl with even more hatred and anger than he had before. "You're dead missy!"

"Gotta catch me first!" The girl then darts away from the boy, not wanting to be caught by him.

The boy and his lackies then follow after her, chasing her out of the school and down the street.

The bright blue sky from before was now dull and with grey clouds gathering over head. Crows caw from above, flying in the opposite direction of where the kids were running in.

The girl's heart pounds quickly as she runs, she doesn't bother to look behind her for she knows what awaits her if she stops running.

Death or even a fate worse than death.

The girl looks a head of her, searching for a place, any place where she can ditch the three boys and hopefully be free from her inevitable fate.

"When I get my hands on you, you'll be wishing that I stole your backpack back at school!" Paul yells towards the girl, he might've been bigger than her, but he was also slower than her by quite a bit. This left the girl about twenty metres of space between them.

"Yeah! You'll be wishing we stole your bag!" The boy's lackies yell after him, acting as an echo, mimicking most of what he said in the same or at least a similar tone.

"Shut up you two!" The boy rolls his eyes, since he was paying more attention to what his lackies were doing than where he was going, Paul does not see the tree in front of him and ends up running into it. His lackies stop to help their boss get back up onto his feet. The girl is able to increase her lead from them because of this incident.

Paul looks around before brushing the boy's off of him, he then points in front of him towards the girl up ahead who seemed to be getting smaller and smaller away from them the longer they stood around.

"After her you fools!" He yells, making his lackies jump before they all run after the girl once again.

The girl begins to huff and puff, she was running out of breath and was now desperately searching around for a place to hide.

There.

Her eyes fall upon the old school house, the building hadn't been in operation for years and some people had suspected it of being haunted. The girl didn't care anymore, it was her only option to safety.

She ran through the schoolyard and makes a B-line towards an old window that appears to be broken with a space just big enough for her petite child figure to fit through.

Without waiting another second, she scurries to a dark corner of the room and hides there while remaining as still as she can be.

Over her beating heart, the girl can just barely make out the sound of pounding feet striding by. The sound grows before dying down, as though the boys chasing her didn't know she was hiding there and continued by.

Finally free, the girl exhales and stands to explore the building. A jingle catches her attention and she follows after it, leading her into another room.

A woman stands in the centre of the room with a black cat in her arms. The woman wears a creepy yet loving smile before she parts her lips to speak.

"I've been waiting for you, Red."