Inspirational quote: Let no man pull you low enough to hate him.

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Lauriel came up even closer to Kieran, with a knife, Kieran screaming and then hyperventilating rather uncontrollably.

She then brought out a gun, aiming it towards Kieran's direction, placing it on his head.

She was about to pull the trigger but then stopped, laughed and just found everything downright hilarious.

"What's so funny?" Kieran hissed, really loudly, staring at a laughing misfit Lauriel.

She dropped the gun and knife, still continuously laughing, even though nothing, from Kieran's point of view, was funny.

"Dude! You should have seen the look on your face! I'm not really going to kill you, this was all a ludicrous prank."

Lauriel kept on laughing as Kieran yelled 'What?' for everyone in KOZAHKISTAN HEADQUARTERS to hear, and when he yelled that, that was when Dr Kozak came back in, winking at Kieran whilst Kieran stared abhorrently at him.

"What? Dr Kozak, you were in on this too?"

Dr Kozak nodded and shook his head at the same time. It looked bizarre.

"Well, yeah. Kind of. That's why I winked at you. I got Lauriel to pretend to be a serial killer to frighten you."

"But why?" Kieran was actually half ticked off now, he screamed like a little girl for nothing.

"To show you that there was another side to him," Lauriel replied for Dr Kozak, who wasn't bothered to say anything.

"So... let me get this straight. I failed the test basically, because I freaked out? And fell for your so called 'prank'?"

Dr Kozak shook his head.

"No. Not necessarily. And actually, there's no pass or. fail on this one."

"What?" Kieran echoed again, Lauriel just helplessly smiling at him.

"He means you can't 'pass' or 'fail' the test, silly," Lauriel sneered, using air quotes for the words pass and fail.

"Then what was the point of that flipping test?" Kieran demanded, fully screaming at both of them now.

Unlike Lauriel, Dr Kozak could actually tell that Kieran was a bit annoyed, but didn't say anything about it.

He placed a hand on Lauriel's shoulder, before drawing her closer to him, both of them still looking at Kieran for a long long time.

"Oh," they both answered simultaneously, then looked at each other, then at Kieran again. "We just wanted to see what your reaction would be like."

They answered the last part of their sentence together concurrently as well.

Kieran shot Dr Kozak a death glare, followed by Lauriel. Dr Kozak noticed the look that Kieran had given him straight away, although Lauriel didn't, but when Dr Kozak nudged her, she noticed as well.

"I'm going to go and use the restroom," he told them, still looking half exasperated at both of them. "I'll be back."

And after he said that, Kieran left.

Dr Kozak was making a run for it as well, claiming that he needed to go somewhere, but he then stopped when Lauriel had abruptly called his name for everyone in the headquarters to hear her.

"Dr Kozak..." Lauriel trailed off.

Dr Kozak stopped walking, turning backwards to look at her. He came closer to her before saying anything else.

"Yeah..."

Lauriel did not hesitate to say her next sentence. She wanted to get this out of the way as soon as possible.

"Can I talk to you in private about something?"

Unsurprisingly, Dr Kozak didn't reply straight away, because he was just looking at her longingly. Although after a while, he nodded, so Lauriel took his hand and walked more into the room.

"Of course you can. You can talk to me about anything Lauriel. What's up?"

Lauriel didn't reply, just kept on continuously looking at Dr Kozak. Dr Kozak genuinely looked everywhere but at her face.

"Oh you said in private."

Leaving Lauriel behind, Dr Kozak left her, looking around for a more confidential place. He eventually found one, so came closer to the door although for some reason, it was jammed.

It took Dr Kozak a while to realise why, before coming back to Lauriel again.

"Crud. That room's locked. Guess we'll just have to talk here then. What's up?"

Lauriel seemed to be having a panic attack. She was hyperventilating uncontrollably, still looking at Dr Kozak for a long time. Plus, her whole body seemed to be frozen as well, by the looks of it.

Dr Kozak was just looking at her, a little bit worried and confused at first. He tried to get her attention again by frantically waving his left hand literally right in front of her face.

"Er... You okay?" Dr Kozak wanted to know, sounding a little bit worked up.

"Yeah I'm fine." Lauriel lied, where Dr Kozak couldn't help but look at her even more and longer than last time.

"I'm low key worried about you." He whispered to her. "You don't look okay. Although what did you want to talk about?"

Lauriel practically blurted out her next answer, and Dr Kozak had to ask her to repeat it because she had talked that quickly.

"I just wanted to apologise."

Dr Kozak raised an eyebrow at her.

"Apologise for what?" He asked, rather resentfully, doing the signature move of examining his fingernails.

"Cheating in the perilous obstacle course test."

Dr Kozak just looked at her as though she was crazy, then looked away instantaneously.

"I know you cheated Lauriel." Was all he ever really told her.

"Yes I know you know. But you don't know why. There was a pathway opposite section five which skipped both sections six and seven so I went straight through it of course."

Dr Kozak was a bit surprised.

"Oh. Thanks. Didn't realise. Thanks for telling me. Did you go on your own?"

Lauriel shook her head vigorously.

"No. Anastasia came with me."

Dr Kozak's face became annoyed when he heard Anastasia's name, as having one person cheat was bad enough, let alone two.

"Anastasia came with you as well?"

Lauriel nodded.

"Yep. And it was her idea as well."

Dr Kozak genuinely couldn't stop staring at her now. His face was fully red, mainly of lividness rather than embarrassment, embarrassment because he didn't know about the pathway that made people cheat in the perilous obstacle course test.

"So you weren't lying when you told me that Anastasia-"

"Nope." Lauriel interrupted.

Silence between both of them for a while.

"Thanks. I'll try and fix it by the end of the week."

Lauriel didn't reply.

There genuinely was no reply.

"I'm still kind of mad at you though because you cheated." Dr Kozak added quickly, too quick enough to make Lauriel even more infuriated than before.

Lauriel lost it next. Completely lost it.

One would have thought that Dr Kozak and Lauriel got along really well but what Lauriel had said next had pretty much changed all of that forever.

"Okay! That's it! I'm sorry if this sounds really rude Dr Kozak but... I've absolutely had it."

Dr Kozak became even more annoyed than last time.

"Had it with what? What the heck are you talking about, Lauriel?"

"You!" Lauriel echoed, pointing at Dr Kozak. Dr Kozak just stared at the finger that was currently pointing at him, before slowly putting it down and glaring at Lauriel.

"I don't know what you're talking about." He told her quietly.

Lauriel's next response was technically a vexed scream that was mainly targeted towards Dr Kozak's direction.

"You made up a very dangerous test hoping people would survive. You included dinosaurs, elephants and tarantulas that rip people's eyes out, and a dinosaur that eats people. What kind of test is that? Do you want to demolish people's lives forever? People had high expectations. They probably wanted to live to be ninety, and then they died at seventeen. And it's all your fault."

Dr Kozak remained pretty nonchalant, unlike Lauriel.

"Seventeen year olds never took this test kid, and-"

"Shut up and let me finish talking."

Once again, Dr Kozak was shaken. Why? He didn't really know how to reply to that, plus Lauriel had never really shouted at him before.

It was usually the other way around.

"Jeez, Lauriel. Calm down, why don't you?" His hands were in the air now.

Lauriel was melodramatically throwing a tantrum at Dr Kozak right now.

"No I will not calm down. You're the reason for so many people's deaths Dr Kozak. And you don't even care about it either. And why would you give a test to eleven year olds that involves fire? They're barely even in secondary school!"

Dr Kozak came up even closer to Lauriel, screaming at her back as well, even though he kind of lost his voice.

"You know nothing. Okay? Your brain is telling you crazy things. Or do you even have one? No, you don't. So stop having a go at me and jumping to conclusions, you're ticking me off. You don't know everything about me, you know."

Lauriel was probably way better at arguing than Dr Kozak was. Luckily, no one was in the room, so no one could tell them off, tell them to stop shouting, or in Lauriel's case, tell her to calm down because she was clearly screaming the most.

"Yeah well maybe you deserve to be ticked off Dr Kozak! And the most cliche thing out of all of this? It's just to see if someone could become a spy."

Dr Kozak and Lauriel threw each other the stink eye at the exact same time.

"Stop being contemptuous to me. I make up these tests because I need spies, as in people who are rebellious and do anything it takes. I don't want people that back down and give up, or lazy people like you that don't even try. And truth be told, you were actually one of my closest friends in KOZAHKISTAN HEADQUARTERS and I never thought we'd be in an argument like this. But I was clearly wrong! You're the worst person I've ever met."

"You know what?" Lauriel ranted. "I hate you. You're the most egotistical person in the world."

Dr Kozak knew exactly what to say back. His scream was so loud that people across the other side of the world could hear it, let alone everyone in KOZAHKISTAN HEADQUARTERS.

"Sorry but I'm egotistical?" Dr Kozak
pointed to himself. "What about you? You let me carry you over 7,000 steps just because you were too lazy to walk. Think of what you want to say before you say it."

Lauriel honestly could have been a lawyer when she grew up. With a voice that blatant, she could have had the entire world shaking in ages.

"I wasn't too lazy to walk, I couldn't walk anyway because of godforsaken Agent Valentina. And your test half made me paralysed, sir. Plus it's your fault for being stupid and not using your teleporter like a wise person would."

"I've had enough. You are driving me crazy, do not talk to me again otherwise you won't become a spy. And I won't pay you either."

Lauriel rolled her eyes in disbelief then hollered even more at him.

"I never wanted to anyway! Who cares about money! That's like the only thing you care about Dr Kozak! You're the most selfish person I've ever met. You only care about people's deaths, and when they were alive they mean nothing to you. And thank god my mother divorced you. You aren't worth it. You might as well have been born on a highway, because that's where most accidents happen."

Dr Kozak didn't reply.
He couldn't.
Straight away anyway.

"You don't know everything about me, for goodness sake, so shut up!"

Tears were stinging his eyes.

Genuinely.

Dr Kozak never usually cried unless someone close to him had recently died, someone brought up a dead person he was close to, or someone said something that was so impolite to him that there was physically no answer that was even more impolite than what they had said.

Dr Kozak went with the third option because as far as he knew, no one had died recently.

All except Agent Mordecai.
And Kieran.
Kind of.

"You're annoying me ..." Dr Kozak told her in exasperation after a while, his face still red as he was removing the tears from his eyes.

Luckily, his colour blindness glasses blocked the fact that he may or may not have been crying, even though Lauriel had unfortunately noticed this.

"Dude are you crying? I thought you were an adult. Adults don't cry. Do you want me to start teasing you about it? See, even I'm not crying!"

Dr Kozak went mentally insane. The reason why he was crying wasn't predominant or indispensable right now. Plus men had to cry once in a while didn't they?

"Get out."

Lauriel just scoffed at him, Dr Kozak annoyingly looking at her.

"Why should I? Dr Narcissistic Kozak." She teased, making Dr Kozak wanting to scream at her.

So he did, of course.

"GET OUT!"

That was how annoyed he was.

Dr Kozak wasn't buying it. He was fully infuriated, and nothing could calm him down. Lauriel just glanced at him, before turning to leave.

"Fine then. Bye."

For some reason, Doctor Kozak had called her back, despite telling her just now to 'get out'.

"Oh. And Lauriel?"

Lauriel popped her head around the door in confusion, Dr Kozak taking deep breaths to try and at least calm himself down.

"I thought you wanted me to get out."

"Yeah I know I did but found out your secret."

Silence. Until Lauriel remembered that it was her cue to reply.

"What is it then, idiot?"

Dr Kozak said his next response without any moment's hesitation whatsoever.

"You killed my chicken and pterodactyl during the perilous obstacle course test. Did you not read the sign about killing animals during the perilous obstacle course test?"

Lauriel scoffed once again.

"Yeah. Well, it's too late. I've already killed it. The past is the past sir. What are you going to do? Punish me, let me not become a spy? Your punishments are so lame and-"

And as Lauriel was talking, Dr Kozak progressively lost interest, as he was mainly looking at a black, mysterious shiny object on the floor.

He looked at it quickly, then at Lauriel for a long long time, then at it on the floor again.

Making sure that Lauriel wasn't looking, Dr Kozak rapidly picked the object up, placing it behind his back.

And just in time too.

"What? You're not even listening!"

"I am! Carry on ranting about me." Dr Kozak lied, hiding the object behind him at all times.

He squinted to see her, and without thinking about it, he pointed the object towards Lauriel's direction when she wasn't looking, before deliberately pulling something, again when she wasn't properly looking.

Gunshot!

"Probably shouldn't have worn white shorts, Lauriel."

Dr Kozak had watched Lauriel's body land slowly and gracefully on the floor, blood pouring out immediately.

Because there and then.
He did something illegal.

For Dr Kozak had just illegitimately killed Lauriel.

End Of Part One...

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Moral of chapter: Never jump to conclusions about anything like Lauriel did before Dr Kozak had killed her.