The Corner

By Shaine Lake

An Excerpt:

After wiping away those tears that broke out when I was alone in a hallway, I became aware of the pain caused by the wound. I continued to walk, like a mindless zombie, while getting a plaster from my bag to slap it over the bleeding area. The reason for doing so was to stop the bleeding so that no one would notice it. It didn’t matter to me if it got inflamed.

When I turned around a corner, I saw her.

That ghost was standing at the other end of the dark, windowless corridor lined with rusty lockers, beside the stairway that led to my classroom. She was facing the wall, not moving one bit.

I began to walk towards her. Inside me, there was a fear of the unknowns. At that moment, it was eclipsed by my need of someone who could understand me or fulfil my wish of fading into obscurity.

Why are you following me? Can you hear me? Can you bring me to another world?

There was no reaction from her.

Face me if you can hear me!

Regret set in the second I was surrounded by a cacophony of groans. Those sounded like the slow turning of a wooden wheel. It was as though the wooden planks were going to snap due to the pressure.

In a sudden, violent motion, her head was jerked to the side. I could hear the cracking of the bones, and those sounds were ricocheting in my brain. It hurt.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Shaine Lake
• Release date: Sep 3, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311534811

Shaine Lake

Shaine Lake may seem like the unlikely candidate to write romance novels, given her background of reading Dungeons and Dragons books, HP Lovecraft's novels, Junji Ito's works, heart-warming stories about animals and news regarding politics, culture and science. She ventured into novel writing, namely in the genres of Romance and Action, not only seeking to inject refreshing concepts and crazy ideas into the said genres, and also to fulfil her desire: To incite intense emotions in readers. To make them swoon, laugh, cringe, sob and ponder. Her route to achieve these is through compelling tales that combine fantasy, paranormal romance, sensuality and furious action.

Book preview

The Corner

Shaine Lake

Published by Shaine Lake

Copyright©2015 by Shaine Lake

All characters and events in this novel, other than those clearly in the public domain, are fictitious and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental.

All rights reserved

No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without prior written permission of the author.

Book Cover Design, Effects and Layout by Shaine Lake

Classroom Photograph by Thomas Nemcsek (http://www.zeitfaenger.at/ https://www.flickr.com/photos/kwarz/), licensed for use under Attribution CC: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Texture over Wordings by Carolyn Saxby (https://www.flickr.com/photos/lovestitchingred/)

Scratched Texture by Elaine J Miller (https://www.flickr.com/photos/elainejmiller/)

Both textures are licensed for use under Attribution CC: creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/deed.en

Darks Skyrim Font by DarkX ShadowX21

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Who?

Chapter 2 What?

Chapter 3 How?

Chapter 4 Ghost?

Chapter 5 Sick?

Chapter 6 Evil?

Chapter 7 Excuses?

Chapter 8 Boys?

Chapter 9 Love?

Chapter 10 Beauty?

Chapter 11 Fairness?

Chapter 12 Hope?

Chapter 13 Selflessness?

Chapter 14 Nuisance?

Chapter 15 Tension?

Chapter 16 Why?

Epilogue

Extra Story: The Mess

Chapter 1 Who?

The uncertainty was tugging at my heart as I stepped into a hall the size of a football field. It was filled with girls dressed in white short-sleeved uniforms. Many were busy getting acquainted with their new classmates. There were some who seemed to know each other, and they kept to their own cliques.

Notwithstanding the run-down state of the place, the cheery mood of the students was evident. Well, not surprising since anyone would be thrilled to enrol in Lawson Girls’ High, one of the top high schools of Accastle. I was, of course, excited about it. Getting into that school meant that I was among the students who scored at eighty-fifth percentile or higher on the nationwide examinations.

Though I was surprised that such a prestigious school had a really outdated architecture. Scratches decorated the dull surface of the wooden flooring of the stage, and the smell of mildew clung onto the wood whose cervices were filled with dirt. The supposedly white walls were riddled with yellow stains. The base of those walls even had algae.…

Many senior students, most probably student councillors, were standing at the head of the queues and holding up huge cards. One of those read Class 1/5, which meant the fifth class of first year cohort. Knowing that it was my class, I scurried to the girl with that particular card.

She welcomed me with a big, friendly grin. Hi there. My name is Cindy. I’ll be guiding you all through the orientation for a week. Please queue up at the end of the line.

I did as instructed. The moment I got to my place, an athletic-looking girl in front of me turned around to introduce herself, Hi, I’m Mandy Williams. Even her voice had the characteristics of distinct confidence that sporty gals usually possessed.

She looked pleasant. I envied her toned physique, that stylish bob haircut and her dark complexion with a healthy sheen. Those made me conscious of my frail body, pale, sickly-looking skin and dull brown, shoulder-length hair whose boring look was salvaged a bit by a dark blue metal hairclip that held up the side-parted fringe.

I answered out of politeness, Natalie.

Then I turned away to observe my surroundings. I didn’t know what to say to her. According to my experiences in elementary school, it was safer for me to adhere to the conventional wisdom: the less I talked, the less people I would offend. Ruining the fresh start in my life was the last thing I wanted.

Where are you from? queried Mandy who refused to give up.

One of those public schools … I felt uneasy talking about it because the girls would judge me based on my background.

After all, most of them were from those elite private schools. I had overheard my previous schoolmates talking about how snobbish the rich were … in those drama shows.

Surprisingly, she didn’t ignore me right after knowing that. Oh. Then you must be one of the top in your previous school?

I couldn’t tell if she was being patronizing. I was never good at reading people. In fact, I totally failed at it. So keeping to myself was the most fool proof method to get through school life.

Yes, I mumbled while wishing that she stopped probing into my privacy.

Good thing that a tall pretty girl, whose silky blond hair was tied up into a ponytail, joined the queue behind me. She wore a tag that had the name Kelly Adams written on it. Mandy immediately greeted her with zest. The two hit it off very well and went on to discuss about their favourite extracurricular activities. All the yakking about sports were getting on my nerves. I was never good at sports, and others’ enthusiasm in those made me feel so … weak.

"How could you miss the ball? It was right in front of you! What a dummy. You embarrass the whole team. And Zain was watching … argh!"

I had actually stood there like a dummy, not retaliating once as the insults were hurled at me. I didn’t even cry to gain some sympathy. But who in the world wanted to earn the nickname cry-baby? On the hindsight, at least Mandy and Kelly were talking about sports instead of boys.

Boys are bad news.

Seemed like enrolling in a girls’ school was the right choice for me.

Not wanting to hinder their conversation, I gradually eased out of the spot between them to stand behind Kelly. While looking around the hall, I saw an old, thin woman tottering down the hall, with a bunch of teachers following behind. White hair, thin papery skin and wrinkled face—her appearance could rival that of the hundred-fifty-year-old school building in terms of advancement in age.

She should be the principal. The old lady did have an air of authority around her, but she looked like a nice, amicable person. When passing by Class 1/1 and Class 1/2, she flashed an angelic smile that could melt a jaded student’s heart.

However, when she reached Class 1/3, that beam faded a little. After that, she didn’t even bother to take a glance at the rest of the freshmen and headed straight to the podium.

Oh, so only the best among the best deserved undivided attention?

I didn’t feel good about that at all. I used to be one of the top students in my elementary school. No matter how much the teachers and students hated me, I always had my results to validate my existence. Those grades couldn’t be affected by the prejudice of anyone. They were real and solid proof of my worth. However, I just realized that I was only average in my high school.

Was I of any value in that place? Obviously, that kind of principal thought that I was of none.

I must say that she was one nagging old hag. Her speech was humdrum; I knew it the second she introduced herself as Mrs. Olsen and went on to boast about her personal achievements and her husband’s. She kept on repeating the same old stuff about how awesome her school was, especially under her management. The differences between each segment of the ego-stroking talk were the phrases used.

Geez, she was like a walking thesaurus!

By the time she had finished her blabbering, fifteen minutes of my time was wasted on listening to her. I did doze off during the rest of her speech, so my forty-five minutes were considered to have been utilized for a good purpose.

Then our respective student councillors ushered us to the sloped grass patch beside the open-air car park to watch the welcoming ceremony. We were informed that the performances would take place at the clearing in the centre of the car park. The cars were parked at the sides, along the length of the area.

The loud speakers attached to each side of the main entrance began to blast out a blaring music that I suspected to be one of those that induced patriotic feelings. I thought I had heard it before in one of those documentary shows.

This sounds like the national anthem of a Communist state, whispered Kelly as she leaned towards Mandy.

Mandy made a small nod while trying to stifle her giggles. I almost laughed when I overheard Kelly’s remark. The irony was that we weren’t equal in the eyes of the principal.

As the grand music continued, twenty girls in dark blue uniforms marched out to the car park to perform their drilling exercise. After that performance, various uniformed groups took turns to present their portion of the show. The excited Mandy and Kelly—their expressions were too obvious, to the extent where even I could decipher them—were discussing which group to join. The main thing on my mind was the counting down to the end of the ceremony. My legs were aching from the standing. Even a short interval for us to sit on the floor would be much appreciated.

Following the ceremony was a tour around the school. Despite the obvious signs of aging and decay, the place was kept neat and clean. Though that was probably the only merit of the physical aspects of the building.

Beforehand, I had wondered if the car park was an appropriate venue to hold the