User: TheGirlWithHair

It had been two days since school started, two days since the death of the boy. June, my sister had called. "Checking in," she claimed, but I knew what she really wanted. To see if I knew anything else. June had always been dramatic, and definitely a dreamer, but this was pushing it.

Accidents happen I kept telling myself, but I couldn't shake the feeling that there was something more at work here. To keep myself from such dark thoughts, I got busy. Filing medical histories, making a list of students who required daily medication, keeping tabs on the students with chronic issues, doing anything I could do to distract myself. The once dusty, dirty room was looking more inviting; much more like a school nurse's office and considerably less like a morgue. But after two full days of cleaning, I had nothing to do.

I sat in my chair holding a National Geographic magazine. My eyes were looking at it, but they were unfocused, deep in thought. While in college, they never talked about deaths in school. How could anyone have prepared for this? For some reason, I couldn't shake the feeling that Nicoli's death was my fault. I was the one on Camus with the most medical training. If I had been closer to him when he died-

Then I remembered the news reports. His neck snapped on impact, killing him instantly. There was nothing I could've done. Thinking about what I could've done better when there was nothing to do in the first place was only going to stress me out more, and having this much stress at a new job fresh out of college was not a desirable thing, nor was it going to help anyone.

The only thing I could do now was to protect the students from further accidents.

Just then, there was a quiet knock on the door, interrupting me from my thoughts.

"Come in," I called, putting the magazine on the desk. The door was pushed open and two girls entered, one clearly supporting the other. "What happened?" I took ahold of the shaky girl's arm gently and sat her down on a cot.

"We were in science, right? And some we were doing some sort of chemistry thing, you know? So we start combing the chemicals into this glass thing, and then when it was all mixed up, she just," the standing girl clapped her hands together, "wham! She just smashed her head on the table. It was really weird." I looked through my files, finding the girl's medical history. I scanned the paper for any kind of allergy. Nothing.

"Do you know chemicals you used?" I asked, looking up.

The girl thought for a moment before shaking her head. "No idea. Just the one that the teacher gave us." I looked over at the other girl. She was pale and shivering, a cold sweat made her face shine in the fluorescent light.

"Alright. Thank you," I nodded to the first girl. "You may go back to class now." She smiled and waved, closing the door behind her. I took the girl's temperature, which was a low-grade fever. I looked down her throat, which seemed fine. She didn't have any chronic illnesses that I knew of. I was baffled.

I looked at the clock sitting on my desk. Hours had passed. It was getting close to dinner time, and I had no idea what the cause of the girl's sudden illness was.

"Listen, you just rest here." I told her. "What kind of painkillers do you usually take? Ibuprofen? Advil?"

"Advil," she murmured weakly. I went over to the counter and got two pills and a small cup of water.

"Take these and just try to sleep." I hand them to her and lose a curtain around her. I go back to my desk and begin looking at her file once more.

I was interrupted once more by another student, only this time instead of knock, they threw the door open. A boy stood in the doorway, hair blown all over, panic in his eyes.

"Can I help you?" I asked, unsure of what was the matter.

"Another one's died!" He said.

"What?" I gasped.

"Her name was Beth Rose. Her throat's been slit. Dead for an hour they say."