"Yes, sir."

"Of course, headmaster."

"I apologize, headmaster."

Headmaster this and headmaster that. School has barely even started and I'm already sick of the word. How was I even going to survive the entire year? I don't even think I'll make it to the end.

Good thing the party was tonight. It was supposed to mark the official opening of the school year but since there was a new head-- not even going to say it, we had to make a few adjustments. Well, mostly I I had to make a few adjustments. At least I'll get a whole night to relax instead of getting called into his office for students with infractions.

"Dude!"

I guess I zoned out again. I've been doing that a lot ever since school started. Probably because of the stress? Sometimes, I even regret becoming the President.

“It’s that girl from the library, isn’t it?” Jason smirked, wiggling his eyebrows at me. We were at the cafeteria and he was sitting on the table with his legs spread out all over the place. I shouldn't even be surprised, he's been like this ever since 5th grade.

“What are you even talking about?” I scoffed, rolling my eyes.

“Those girls we caught last night, remember? The one you took back to her dorm? Should I start calling you grandpa?” He looked at me how he usually does, like I was insane. Well, sometimes, he isn't wrong.

“Why would I think about her?”

“I saw you coming out of her room last night. How was she?” He winked, jabbing his elbow into my side.

Why was he my friend again? And why do I even hang out with him? Oh yeah, because almost everyone was afraid of me.

I ignored him, trying to turn my attention back to the party that was going to happen later.

“You were so red last night! Was she that hot? She must have been if she made the Xavier Lee Gomez, the king of the school, the scary know-it-all Council President, the-”

I pushed him off the table.

Wow, that felt good.

And that was basically my entire day.

After a few more excruciating hours, it was finally time for the party.

“Behave,” I glared at Jason. We were at the entrance of the hall, greeting everyone who attended. The headmaster was already inside and we were about to join when I heard a loud groan from one of the corridors which was followed by a shriek that almost burst my eardrums.

Jason and I looked at each other, obvious worry in the other’s eyes. We ran towards whoever was making that sound.

“Holy sh-”

“What the f-”

Well, the good thing was we finally reached whoever was making those noises. Bad news? That same someone was now a corpse, laying flat against the tiles of the school hallways. Jason rushed to him, trying to check if the guy still had a chance of surviving. His parents were doctors after all. They used to be, anyways.

I kept walking around, trying to think of possible ways he could have died. He couldn’t have been stabbed since there was no blood. It couldn't have been because of a heart attack or anything because he let out a scream before he died.

“Xavier?” Jason called out. I turned to him and found him shaking uncontrollably. His face completely white as if his soul had just been sucked out from his body.

“What’s wrong?” I bent down so I could match Jason’s height who was squatting to examine the body. He pointed at the timer on the student’s wrist.

It read zero.

I turned to mine.

8 months, 19 days, 17 hours, 28 minutes and 35 seconds.

So that’s why he put it on us. The timer would electrocute its owner to death once it reached zero. If I really just have less than 9 months to live, I want to find out why the headmaster did this and how I could stop it for the other students.

I looked over to where Jason was. He wasn’t stopping. I grabbed his arm and took a look at his timer.

Fuck… He didn't even have a month left.

“I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die,” he kept mumbling over and over. Now, he had his knees up to his chest and was rocking himself back and forth. It pains me to see him like this considering the day we just had.

We had to tell someone about this but I had no idea who. If we told the other students, they would suspect us of murder. If we told the headmaster, he wouldn’t do anything about it. We can’t contact the cops on the outside since we didn’t have anything to use.

So I decided to act like nothing happened.

I know, bad idea but it’s the best I’ve got unless I would hide the body in a dumpster at the back of the school. Don’t even-

“Let’s get back to the party. I’ll find a way to get this thing off you, I promise,” I assured, helping Jason stand up. We walked back and tried to act like nothing happened and we were just late because of a few things we had to fix.

Well that all went well until someone had found the body.

Once Jason and I reached the body, we couldn't move at all. The floor was covered with blood that was leaking from the body. The body itself didn't even have a head! It was missing.

I thought I was going to puke.

Students came filling in one by one. Some were crying, some were disgusted, some were scared and there were a few who didn't even have a reaction.

Between a few students that were close to us, I could hear murmurs escape their lips.

They ranged from asking who did it, suspecting who did it and concluding who did it. I was one of their suspects.

"Xavier!" I heard the headmaster yell. I quickly pushed through the crowd, afraid to get yelled at.

As soon as I got to the front, the headmaster yelled, "get this cleaned up, now!"

Wait. Why did I have to clean this up? It's disgusting! A severed head was about a few feet away from the body and it was covered in blood.

I had no choice but to say, "yes, sir," and get to work. The rest of the students either went back to the party or back to their rooms.

“Xavier?”

I turned around and saw the girl from last night. The girl Jason kept teasing me about.

"Diana! What are you doing here? Get back to the party!" I tried to shoo her away. My fingers were covered in blood and since it looked like she got a new dress, I didn't want to ruin it for her. She was in a wine red off shoulder bodycon dress that went just down to her mid thigh. She even had heels to go with it. I guess the council decided to give the students clothes other than uniforms for tonight.

"I just wanted to see what all the ruckus was about," she walked up to the body and crouched down beside it.

"You know him?"

She sighed and shook her head. "Who could do this?"

I'll admit, it was pretty weird that she was so calm about this. I wanted to puke from the stench alone. How could she stand it?

She helped me get rid of the body. After Diana and I got cleaned up, I escorted her back to the party.

I just hoped this night would be over soon.