just checking something out

don't mind me im just trying to see how long my story is for now. read it if you want idc but that's not thepoint of this question lmfao. i was just thinking about how long it would look like as a a question on mangago. this was copy pasted from google docs btw


What time is it? she looked around the room feeling nauseous and sleepy. She was sitting in class, hearing the teacher speak about things she couldn’t understand. The information was coming into one ear and leaving out of the other. Everything around her was moving too fast. What is happening? she wondered. She tried falling asleep but the sound of her classmates talking was very disturbing. She’d only slept about two hours last night. She had only only slept three the night before,, and the night before that, and the night before that, and so on. Sleep was a foreign language to her.
Diane had just about enough for today. She was surprisingly even more tired than usual, the world around her was moving way too fast. She couldn’t keep up. Diane was a very slow person. She’d often feel weird when things went too fast. She was always looking very sleepy and never managed to find the time to rest, even at home. This sleep-like trance she was constantly in never actually bothered Diane, she liked how she was going, she liked how slowly she was moving around. It felt calming to her. Calming to her, but annoying to others. Soon enough she had to find a way to speed up a little. It was not long before she discovered what caffeine was. She got addicted quickly. Now, she can’t go a day without drinking at least two cups every morning. She got very addicted fast, but the coffee has not helped her much. She still goes at a lower than average pace.
It was only eleven o’clock, so how was she so tired? Maybe it was because she forgot to drink coffee and stopped being used to her slow pace? Maybe she didn’t get to sleep the night before? Either way, she isn’t the type to open up to others so easily. Except to one person and that person happened to be sitting right in front of her in class.
“Hey, are you alright? You’re not looking too well. You need some time to rest?”
Diane lifted her chin and locked eyes with the person. A girl, tanned skin, freckles just about everywhere and dyed soft pink hair. The girl had a dangling earring with a little furr frog swinging at the bottom. It was hypnotising, it was beautiful. It also happened to be homemade.
“Class is almost over anyway, you’re lucky the teacher didn’t catch you taking a nap! Wouldn’t have looked good on the report card” she giggled. “Come on get up we’ve got to get to lunch.”.
Diane sighed, letting her head fall back into her arms. She gathered her things and followed the girl to the canteen. They usually eat out but they happened to forget both of their allowance today. At least they reserved the night before just in case. Diane didn’t care, she was too tired to walk anywhere outside the school.
Upon arriving at the canteen, they sat down near the wall of windows giving in to the school’s pool. They were at a very rich private french school after all, so it would make sense for it to have a pool. Don’t you think?
“Diane what did you even do last night to end up like this?” the girl asked concerned for her friend. “Usually, you’re a bit faster than this, but right now, I bet a dried up slug could go faster than you.”
Diane mumbled under her breath, too tired to speak up.
“What?” She tilted her head, in confusion.
“I didn’t have time to drink coffee today, i think.” Diane answered almost falling asleep before slamming her head on the table. “Oh oh! That hurts, it hurts so bad!" she weeped, holding her hands where she hit herself.
“I guess now, you’re awake. Good for you, good for you.” the girl bursted out laughing, drinking her cup of water in a sarcastic manner.
“Oh shut it, it’s not funny besides, your napkins are all wet.”
the girl looked down at her plate. Diane was right, her napkins were flooded.
“Oh, well that’s always better than hitting yourself on the head!” the pink haired girl pestered.
The girl continued teasing Diane about her being so slow, even comparing her to a hundred year old tortoise.
Diane didn’t have many friends in this school, maybe only Camille, the girl she was talking to right now. She wasn’t new to the school either. She’d been going to this same school since kindergarten and was not planning on changing anytime soon. Well, her parents were partly forcing her to stay, and Diane rarely argues. Camille’s only been here since second grade. They met at Diane’s six year old birthday party, which also happened to be Camille’s birthday. Diane and Camille were born on the first of January 2000, and have always celebrated their birthdays together. They were inseparable, literally. Diane didn’t know a lot about Camille’s family, she just knew Camille hated them and barely mentioned them. Diane had been to Camille’s house once but didn’t get to step a foot in it. The house was very pretty, looked very modern and stylized. Diane didn’t get to see anything else very clearly but she still remembers seeing a suspicious car pull into the driveway right after her and Camille left. She could have swore the driver had a fire-arm. She asked Camille about it multiple times but would always get cut off. It seemed Camille was hiding something, and didn’t want her or anyone to find out.
After lunch, Camille and Diane decided to skip class because she wasn’t keeping up and felt very weak. At first, Diane kept begging her to let her stay but Camille didn’t want to and prefered to bring her home. Diane kept insisting, not wanting to go back home, but suddenly remembered something and told Camille it was ok to bring her home. The bus ride was long, and Diane fell asleep multiple times on Camille shoulders. The road was bumpy and she couldn’t find a good place to slumber peacefully. Diane doesn’t take the bus, but didn’t want to call her chauffeur. Yes, because she has a chauffeur. Diane’s family is rich, very rich.
When they got to Diane’s house, Camille noticed the gates were already open and none of the guards were standing by the gate . Such a thing was weird, Diane’s house was always well guarded. She was sleeping standing up and just wanted to go to bed. Her house was about a hundred meters from the gate. If you wanted to actually be in front of her door, you’d have to walk through a small circular forest, leading to the parking space in front of the house. Her house was enormous, very imposing. It was so large you could see it from an airplane. This was quite a situation right now, Diane had no intention of walking a hundred meters just to be inside her house. Curse you, parent’s revenue! she silently argued. Camille was dragging Diane’s lifeless body to the front door, complaining that her friend was so lazy. Camille complained for such a long time, she hadn’t realized they were already there.
Camille was ready to open the door, she had the keys and the maids knew who she was. Instead of seeing a dark oak three foot tall door, a swarm of news reporters were surrounding her house, hiding that beautiful and grandiose entrance. Normally, this would happen once or twice a year when her mom would drop a new product for her fragrance company. When these types of situations would happen, Diane would take a short cut to the back door or even just stay in one of the house-workers' homes on the property, in order to not catch anyone’s attention. One of the biggest rules in the Hoffman house was for Diane to never be seen by the paparazzi. The mob of journalists was three times larger than normal. Thankfully, Camille knew about the protocol, but the paparazzi had already spotted them long ago. They had no other choice but to walk straight into the crowd, hoping they wouldn’t get too bombarded by questions.
“Hey, how did you get in here?” Camille yelled to catch their attention. “What are you people doing here? Could you please get out? You’re blocking the way, she needs to get in.”
“Miss, do you work here? Is there a way we can get a hold of Mr Hoffman? It’s very urgent” someone from the crowd questioned.
Camille was offended, there were dozens of cameras pointed at her and Diane, three people talking at the same time, it was mere chaos. Camille tried her best to push the camera’s away from them.
“I don’t work here.” she answered. “I’m just here to bring my friend home, so could you please, for the love of God almighty, get out of the way?”
“We can’t leave until we get an express interview with Mr Hoffman! It is beyond important, if he doesn’t address the situation, it could put his name in jeopardy!” a young blond haired reporter mentioned.
"What sort of situation? Is there something wrong with Mr Hoffman?”
“Mr Hoffman has been accused of sexual assault by three of his co-workers”.
Diane was not sleeping but the words people were mouthing were complete nonsense to her. She had absolutely no idea what was going on. She just knew they were at her house and could quite fully understand what was going on. She was hearing Camille arguing with the hoard of people at the front door. She started dreaming about her sleeping nicely in her bed, trying to remember how soft it was. She almost never sleeps in it. Sometimes, she forgets she even has one. She’s too busy doing something else at night, trying her best to stay awake. Her pupils were starting to get heavy and eventually, all the disturbing sounds vanished. She was knocked out cold.
When Diane woke up, Camille was sitting at the foot of her bed, checking on her. She had a wet cloth on her forehead. She took a quick glance around her room, didn’t say a word, closed her eyes and went back to sleep.
“Not so fast ma’am” Camille shook Diane awake. “It’s four in the afternoon, you’ve been sleeping too long. Go get something to eat, i’ll wait downstairs”
Diane stretched her limbs, this was the most sleep she’s had in days. Four hours is not a lot, but to her, it was like a week of constant rest. She was still tired though...
“I’m not hungry, I just want to sleep”
“What? You didn’t even touch your plate back there! Are you sure you’re not hungry? Not even a little bit?” Diane shook her head “yes”. Camille let out a loud exhale. “Alright, but I’m quite surprised, you slept four hours and still wish to go back to sleep? What kind of person are you?”
“I’m a human being, everyone is constantly tired.” Diane was starting to get sleepy again. Her sentences sounded like incoherent grumbles.
“Just because I happen to be very hyper-active does not mean I am less of a human being than you, Diane!” Camille stood up from the bed, her arms crossed, looking like an angry kid.
Diane sighed, this would happen often. Camille had a short temper and would get mad very easily. That too wouldn’t last long. Not even thirty seconds of complete silence later, she was already done being mad at her friend.
“Did you make me sleep in my shoes?” Diane asked calmly.
“Not to worry. I took them off when we got in the house.” Camille casually smiled, she was digging through a pile of freshly cleaned clothing, sorting the pants from the t-shirts and the sweatshirts from the dresses.
Diane slowly took the damp towel off her forehead, put it on the nightstand next to her and with a bit of a struggle she managed to sit up.
“Hey Camille, was this always wet?” she asked, quite intrigued. “It looks flooded”.
“Oh, you did that! At first I’d only wet it a little bit because I saw you were sweating and seemed to have a fever. Sooner than expected, you damped the towel so much I could’ve mistaken it for the Pacific Ocean!” Camille answered while folding some of Diane’s laundry.
Diane looked at Camille, wondering what clothes she was folding.
“Hey, I was wondering where you got those clothes you’ve been fold-”
Diane stopped, looked down and realized she only had a bra on. Since when? She hadn’t realized she was barely wearing anything.
“What in the world?” she gasped. She looked back at Camille, who was trying hard not to laugh. “Hey! This isn’t funny, why am I shirtless?”
“Not only are you wearing nothing but your underwear, your bed is soaking with sweat. Diane I think you might be very sick. When you were sleeping, It seemed like you were having a very bad nightmare. You were crying, sweating, tossing, turning, out of breath. I almost called the hospital. You were scaring me! I didn’t know what to do so I took your wet clothes off and washed them. I’ve been waiting for you to wake up ever since. You looked like you were in pain. I almost bathed you but felt like you’d just wake up and yell at me for doing that.” Camille explained, finishing the laundry she was folding.
“Still, you could’ve just called a maid or something! I don’t want you to see me wearing nothing but a stupid bra!” Diane’s head was hurting, she was still having a hard time creating sentences without having the sudden urge to fall back to sleep. Her being barely dressed in front of her best friend was uncomfortable. She wouldn’t have cared but the fact that Camille was the one who undressed her disturbed her the most. She didn’t know what to feel about this. She was kind of happy she had a friend like Camille, a friend who cared deeply, a friend who she knew would always be there for her, wherever she needed her. Yet this bothered her more than anything.
Camille tossed a pile of new clothes on to Diane’s bed. They weren’t pyjamas. It was a dress with other out-going accessories. Diane looked confused, what was this about?
“Go take a shower, wash your hair too, I need to change your bed sheets.” Camille said as she was adjusting the temperature of the shower for Diane.
“Why aren’t you giving me my pyjamas? What’s going on?”
“Did you forget? You’ve got a date with Elliot today! He's been talking about it for days.” Camille shouted from the bathroom as the water was silencing her voice.
Diane sighed. She completely forgot about that. In fact, for a brief moment, she forgot she even was in a relationship. She didn’t feel like going, she was too tired to even get up. She just wanted to go back to bed.
“Hey, aren’t you going in? The shower temperature’s perfect! I made it as you like it!” Camille paused, she felt something was off. “Are you ok? Do you still feel sick? Do you want me to call him and say you won’t come?”
Diane nodded. She took the last bit of strength she had and dragged herself to the bathroom. Camille mentioned she had left a fresh pair of pyjamas in there for her. She was too tired to get up. She just wanted to stay in bed. She didn’t mind sleeping in her sweat, she was just too tired to do anything.
Camille was arguing with Elliot on the phone. He seemed mad, He was yelling at her to convince Diane to come. Apparently Diane had been postponing their dates for weeks. When Camille tried to confront Diane, she dove straight into the shower locking herself in. She wasn’t ready to talk with Elliot. They had been together since middle school. They used to be the school sweethearts. Diane still remembers those days when She was with him all the time, although she wished she didn’t.
“Hey! Get out of there, he really wants to speak with you!” Camille banged on the bathroom door. “What’s gotten into you lately? You’re sleepier than usual, you’re never focused, you seem out of place, you never talk about what’s going on in your life...Diane, speak to me! What’s wrong?”
There was a long pause, ending with Camille apologizing for Diane, stating that she wouldn’t be able to make it to their date, before hanging up on a frustrated Elliot. She sighed, sat on the floor, her back pressed on the bathroom door.
“You haven’t started taking your shower and I’m already done changing your sheets.”
“Why do you always treat me like a kid?” Diane suddenly asked. “I don’t need you to do everything for me.”
“I do it because I care about my friend, and you’re my friend. If you aren’t happy about me caring for you, speak up and say it.” Camille said, menacingly.
“I’m not a kid, I can do these things myself.”
“Maybe you’d rather have your incompentant parents do it?” the girl said, throwing her hands in the air. “ I may not know alot about how it’s going between you and your family, but I have enough evidence to state that it isn’t going too well. So if you’d just please excuse me for caring, maybe one day I’ll try and stop for your own good. I know you aren’t a kid, but you’ve never acted like one either. You’re still fifteen, learn to not act too mature for your age.”
Diane was standing up, her head tilted on the door. She had her shower products in arms, ready to clean herself. Camille was right about everything, Diane was not happy about her caring. She didn’t want her best friend to worry as much as she did. Diane was not ok, but she didn’t need her friend to put too much thought into her. A tear fell down Diane’s face. Diane quickly wiped it before getting into the shower. As soon as the water ran down her face, more tears started to come. She was crying, but the sound of her taking a shower was hiding her little wimps of sadness. She was tired, tired of everything. She didn’t feel like going to school anymore, didn’t feel like being productive. It was as if everything she did was forced. She hated it, she hated the way people treated her. She hated the way her parents treated her the most, her father especially. He was abusive in all sorts of ways. He never truly cared about Diane, and even stated himself that he’d never accept her as his daughter. He had a decent brand to his name, being the owner of a medical equipment company, yet no one knew he had a daughter. They didn’t know he had a daughter because he’d never tell anyone. In fact, all questions mentioning him supposedly having one in interviews were always skipped or completely cut-off by Mr Hoffman. He hated Diane with a burning passion. Everyday, he’d wait for her to come home from school to unleash his anger at her. He’d insult her, degrade her, hit her...There was no stopping him. It would go on for hours and hours. Diane had to find a way to protect herself in her room, so she would stay awake as long as possible until her dad went to bed. This would leave her with little to no time for sleep. This was why she was always so tired and had a slow pace. Her father was not here today, and wouldn’t come till tomorrow noon, just like each Friday night. Diane was glad, she could finally get a good night sleep for the week.
Diane stepped out of the bathroom wearing the pyjamas Camille had left for her there. She looked around her room, not seeing Camille. She wondered when she had left but didn’t really seem to care that much about it. She let out a long sigh as she sat on her bed. It felt comfortable, very comfortable. Diane was ready to sleep. As she closed her eyes, she imagined herself finally leaving her family.
Diane opened her eyes and looked at the clock placed on her bed side table, it was eight in the morning. On a saturday morning in Diane’s house, you had to wait till eight thirty to hear the accolade of loud house cleaning resonating between the walls of the mansion. The house was huge, enough to fit hundreds, maybe even thousands of people in it. The Hoffman's property was large. They had a main house and other small houses for their house workers next to it. It was no funny business. Nobody knew how rich Diane was, except for Camille. Diane was quite the nobody at school. They only knew her as “Elliot’s girlfriend”, “Camille’s quiet best friend”, the “sleep-walker”, the “so-called high-school sweet-heart”. Nobody hated Diane, they just didn’t know what to make of her. They knew literally nothing about her. Diane was fine with it, she didn’t need the whole world to know how rich her family was. Her parents rarely did interviews and both of them have never mentioned Diane being their daughter. She liked being unknown.
Diane sat down to watch the morning news, as she’d regularly do every Saturday morning. There wasn’t anything interesting to see so she decided to grab herself breakfast. Her breakfast consisted of a cup of coffee, a breakfast sandwich, and a donut. A very, “americanized meal” as Camille would say. She went back to the living room to eat in front of the TV. An ad was playing, it was for her mother’s newest product: a new perfume scent for men. A couple of minutes passed by and the ads were finally over. When the news channel got back on the air, Diane instantly recognized her house. She wondered what happened, not knowing anything about this. The reporting was filmed the day before, around noon, when Camille brought Diane home from school. Her heart started beating a little faster, she didn’t understand why, there was nothing to fear. Or so she thought…
The news reporters on the sight were a mix of paparazzi and journalists, wanting to meet Diane’s dad for an express interview on his thoughts about three of the sexual assault claims made by his female co-workers. Diane didn’t really seem to care that much about it, she didn’t care about what her dad did and knew that he also didn’t care. She was done with her breakfast, and was ready to go out and meet up with Camille to go spend the rest of her saturday. As she was walking to the kitchen, Diane heard a familiar voice coming out of the speakers. It was Camille’s.
“I’m just here to bring my friend home, so could you please, for the love of God almighty, get out of the way?”
Diane slowly turned around, seeing both her and her friend on national television. Her heart skipped a beat, she almost fainted. Camille never told her about this? Camille never mentioned a group of paparazzi filming them going home? What was going? Diane was freaking out. Was the world already stating her as being Mr Hoffman’s daughter? This was not good. She then remembered the faint words she heard from the night before, the crowd of people at the front door, Camille arguing with those same people from the crowd. Was this what that was all about? Diane had not realized yet but the plates and mug she was holding had fallen on the floor into pieces. One of the maids quickly helped Diane clean the mess she had made. Diane was too shocked to say anything, do anything, feel anything.
She ran back to her room and locked herself in. She was having a panic attack. She broke the rule, broke it so harshly she was certain the entire world knew about her existence. Diane surfed the web, trying to find out what others were saying about her, trying to convince herself that only a small handful of people had seen that news report. Every trending hashtag was about her. The “mysterious girl”, the “supposed Hoffman daughter”, the “ weird girl from the news”. Everyone knew. Absolutely everyone. Diane’s worst nightmare had come true. Every breath she’d take felt like a stab in the chest. She was crying, scared of what her dad might do if he found out about these shenanigans.
Diane had gone out of her house to meet with her friend. She was hesitant at first, scared of having people stalk her or follow her around asking for questions she didn’t know the answer to. As soon as she saw Camille, Diane ran up to her and slapped her as hard as she could.
“Oh, what the hell?” Camille yelled out. “ What is wrong with you? Why are you crying?”
Diane’s face was in tears, she was hyperventilating, she was scared. She wanted answers, and quickly.
“Why didn’t you tell me about those paparazzis at my house? Why didn’t you tell me about them?”
“How do you even know about those people? You were sleeping, I thought it wouldn’t matter since I pushed them away and tried my best not to answer their invading questions.” Camille tried to calm Diane down, with no good result.
“I saw everything on TV! You did a shit job at blocking the cameras! Now the whole world knows who I really am! Are you happy about that?” Diane cried.
“What? Oh come on, I tried so hard to scare them away…”
Camille felt bad, she didn’t know how to calm Diane down for good. They sat down on a bench near a park, Diane still in a state of pure horror. Camille was wondering why she was behaving like this. She’s never seen her in this situation.
“Hey, stop that! You’re hurting yourself” Camille slapped Diane’s hands away from her fingernails. She was ripping the skin around them off. She was bleeding, it was not a very good look.
“Why are you acting like this? Are you scared about what people at school might think of you? They don’t care Diane! They’ve probably already figured out you were rich considering where you go to school! I don’t even understand what you're so scared of!”
“I don’t care about what people will think of me at school! I’m scared of my dad! About what he might do to me when he comes home from work!” Diane’s face was pale, she was sweating like crazy. For a brief moment, you could only hear her breathing. Camille was speechless. Diane had not told her about her true relationship with her dad. She’d only mention how she didn’t enjoy her dad’s company. Her not telling Camille how she was doing was kind of her way to get back at her friend for not saying anything about her family. Camille squatted to be at a lower eye level than Diane, holding her face in her hands.
“Calm down. You’ve got nothing to fear right now. Your dad isn’t here and no one’s been walking around this park. I don’t know what’s going on at home, and if you don’t want to tell me that’s fine, but you’ve got to calm down. We're going to get something to eat before we go to our weekly Saturday activities, and I’ll bring you home around eight. Is that ok with you?”
“Why can’t I just stay at your house for once?” Diane looked at Camille, her flashy green eyes filled with tears, tears of fear. Diane was not sad, she was scared, petrified, horrified. “You’ve never let me set a foot in your house, why won’t you let me in it? Do you hate me? Is there something you’re hiding from me? I’ve known you for years and I still have no idea what your room looks like.” Diane stopped, she was out of breath. Every phrase she’d say would take twice the time because of her hyperventilating. “You can clearly see that I am in a state of distress and won’t let me come over. I’ve only seen the outside of your home, never the inside. Is this some profound philosophy you’re making? About how I only know who you are on the outside but not on the inside?”
Camille was biting her lip, she was biting it too hard. It was as if she wanted to tell Diane something but was stopping herself from doing so. She stood up without saying a word and looked down at her friend.
“I’m sorry. I can’t. Not today.” Her hair covering her light yellow eyes. Camille looked defeated. Diane had never seen her like this. She could hear the pain in her voice. She could sense Camille really wanted to bring her home. Yet, she persisted and refused to do it. Those actions were contrary to her true feelings, Diane thought. Camille walked away from Diane, with her head facing the ground. She did not turn her back once and kept walking.
“What happened to you caring?” Diane yelled out from behind her. She’d been following her until she reached the gates of the park. “I thought you cared. Why won’t you care when I need you to?”
Camille turned around with a look of pain in her eyes. Diane knew she didn’t want to do this to her. She knew that someone was preventing her from saying anything. Camille glared at Diane, and mouthed the words “I am sorry.” before leaving her all alone.
Diane headed home, as soon as possible, praying to God her father hadn’t arrived yet or had not checked the news in the last twenty-four hours. Upon arriving at her house, she saw her mother’s car in the driveway. She was relieved to see it was her, although she hated her mom as much as her Dad. Her mom knew about how he was treating her, and would constantly turn a blind eye. She once told her daughter that she was exaggerating and her father only does that because he loved her. Diane hates her for it, because she knows her dad beats his wife too. Diane thinks her mom is a weak being and does not know how to defend herself. She thinks her mom is naive and easily manipulated by her husband. When she got to the front door, a wretched gut feeling overcame her body. Her hand on the doorknob, she wiped the remaining tears off her face, took a deep breath and headed inside.
“Diane get out!” her mother yelled out before getting hit in the head and falling on the ground. Diane locked eyes with her dad, who had the most horrifying look. Diane was not afraid of anything but him. There was nobody else in the world that could scare her as much as he did. It hadn’t been a second since Diane opened the door that her father was already face to face with her. He slapped her. The slap was so profound, Diane started bleeding out of her nose.
“Who said you were allowed to look at me, child?” Her dad furiously grabbed her face. He was holding her too tightly, Diane could feel his fingernails digging into her cheeks. She was too scared to fight back. She had nothing to defend herself with, so she stood there, taking every hit her dad would throw at her.
“I am sor-” Diane was cut off by her father spitting directly at her face. The spit landed on her lips, it disgusted her, she wanted to throw up.
“You insolent little bitch! How dare you do this to me? How dare you do this to your father? My name’s already been pretty dirty because of those stupid accusations. Why couldn’t you stay quiet and not go around telling everyone about how your father is David Hoffman, the CEO of a big company? Is it too much for you to just shut your garbage mouth?” He threw Diane on the floor, squatted down in front of her. She was keeping her head down, trying her best not to make eye contact. He grabbed her arm, stood her up and dragged her to the kitchen. “If you’re so incapable of shutting the fuck up, I’ll just have to shut you up myself.”
Diane could’ve ended this here, she would have fought back, she could’ve done something to prevent her father hurting her even more. She didn’t do anything, she was too tired to try resisting. All she wanted to do was defend herself enough to stay alive a bit longer. Stay alive a little longer, she said to herself. Just stay alive.
Mr Hoffman was searching for something in the junk drawer of the kitchen. When he found what he was looking for, he had this psychopathic look on his face. A look that said “I enjoy hurting people. It brings me joy and comfort.” He was holding a tube of super-glue. He grinned at Diane, holding the object tenderly, like an expensive pair of earrings.
“No, no, no, no, please! Please, I’m begging you don’t! I’m sorry, please don’t do this to me!” Diane was petrified, she knew exactly what her father was about to do. He’d never done it before, but had always told her he’d do it someday. He firmly grabbed Diane's cheeks, took the glue and glued Diane’s lips together. It was burning, it hurt. She wanted to scream out of pain but her lips were shut off. She couldn’t open her mouth. She felt trapped. Her father let her go, she fell to her knees, crying. This is exactly why she didn’t want to go home.
He left her alone, going back to his room. She forced herself to get up and get to hers. She dragged her weak body up the stairs crying in silence and pain. She closed the door behind her and as she collapsed on the floor. She was in so much pain. She couldn’t feel anything but her lips burning and the most painful headache on the planet. This punishment was so unfair, she didn’t tell anyone about who she really was. She had to endure a painful experience just because her father decided to.
She stood up and went to the bathroom. For the next three hours, she tried her very best to open her mouth. She ripped her lips, she was bleeding everywhere. It was painful but she managed to do it. She lost a lot of blood. Not only was she bleeding from her lips and nose, she was bleeding from her head and only realized it when she looked at herself in the mirror. Her reflection was melancholic, sad, hard to look at. She burst out crying. Diane decided to wash the blood off of her but passed out in the bathtub. Everything around her seemed different. From the way her friend was treating her, to the way the world itself was acting towards her. It was as if this week would be a disaster for Diane. I just need to stay alive a little longer. Diane kept telling herself. Just stay alive.

***

It had been four days since Camille had not said a word to Diane. They’ve never fought like this. She felt bad, extremely bad. She could never forgive herself for what she did to Diane. Something was clearly wrong with her, but Diane would not tell Camille anything. She was on her way to school, the only place she’d been seeing Diane. She was always wearing this medical mask. Why? Camille wondered. Ever since Diane was exposed on national TV as “Mr Hoffman’s daughter”. Everyone was secretly following her around. A group of people had asked Camille questions about Diane, they asked her if she knew about all this, they asked her how rich she was. They were really invasive. Camille felt bad about all of this, this was partly her fault for not doing a better job at pushing the press away. Others were insulting her for having a rapist dad. They were making up rumours about her, and this time, they were not afraid to say it to Diane directly. The rumours were outrageous, Camille did her best to stop the people spreading them around, but teenagers have a hard time shutting their mouth.
Diane had arrived in front of the school, everyone was waiting for the gates to open. When others saw Diane, they instantly came up to her and started invading her with absurd questions.
“Hey, you’re that girl from the news right? Is your dad really a rapist?” one kid asked.
“She probably told him to rape them” another fool from the crowd said. They were all laughing at her. Camille could hear what they were saying from where she was. She didn’t know whether or not she had to intervene. She was watching the whole thing from far away, hoping nothing too bad would happen.
“Why are you wearing a mask? Everyone saw your face, stop trying to hide!” They grabbed Diane's face. Diane flinched, she had a terrified look on her face. They forcefully ripped her mask off, revealing a burst lip, covered in blood. Her lips were a mix of purple, blue and red. Everyone started laughing. They called her horrible, disgusting and ugly. Diane didn’t say a word. She tried keeping her head down but they wouldn’t let her do so. They spit at her face, one by one. No one was doing anything. They started hitting Diane. She wasn’t fighting back, she wasn’t doing anything, they threw her body on the ground, kicking her with no mercy. It was like they were waiting for her to be in this helpless state so that they could finally let their grudge get the best of them. Camille was watching their every move, she had not looked away once during this whole incident.
“Do you kiss Elliot with that mouth? I can’t believe he’s even dating you, you’re so repelling to look at!” said a girl from the mass of students. “He should’ve gone out with me when I offered hi- Huh?” The girl was cut off by Camille, a hand on the girl’s shoulder. She turned the girl around and stared directly into her soul. Camille had this terrifying look on her face. The skies were casting a shadow onto her, hiding her face. Only her bright eyes could be seen. She looked at her up and down.
“Stop. Talking.” Each word felt like a bomb had just been dropped. Camille had never behaved like this at school, even Diane looked surprised. Camille sighed, pushing the girl away from her and wiping her hand on her pant leg. “All of you, fuck off. Now, before I do something about it. Don’t make me do something about it, because you will regret it.” the hoard of noisy teenagers dispersed, they were mumbling under their breath. Diane wasn’t the only one victim of rumours at this school. Camille had heard rumours about herself too. Apparently, she was on steroids. She also “fought a grizzly bear with her bare hands”. Or the most surprising one yet, she had “already killed someone”. She never really denied any of them, only the one about her taking steroids.
“Hey! I can still hear you people mumbling dumb things!” They went silent, there was nothing else to see. The fight had stopped and the bell started ringing. It was time to go inside.
Camille helped Diane get up from the ground. She tried asking her if she was ok, but was harshly rejected. Camille tried to convince to let her tend to her wounds but it would not work. She watched as her downcast friend picked up the dirty mask from the floor. Camille watched as Diane entered the building, limping, looking helpless. She followed soon, trying to catch up to her. Unfortunately, other students that had heard of the fight started asking her the dumbest questions. She wouldn’t answer anything and tried keeping up with her friend. Diane was walking fast, avoiding everything and everyone. Camille lost track. The bombarding questions the students were asking her were infuriating.
“Shut the fuck up!” Camille liberated herself from the crowd and continued searching for Diane. Camille couldn’t get the image of Diane’s uncovered face out of her mind. Was that her fault? Was this what she was so afraid about last Saturday? Did her father do this to her? Camille’s mind was flooded with questions. She needed answers and she needed them fast.
She looked everywhere for her friend before finally seeing her enter the second floor bathroom that no one used. Camille entered the bathroom shortly after, locking it behind her. Camille spent two hours in the bathroom trying to convince Diane to talk to her. They missed two classes already, but Camille was determined to get an answer out of Diane.
“Why is your face like that? What happened?” Camille already asked her this question dozens of times and would not hear even a mutter from her. “Why won’t you answer me god dammit…” Camille didn’t know what stall Diane was in, so she proceeded to try and open every one of them. She hadn’t seen anyone but Diane and her go inside of the restroom. To her surprise, every single stall was unlocked except for one. Camille banged on the door, telling her friend to open it for her. Nothing happened. She groaned, stared at the door, and kicked it down. Camille was very strong, she could fight anyone if she wanted to, without any hesitation. She was small, but she was not a person you should mess with. The door flew wide open, Diane was sitting down, her head faced down. She did not look up once, not even a peak.
“Why haven’t you been talking? Look at me when I’m talking to you at least!” Camille looked disappointed. “Does it hurt when you try talking?”. Diane nodded. She lifted her head up, her eyes filled with tears. Diane had beautiful green eyes. It was rare for a dark-skinned person to have such light eyes. Camille hated seeing Diane like this. Ever since the day of the paparazzi incident, everything has been going wrong with Diane. It was like a curse had been brought upon her friend. “Don’t worry no one is here except us two.”
“It...It hurts” Diane pointed at her mask. Diane had a hard time saying that phrase, she quivered trying to cover her mouth out of pain but stopped herself doing so.
“Do you want me to take it off for you? Are you hurt?” Diane nodded and allowed her to take the soiled mask off of her face. When Camille saw her face, she was alarmed. Diane’s lips were burst open, bleeding all over, it had stained her mask, she had a chunk of her lower lip missing. It looked worse than before.
“Who did that to you? Was it your dad? Is that why you didn’t want to come home?” Diane shook her head yes. She couldn’t speak at all. “This is terrible, why would he do this to you?” Camille tried to clean the blood off of Diane’s lips but recoiled herself away out of fear. “Calm down, I won’t hurt you.” Diane decontracted her body and let Camille sooth her lips.
As she was applying toilet paper to soak up the blood, their eyes locked together. Diane quickly pulled away, embarrassed.
“I’m sorry I didn’t let you stay at my place. I can’t, I wish I could but I just can’t. I’m not doing it because it’s dirty or anything. My house is dangerous, my family is weird. I don’t ever want you to meet them. I don’t want you to be anymore hurt than you already are.” Camille paused. She assumed Diane’s state was because of her. The thought of her doing this to her friend kept passing through her mind. She didn’t want to think such things, but it was true, this was her fault. She was done with Diane’s wounds. “Get up, let’s go to the infirmary. You’re seriously hurt. If you don’t want to talk about how it happened I'll just make up a lie to the nurse.”
Diane was sitting in the infirmary with Camille, waiting for the nurse to arrive. Since Diane was unable to talk, she decided to tell her friend how all of this happened to her via SMS. When she found out the truth, Camille’s face had a mixture of emotions. Sadness? Worry? Disgust? Concern? What was she feeling when reading the words Diane had typed out on her phone and sent to her? Camille felt uncomfortable. She didn’t actually think it’d be that bad. Diane told her her biggest secret, was she going to keep her secret to herself as well?
Camille spent all day staying next to Diane, she swore to herself she would never leave her out of her sight ever again. Not after what her father did to her in her absence. She made up a lie about how Diane fell down the stairs at her house and burst open her lips. Camille was a very skilled liar, the nurse gobbled it up like it was nothing. Diane was lying down, sleeping with ease. Her lips weren’t hurting as much. Camille was glad she got to talk to her friend again. When it was time to get home, Camille wished Diane well and told her to try and not get anymore hurt than she already was. She still felt bad about leaving her alone. It was only for a night, she’ll get to see her soon.
Camille arrived in front of her house, her mood had a sudden change, she started acting like how she acted with that girl at school this morning. The front yard was packed with cars, cars that were not parked correctly. Car doors were still opened, some of those cars were damaged by others. It was quite the site to see. Camille was not surprised. She didn’t even flinch once. Can’t they do this somewhere else? she thought to herself. She was bothered by the messiness of the badly placed cars. She started looking around, checking every licence plate. She could only recognize one of them. The rest were completely unknown. She continued looking around the front yard, talking about how she would’ve parked this car, how this car was too big to be parked around here, how it was a pain to leave the house if every car in front of you looked like they were placed by a drunkard. Camille was standing in front of the door, doing absolutely nothing. She was hearing loud bangs coming from inside the house. Every Tuesday, she complained. Every single fucking Tuesday. She checked her watch, then looked back at her door. Did she really have to do it? Did she really have to do what she was planning to do the second she saw all those cars on the front lawn? Of Course, she already knew exactly what she was doing. It was just a normal Tuesday for her.
She waited about two minutes in front of the door before quickly grabbing the hidden firearm from the fake flower plant. She bust the door down and shot inside the house, wrongfully aiming on purpose. Three people were in her house, one was her older brother and two others were people she had never seen before. One of the bullets she fired hit the chandelier and fell on one of the perpetrators head, knocking him out. She looked around to see if anyone else was in the house. The other stranger who witnessed his comrade succombe to the hands of a heavy chandelier, charged as hard as he could in Camille’s direction. He was inches away from her face, ready to grab her and shoot her in the head. Alas, she was too quick for him. She grabbed his head and knocked him as hard as she could with hers. He collapsed on the floor, unconscious. She grabbed the gun that had fallen on the floor and shot him in the chest. She shot him until there were no bullets left in the gun. He was dead, that was for sure. The other guy was dead too. The impact of the chandelier hit his head way too hard. All of this happened so fast, even she couldn’t quite understand what was happening right now. She gawked at her brother, who was laughing his ass off.
“What’s so funny?” Camille had the most bothered look on her face. Why was he laughing like a hyena? she cringed.
"Ah! Haha! You’re so unpredictable, you never cease to amaze me!” her brother was having a hard time catching his breath. “You didn’t even hesitate to kill them once! I’ve been fighting six of them for the past minute. These two were a damn pain in the ass! All of a sudden, you show up out of nowhere, shoot the chandelier, killing one of them, and when the other one charged at you, you grabbed him and banged his head so hard he crumbled on the floor! You could’ve ended it there, I’m pretty sure he was already dead, but no...You just had to shoot him until you ran out of bullets.” he was still laughing like a maniac. “I counted the bullets, you shot him twelve times. You’re fucking crazy, wow.”
“fourteen” she corrected him. “This is a glock, it has fifteen rounds. I used one of the bullets when I aimed for the chandelier. I shot him fourteen times. God I hate you, you’re so goddamn stupid” Camille witnessed as her brother continued to laugh for three minutes straight.
“How can you hate your family so much? You’re better than me at this whole firearm thing!” He wiped a tear from his face. The laughing stopped, and he got serious. “Come on, help me get rid of these bodies.”
“How many?” Camille asked, looking around the messy house they were standing in.
“Heh?”
“How many bodies?”
“Oh!” he scratched his head and counted on his fingers. “It was six at first but since you’ve killed two of them I guess that makes it eight.”
“I know how to count I’m not fucking stupid.” she pestered.
“Well I’m bad at math.” he responded.
“Who were they anyway?” Camille took cleaning supplies from the sink cabinet.
“How the fuck would I know? They were just here when I got back from Toby’s place. The place was already a mess when I got here. They kept asking me about this “pen” and said they would kill me if I didn’t answer them.”
“Why would they do all this just for a pen? Can’t they just buy one at the store?” Camille was cleaning the mess that had been made as she listened to her brother explain what happened. Her brother followed soon, still explaining the situation to her.
“That’s exactly what I was wondering! I even asked them but they told me to stop playing games. I don’t even know where our parents are, I’ve tried calling them but they wouldn’t answer their phones.”
“This whole situation is so weird. Why in the world would you need to cause such a ruckus in a house just for a simple pen?” Camille was not alarmed by anything else but this. This was just a normal Tuesday for her. “Actually, I wouldn’t have minded if they took you out. Would’ve been a pain to lose you but you’re a dumbass so it doesn’t count” she half-joked.
“Hey that’s not funny! At least you could pretend to care about my safety and well-being!”
“No, you’re not important enough.” Diane turned around and started doing other things, doing her best to mask the complaints of her brother, the person she found the most annoying on the planet. Her brother was two years older than her. She hated everyone in her family, especially him. She thought he was annoying and would constantly tell him to shut his mouth. He’d never shut his mouth. Camille hated him for that. His name was Matthew, but Camille would never stop making dumb jokes about his name.
Camille’s family were mobsters. She hated her family because they were part of the Mafia. Surprising, is it not? Was not surprising to her. The day she found out was on her brother’s seventh birthday. She was wandering around the house when she witnessed one of her mother’s alleged close friend water-board one of the parents that brought their kid to the party. Her parents had to sit her down for hours and explain to her their family secret. Camille was taught how to fight. They trained her to be as strong as she was now. No one knew about this. She has kept the secret so well hidden for years. She didn’t like the fact that she knew how to kill people and get rid of their bodies, but when your family is constantly under attack, it’s better to have one or two tricks up your sleeves.
“Hey, do you know what this means?” Camille was holding some sort of insignia in her hand. “I found it in one of their pockets. I feel like I can read it but I don’t understand what it means.”
Her brother snatched the object from her hands and examined it further.
“It’s just drawings, there’s nothing to see. You’re just delusional, It’s probably some kid of his that made this for father’s day. Ha! he probably forgot it in his pocket for months. I wonder if it’s even real gold...” Camille was tired of Mattew stupid rambling, so she grabbed him and started ramming him with punches, like she’d normally do when she was annoyed by her brother. “Hey, wait! I was just messing with you! Hey! Ow, that hurts! Not the ribs! Oh, ouch…”
“That was light hearted. You could’ve ended up like them if I wanted to.” Camille wiped her hands on her t-shirt and took away the golden disc insignia from her brother's hands. “I’ll be taking that thank you.”
Camille’s relationship with her brother was exceptional. She would always fight with him over the dumbest things. On the other hand, he was kind of asking for it. Matthew was very provocative and Camille would take any opportunity she had to shower him with punches and kicks. To Camille, Matthew was a talking box that would never shut up and the only way you could fix him was if you punched him a few times.
“Damn, I found one too! I guess you’re not that crazy after all!” Camille stared menacingly at her brother. “Ok, I’m sorry I’ll stop…”
She casually grabbed the other golden disc from her brother's hand before putting it in her pocket. She continued on by grabbing every insignia she could find.
“What are you planning to do with all of those?” Her brother asked while dragging the bodies in the garage. “They don’t really mean anything. I’ve never seen them anywhere.”
“I don’t know, I’ll just keep them with me until I find someone who’s more skilled on the subject.” Camille helped her brother grab more bodies to the garage. One of the bodies was still alive and tried to attack her. Mattew quickly grabbed the gun on the garage shelf and shot the body. “Wow. Ok, that was weird.”
“Thank you Captain Obvious, I shot that guy in the chest three times. Of Course it’s weird” Mattew turned the incinerator, waiting for it to heat up. “It’s not big enough to fit them inside. We’re going to have to find another way.”
“You’re supposed to cut them into smaller pieces you brain rot.” Camille slapped Matthew on the back of his head. “I swear I heard something move in there.”
“Well that means I’m smarter than you think, there’s obviously a brain sitting in here.” he said, knocking on his head.
“I can hear it moving inside your head because it’s small. It means you’re stupid.” Camille left the garage to find something to cut the corpses.
Camille had to do the work all by herself, Matthew was too busy throwing up in the toilet. He had a hard time seeing cut up humans. He fainted at the sight of blood. He had to learn how to not freak out whenever he saw the slightest drop of red liquid. He wasn’t the best at it but could hold his urge to gag for a good amount of time. Camille thought it was disgusting. Ever since he accidentally threw up on her, she never looked at him the same. As if she ever looked at him in a good way.
She went back to her room and sat in front of the computer. Her hands were hovering over the keyboard, she had no idea where to look for information about these weird discs. She tried looking on Wikipedia for something similar but could not find any that resembled the ones she had. This was really frustrating for Camille. The insignias had writing she felt like she could understand but didn’t know how to translate them to others. She tried calling Diane, to see if she could understand what the “drawings'' were, but she never picked up. When she tried taking a picture of the insignias to ask for people’s help on Twitter, the words she saw were complete nonsense, as if the only way she could see the words was if she was seeing them in real life. All of this was very weird. How was she the only person able to decipher the content written on the discs. She continued her search for someone who could help her with her problem. After looking for ages, she found an expert pawn shop near her city. It was getting late, so she told herself she’d go tomorrow.
“Are you fucking kidding me right now?” Camille was standing in front of the pawn store. Apparently, there was a fire incident the night before. The entire place burnt down, leaving Camille with no clues. She was devastated, she didn’t know what to do. It was like the universe did not want her to find out what these insignias were supposed to be. She was supposed to be at school right now, but thought this matter was much more important than whatever her science teacher was doing right now. She was beat, completely decomposed. She shamefully rode the bus to school, thinking about how stupid it was for her to come here. She started to blame the fire on herself, she felt guilty for no reason. Camille always did this, blame things that were obviously not her fault on herself. It was a bad habit, she knew that but could never actually stop herself from doing it.
She arrived at school being scolded by one of the teachers for skipping class. She didn’t really care about that, all she needed to do now was find Diane and ask her if she could understand what the words meant. The bell rang, she saw Diane and quickly pulled her aside.
“Are you okay? Do your lips still hurt when you try and talk?” Camille was worried about her friend, she had been thinking about her all night wondering if she had slept well.
“It’s not hurting as much. It’s just a bit hard to talk at the moment.” Diane was taking even a longer time than usual to articulate her sentences.
“I’ll try my best to not make you talk too much.” They continued walking around the school, looking for a place to sit down and conversate. “We have free-period right?”
“Yes, we don’t have italian class today. Teacher’s absent. He’s on paternal leave.” Diane said as she checked the school planner on her phone.
Camille pulled one of the insignias she was carrying out of her pocket to show her friend. “Do you know what this means? I know this sounds stupid but I showed it to my brother. He called me crazy and said he couldn’t see anything, only drawings. I was hoping I wasn’t the only one who could decipher these w-”
“Through harsh winds we march, Through striking thunder we fight” Diane said without hesitating, as if she had seen that phrase her whole life. Camille sat there, unable to comprehend what had just happened.
“How did you-” Camille was playing a game of ping pong with Diane and the discs, looking back at and forth at both of them. “How do you understand what it means? How can you understand the words? I could only read and say them out loud without knowing what they meant.”
Diane exhaled. “I have no idea. I just saw the words and instantly knew what they meant. I don’t actually understand what they mean by that. I can’t help you any further.”
Camille sighed, she had hoped her friend would miraculously know more about this than anyone else. It was weird to think such a thing, but Camille had a gut feeling Diane would know something about these insignias. She was right, partially.
“Where did you even get these?” Diane started eating a sandwich she had pulled out of her bag.
“Some random people were attacking my hou-” Camille cut herself off by covering her mouth. What was she saying? She wasn’t supposed to tell anyone what happened?
“Huh? What did you say?” Diane looked confused, she was waiting for Camille to rephrase what she just said but was left in the dust.
“I’m sorry! You didn’t hear anything, I was just talking to myself about something.” Camille pretended to look at her phone and be surprised. “Oh well would you look at the time! I’ve got to go to my doctor’s appointment. I’m so sorry I’m gonna have to leave you alone! I really don’t want to, but this is urgent!”
“You never told me about a doctor’s appointment?” Diane was even more confused about all of this.
“Uh, um. I forgot! Ok, bye! I have to go.” Camille walked away, red as a tomato. She was so embarrassed. Was she really about to tell Diane about her most well kept secret? She started hitting her self on the head with her phone. “Stupid Camille! Stupid Camille! Stupid Camille!” She started blaming herself on this incident, yet again.
She was walking in the halls when she saw a frantic Elliot looking around him like he was completely lost.
“Hey Camille, have you seen Diane? I was absent recently and I haven’t seen her anywhere. I feel like she’s been avoiding me. I really need to talk to her, it’s important” He was grabbing Camille very hard, looking into her eyes with the most desperate look.
“I don’t know where she is now but last time I saw her, she was sitting on a bench outside. Do what you can with this information. I’ve got other things to do.” Camille walked away and mumbled under her breath. “Like not accidentally telling my best-friend my family’s part of the mafia.”.
Camille was feeling weird these past days. She was experiencing things she had never experienced before. It was all new to her. From the things Diane told her at the infirmary, to the strange people and their Insignias. What in the world was going on?


ok well that's pretty long lmfao