Nethania

Chapter 35: Launch to End

AVIA

"Let the torture begin!"

A SHRILL laugh reached our ears after the words of terror left the speakers from the video. Screams and cries intensified. Students ran back and forth, trembling in great terror. Crouching behind chairs, slumping their back against the wall and covering their ears as they didn't want to hear the sounds roaring across the whole gym.

The whole place was a total mess.

I caressed Hilary's back when she cried again. Her sob was audible enough for me to hear it even though her head was buried in my chest. I could feel her tears falling on my shirt as she drenched me in her anguish.

"Let's go! We have to get out of here!" Vino yelled, groping us frantically away from the spot where we were crouching down since the video started.

Hannah grabbed his uniform from behind when he was about to stand. "We can't, the doors are closed! It was locked from the outside!"

Vino faced her with a creasing forehead. "How can you tell?" he snapped, sitting down on the floor again. "If we tried to bang it down, it would break!"

"No, you can't do that," Austin opposed, shaking his head while looking intently at Vino.

"And why?" said Vino.

I gently pushed Hilary away from me and tucked her loose hair behind her ear. I came to face the people arguing in front of us. "Even though you break the glass, the second sliding wooden door behind it was made from a hard wood. It didn't break that instant. You needed a chainsaw to chop it in half!" I declared in a high tone, making them turn their heads to my side. Audible screaming noises were still filling out the whole room, so we had to raise our voices at a loud pitch.

Vino smirked. "Why do you even have that kind of door?" he sarcastically gasped.

I flipped my hair and rolled my eyes. "Was it my fault that Dad chose that type of door?"

"Can you please be quiet! Panicking people around us were screaming and couldn't even settle on one place, yet you're adding to the mass!" Hannah thundered, closing her eyes and panting heavily, obviously suppressing her annoyance with trembling hands.

"Can we please be calm for a minute?"

"Are you a jerk, Hilary?" Hannah bolted, making Hilary dig her face into my shoulder even more. "How can we be calm amid this kind of situation? See her? She's—"

"I'm having a good time watching all of you down there, in great terror. Your scream is a melody to my ears and an energy to my soul. A melody of death."

Our mouths ran out of sound when Nethania spoke again. Her eyes were deep as if they were penetrating into our eyes. Lines of joyful wrinkles etched across her face as she stared down below.

Heavy breathing is all I can hear.

Sobs ruled the place.

"I know you're eager to know who my hostages are, so I'm going to present them to all of you, and you'll be surprised."

She stepped backwards until she got in the middle of the two chairs. She extended her arms on both sides and held the top part of the black cloth. The student hostages were squirming and violently moving in their seats. The background was still disturbing to me. It was filled with dead, bloody bodies and severed limbs scattered everywhere.

I held my chest and bent my head forward as I felt the rapid feeling of nausea all over my system. All I ever imagined was the feeling, the scene and especially the stench of the room where Nethania was. My stomach turned upside down and felt like I would vomit all my guts out.

"Ready? Here they are!" shouted Nethania. She held the two black clothes and they flew in the air when she raised both of her hands, and behold, two familiar faces were revealed before us.

My eyes broadened in great fear, my hands covered my mouth and my energy left my body. I slumped my body onto the floor as I sat on my knees.

Students gasped. Others screamed.

"s**t!" Vino yelled in disbelief.

The lady beside me cried harder after the shocking revelation. I caressed her back and leaned closer to her. "Hilary, calm down. We'll get out of here soon," I whispered.

Austin scratched his head and clicked his tongue. "Crap, how come she captured them?"

"Ahhhh! I'll kill you, Nethania! Bring back Nico to me!" Hannah screamed with all her might. She stood up, but I was quick to pull her down on the floor again. She dropped her back against the floor and turned to me, determined to get her hand away from my grip.

"Hannah! There's nothing we can do," I yelled at her.

She shook her head firmly while looking at me like I had committed a grave sin. "No! That killer is behind that huge screen! I'm going to say—"

"Hannah, please!" I overpowered her voice with mine. I raised my body to level her position. I stared directly into her eyes while my chest was pounding so hard. "That's a video, we don't know where she is right now!"

I didn't know what to do right now. We were all panicking and they couldn't think clearly or even choose the right judgement. I don't think Hannah is in her right mind now. She even thought that Nethania was behind the huge screen when, in fact, Nethania was recording herself somewhere away from our place.

"I thought Jamsen and Nico were already dead," Vino said, looking at the screen.

I moved my eyes towards him when he talked. He sounded confused and shocked. I didn't even come to think that they were actually dead. I only considered them missing since their bodies weren't found somewhere in the academy. I sighed and stared again at the screen.

Since the video was vivid, two of them had a large metal ball put inside their mouths with a small chain attached on both sides of it that was secured behind their heads, that keeping their mouths open wide and obstructing their ability to scream.

Nico was full of bruises and small bleeding wounds, while Jamsen had fewer wounds but he gained a huge bleeding s***h on his abdomen like what she did to Austin in the past few weeks.

Jamsen was out of energy. He was closing his eyelids halfway and forcing himself to stay awake since he was suffering too much pain. Tears fell from Nico's eyes as he squirmed in his seat.

"That's too much! She is merciless and she must be stopped," Vino vented, his loud breathing barely calming down.

"But how can we stop her? We can't even move away from our spot here," I answered, raising my eyebrows.

"We'll—"

"There's no way you can save them both."

Austin narrowed his eyes at the screen when it interrupted him from saying his words.

I smirked at the fact that she was right. We can't do anything to save them and that's a freakin' fact to be accepted. Stuck inside this tremendous social room filled with terrified and shocked students, and here we are, enduring the shock that struck us.

While walking around the two chairs while lips were curving upwards, Nethania was holding a large pointed knife. She was brushing its sharp point on the cheeks of Jamsen to the neck of Nico.

Their eyes screamed terror as she slashed Nico's clavicle. Blood spurted out, dark red flesh showed up, along with the screams of pitiful frightened students watching the gore scene. Nico held his head backwards, and we could see his mouth gaping even more. It was like we could hear his agonizing scream.

"Ha ha haha ha!" Nethania's sinister laugh echoed across the room. It synched with the screams of the students who were pleading for release from this nightmarish room.

"No!!" Hannah screamed at the top of her lungs. Her hands and knees pushed herself up to stand on her feet, but a strong force from Austin's grip from behind stopped her from doing it.

I held her arms tightly in front of her chest as she was still eager to escape from our grasp.

When Hannah calmed down, inhaling and exhaling gradually, and back from the normal breathing of the air, I breathed heavily as my stare at the screen became sharper and darker. Every time she moved, my nerves felt stimulated to kill her with my own hands. She caused so much pain not only to my friends but to these innocent people around us. I've been wondering what on earth was our sin to her that she could do this to us? I bet other students didn't know her and even us only knew her by name and not by her whole personality.

"Something's off," I heard Austin mumble.

I shrugged. This girl had been miserable and she was going to take us with her! The face of Nethania, the facade of pure evil, was crushed inside my head. I've killed her many times in my mind, yet unfortunately, it was just a daydream.

She rested the knife's blade on the arm of Nico. Her lips never tired of smiling and grinning. She was like a butcher who had a great s*******r in her slaughterhouse. The knife moved from side to side slowly. Nico's eyes almost exploded at the sight of his flesh was slowly tearing apart. As she moved her hand faster and faster, the blade sank into his flesh, ripping and tearing down the reddish human meat, and dark red blood began to flow profusely from the lacerated arm. Nico squiggled even more violently, and I could see his tears streaming down his eyes as he blinked multiple times. All he could do was to squirm and cry voicelessly.

"No. No. No..." Hannah sobbed and dropped her head on my lap. I placed my hand on her back and caressed it.

After enjoying her little evil deed, she stepped forward to the spot where Jamsen was breathing hard. His chest was barely moving; he couldn't breathe normally. His eyes followed Nethania as she went closer to his side. She made a motion with her hand, holding the bloody knife directly to his abdomen wound.

"Don't do it," I mumbled. I knew what she was planning to do.

"No!" I shouted and at the same time looked down when she thrusted the knife into Jamsen's bleeding wound.

She thrust the knife deeper and moved it up and down, slicing the wound again. It became huge and Jamsen was writhing in pain as he moved his head backwards and clenched his fist.

Five minutes passed and our two friends suffered a lot of knife slashes and bled so much blood.

"I know you have enjoyed my little show for your foundation day. I can't wait to kill them in front of you all. So what are we waiting for? Let the blood pool in this room." She giggled and positioned herself on the side of Jamsen.

As my eyes were glued to the screen, my hand went to rummage through my bag. I didn't know what I was planning to do, but at the back of my mind, someone was whispering something I should do to end this damned event.

"Jamsen has suffered—oh, is this Jamsen?" she asked and looked at his face, "He's Jamsen, I just clarified it, hihi." She chuckled and stared again at the camera. "He's too quiet for the entire show and it bores me, so I'll end him now."

Her arms were raised in the air, and the next thing she did, turned my stomach over. I closed my eyes shut when the knife slit his throat off, ripping his skin, cutting off the nerves, tearing down the flesh, making the blood make its way down to his body. His head hung backwards and it almost fell to the ground. He seemed headless from our sight down here, but I know his head was still attached and it hung behind his back.

Jamsen was decapitated, yet his head never fell on the floor.

"Jamsen's dead," Vino said without any emotion traced in his voice.

I took a glimpse at Austin, who was looking below while massaging his forehead. I've been wondering what was the matter with him, so I decided to ask him. I transferred Hannah's head to Hilary's lap and moved my lower back closer to his side.

"Do you remember something?" I asked, trying to look at his eyes.

He looked at me and shook his head. "I felt my head hurt."

"Jamsen's down and Nico next."

I wasn't able to respond when Nethania took our attention again. Her face was filled with blood splash and she didn't even care to wipe it off her face.

I gasped when she took out another knife from behind. It was the same size with her other knife and it was also bloody. She held it tightly, faced the sharp point downwards, and stretched her arms above Nico's thighs. She bent slowly leveling her head with Nico's ear while showing her teeth in great joy.

In a sharp blow, she penetrated the knife into Nico's thighs and moved the knife toward her, tearing Nico's flesh all the way up to his chest. Blood spurted out and bathed his whole torso, down to his feet. She stopped at the clavicle, pulling out the knife, and as soon as the knife left the flesh, she directly stabbed his head into both sides, making the knives into the likeness of horns. Nico's pupils began to go upwards, revealing mostly the white of his eyes. His body was trembling uncontrollably as the blood flowed from the roots of his head, soaking his face in crimson blood.

"Hi hihi ha haha ha!" Nethania laughed hard, her mouth stretched out so wide while laughing at the scene in front of her.

Nico and Jamsen are now dead!

I covered my ears when the screams and wailings of the students became earsplitting across the whole place. I caught Hilary when she fainted. I transferred her to the arms of Vino and my hands went to my bag instantly.

Nethania came closer to the camera and wiped the blood off her face using her fingers. Her eyes were gleaming in euphoria, looking at us.

"This is the only way to fill my satisfaction. But unfortunately, it didn't even get to the surface. So, just wait for me there. I'll meet you soon," she said.

The screams continued after she spat her words.

"Avia! Where are you going?"

I needed to stop this nonsense. I needed to end this insanity. These people around us were so innocent about what she was doing. This foundation day celebration turned into a killer show where we were all threatened and witnessed the death of our fellow students.

"Avia, stop!"

This insanity will end this day, at least temporarily. She has no right to torture us with this kind of method of hers. She was happy while we were suffering. She was happy killing people, while we pity those who were killed by her.

"Avia!!"

I stopped running at the center in front of the stage.

I breathed from the depths of my lungs and my heart panted heavily as I stared at the screen attached to the wall above me.

My eyes narrowed as I lifted my hand holding something that would end her insanity on the screen.

"Ahhh!"

"What can you do now? You will di—"

The screen began to glitch and Nethania's voice became choppy when I launched the glass tumbler filled with water straight at the huge screen. Silence drove the people around them as they stared directly at the huge screen as the glass tumbler hit the left corner and cracked the LCD before their eyes. The glass tumbler dropped on the floor, smashing itself with the loud sound of breaking glass.

The screen went on glitching. Rainbow colored stripes were flashing on the screen. Nethania's face distorted, her smile deformed, her face went disorganized and her eyes split across the screen.

"Die!!"

The last word that came out from the speakers when the screen went void. No signs of her afterwards. I looked below while breathing heavily. I placed my hand on my chest. I could feel my heart pounding so hard. I felt like I was shattered and going to pass out when I threw the tumbler. I didn't know it would work, that was just the only move that I thought it would end this disaster.

My body flinched when a slammed sound came from the corners of the gym. I gazed at the doors and surprisingly, they were all open wide.

Students dreadfully carried their souls and bodies away from the location where they were. Their shaky body movements screamed terror while their eyes screamed relief as they slowly felt the area from another sudden event.

My eyes caught the view of Alexandra running down the aisle along with her colleagues and reached every group of students to help them to get out of the gym.

I never knew this would happen. I never knew Nethania would go this far.

We lost two friends and some of our classmates and schoolmates, but the nightmarish presence of Nethania was still hovering around our minds and, worse, our place.

I know she's still alive.

I was so preoccupied that I didn't even realize that I had fallen on my knees. No tears streamed down my cheeks, but I felt like crying inside.

Someone touched my shoulder. "Avia, how's your feeling?" I heard Austin's voice as he crouched down.

I sighed. "Not okay. Where are they?" I asked.

"Hilary fainted, so Vino and Hannah carried her straight to the clinic. I went to fetch you so that you could rest with them," he said, "Let's go."

I put force on my feet and lifted my body while his hands were wrapped around my forearm. He held me tightly as I slowly helped myself to walk. I felt exhausted and emotionally tired.