i learned a lot about myself while writing this

i mostly learned i cant friggin' write

Animal snorted as he glared around the old school. Everything was rotting away and it smelled absolutely horrible. He wasn't sure how they got here,

but he decided he'd just gather his friends first and ask questions later.

The sound of giggling in the room to his left broke the eerie silence. Walking in, Animal jumped as the eye of a young girl met his. A purple aura surrounded her, and her left eye was missing. Not just stabbed out, though, it seemed that the entire upper left part of her skull was destroyed. Karl was sitting cross-legged in front of her, smiling and talking with exaggerated hand movements. When the girl broke eye contact, he turned his head back and looked over at Animal.

"Oh hey, Animal." He called in a monotone voice. His eyes were strange, like those of a dead fish.

"Oi, Karl... What are you doing?"

"Eh?" His eyes darted to the girl and back to him. "I'm just talking with a friend."

Animal shook his head. "N-no... You have to get away from her."

"Why would I do that?"

Animal connected his face to his palm, and started walking forward. He reached out a hand to put on Karl's shoulder, but was shoved across the room by an invisible force.

The girl stood up and stared at Animal as he struggled to get up. Karl started grabbing at his throat, and was hoisted a few inches into the air.

"H-hey! Let him go!"

She turned her head to the side, legitimately confused at him. Then, the dark aura became more vibrant and her almost innocent eye gained a darker sheen. She smiled and clenched her hand. Karl started choking and gasping until his neck twisted with a resounding crack.

Outraged, Animal ran forward again and tried to punch the girl. And again, he was pushed back and crashed into the wall. "Didn't onii-chan learn his lesson...?"

He was hoisted into the air in a similar fashion to Karl, but instead of being choked out, he crashed through the door and into the hallway. The girl walked out and grinned unnaturally wide. She pulled him up again and stared at his face for a moment. She looked here and there, picking out any small details about her victim.

"Let... Go!" Animal struggled and kicked against her hold, but it was useless. Suddenly, he was thrown through the hall and smashed into the wall.

The girl walked over and admired her handiwork. All that was left of him was a large splatter on the wall. Blood and entrails dripped down along with chunks of bone and shreds of cloth.

He wasn't pulverized like the last girl she did this to, but that was because she and another spirit teamed up. She giggled as she remember how oblivious her friends had been, walking by the remains on the wall and not even suspecting that it was their best friend. She giggled as she remembered how her boyfriend had killed himself over it.

She closed her eyes and tried to remember his frantic last words. Most of it was incoherent screaming, or screeching her name like it would have brought her back, until he jumped through the window and shredded his stomach. His corpse should still be out there, slightly rotten and cracked with age.

I wonder how long it'll take to break these new kids...?

Elsa glanced up as a large thump resonated through the school. After a few moments of listening, she concluded that it must have been a cabinet falling over, or something of the sorts. She sighed, and looked behind her to check on Anna.

She was still there, and gave a small wave when they made eye contact. Elsa smiled and looked forward, but stopped when her foot was caught on something. Something was holding onto her ankle. It felt like a really cold hand, and it was pulling her down. She yelped and fell over in both confusion, and the fact that there was a fucking hand pulling her down.

"Elsa! Are you okay?"

Elsa glared down at her foot. In reality, her ankle was perfectly pinned between two floorboards, and it was incredibly painful to move. After yanking at the boards for a few minutes, Anna snapped her fingers and smiled. "Here! I'll go grab a loose board or something to use as a crowbar, you stay here!"

As Anna started skipping off, Elsa hung her head and grumbled, "Not like I have anywhere else to go..."

A few clanks and the sound of Anna cursing in the distance caused her to laugh. Eventually the sounds had faded, but Elsa continued to smile as she imagined her friend falling over and shouting at nothing.

After a few moments of smiling, she felt a chill and a presence in front of her. Looking up, she saw a girl about Anna's age standing in front of her. However,

what caused Elsa to scream and cower, was the fact that this girl had no face. It looked as if in had been skinned off, with small hollows where her eyes, mouth, and nose would be.

"W-who are you!?"

The girl turned her head to the side. "I am the spirit of a student who died here."

"A spirit?"

Someone had died here!?

The spirit sheepishly looked down at her feet and scuffed her feet around. "I'm sorry if I scared you. I only want to help..."

Elsa felt bad about screaming. It seemed the girl was only trying to be useful, and was probably self conscious about her current state. "O-okay..." Elsa looked the spirit over again. "How exactly can you help?"

"Here." She grabbed onto the board and yanked. "J-just give me... a moment...!" Eventually the board gave and snapped in half, successfully releasing Elsa's ankle.

"Kyah-hah! I did it!" The spirit lifted up the board and hopped around.

"Come on!" She grabbed onto Elsa's arms and pulled her up. "Need anything else?"

Elsa nodded. "Could you help me find my friend Anna and the others?"

"Mm, depends."

"Depends?"

"Of course you don't know..." The spirit looked down for a moment and held her hands together. "This school exists in a nexus where multiple dimensions overlap. It's just a single closed space in a sea of closed spaces."

Elsa was silent and continued to stare where the spirit's eyes would be, nodding lightly as she stopped talking.

"To put it simply, even though you may be in the same school as your friends, you and they occupy different dimensions."

The spirit sighed. "This means you and your friends can never meet... but... If one of you should die, your body or spirit may move from one space to another... or... maybe you can find a way of moving through the spaces freely, as they do..."

"So, it's possible to meet them here?"

The ghost stopped and rubbed her chin, smearing clots of blood on her hand.

"Time and space do not behave as you'd assume here. They're... Fragmented. You could have heard a scream or seen a body only a few minutes ago... or, maybe... They occurred in another space many hours previous... They may even have been an echo from the future. Who knows?"

She jumped slightly as she noticed the blood on her hand, and quickly wiped it on the side of her shirt.

"With this phenomenon as it is, it's possible for two closed spaces to have some small influence on one another, even when out of synch."

"I see... I think."

"I know it's a lot to take in at ounce. All I want is to help you avoid sharing the fate of my friends and I."

"What do you mean by that?"

"I want you all to be together when you die... I can help you have an almost painless death, too, if you would like... There are so many spirits who've gone mad from the pain... I don't want anyone else to suffer like this."

Elsa blinked as she looked at the spirit in a new light.

With her face skinned off... Does she feel that pain right now? It must be awful...

"Your friend, the one you were speaking to earlier, she's in the same space as you. We need to find her before they do."

next chapter might have some bitter-sweet fluff in it

its not the best fluff, but in Heavenly Toast you need all the fluff you can get