At the Brink of Insanity

Chapter 1: Where it all begins

She smiled at David and passed him her notebook, once he nodded and gave her a smile of appreciation. Sam had to smirk at her comment. His handwriting was indeed, messy. Kim took Sam's notebook and passed it to Laura and William, who sat together so they could finish faster and give others a chance to copy the homework assignment.

Five minutes before the bell, everyone sat in their seats, homework, which consisted of 10 tasks, each and every one of them with 5 subtasks, done in their notebooks. Since they're all able to solve the math problems on their own, and are used to copy full essays in less than 20 minutes, something like this wasn't a problem.

Once the bell rang, Mr. Smith made his way in the classroom. Students greeted him with a "Good morning", which he returned. Despite all of the stories behind the cursed class, Mr. Smith loved working with these kids. None of them were troublemakers, not that the school had many of those, but among all of the classes he lectured, the 'D' class was the most interested in his subject. They were all talented, maybe even more talented than other kids in the school. It's a pity from all the classes in the Hollow High, all of them ended in the worst possible choice.

In the middle of the lecture, Mr. Smith stopped talking.

17 year old students were silent as well, not knowing whether they should call out for their professor or simply wait until he starts talking again. Without uttering a word, Mr. Smith went out of the classroom and slammed the door.

A full minute passed by in silence. No one dared to get up from his chair and check if their professor was coming. No one dared to say a word, knowing that uttering a word would disturb the bliss of tranquility they currently had. Even their breathing was slow and quiet, unnoticeable. All eyes were directed at the closed door, waiting. They were all waiting for something to happen. They all knew something was going to happen.

That's when Mr. Smith returned with a smile on his face. "Sorry kids, for leaving like that. I hope I didn't scare you guys!" He said laughing awkwardly, rubbing the back of his neck with his right hand, placing a small paper on his desk.

From the back of his pants, Mr. Smith pulled a kitchen knife and placed it onto his desk as well. Now, students were fully alarmed. They still didn't move nor tried to voice their thoughts, though. They still waited. Waited in anticipation.

Mr. Smith unbuttoned his shirt, showing all of his chest hair towards students, which they found disgusting, and took the knife he placed on his desk in his left hand. He plunged the knife into his abdomen, making first a left-to-right cut and then a second slightly upward stroke, letting out a cry of pain as he did so.

Blood started pouring from his abdomen, as well as contents of his stomach. Mr. Smith made a clean cut through his small intestine, all the way towards his colon and stomach, almost cutting his liver too. He was still standing, his sheer will keeping him on his legs and refusing to let him roll in pain, while his screams echoed in the classroom. When he couldn't take it any more, he stabbed the knife in his throat, pushing it more and more inside, until the knife made an exit wound in his neck. The blood was dripping from his mouth like a waterfall, his breathing coarse, but at the same time a strange sound was coming from his vocal cords, as if he was growling.

Before he dropped dead on the floor, Mr. Smith pulled the knife out of his throat and a jet of blood splashed towards the bewildered students, covering all of them with his blood. He was choking, but instead of falling and dying, he turned towards the black board, as if he was going to continue his lecture, and with his blooded finger wrote in capitals, "YOU'RE NEXT". Mr. Smith let out his last breath and his lifeless body hit the hard floor, making a pond of blood where his body lay.

For a few seconds, silence embraced the 'D' class for the second time that morning. Eleven heads snapped their way towards the class president, who sat in the back seat of the classroom, their eyebrows almost hitting the ceiling, panic on their faces. But strangely, none of them even thought about screaming, like they were used to these kinds of things. Or maybe, because they knew things like this would happen often in the future.

"Dante?" They questioned in union.

"We just witnessed a sloppy seppuku by one of our professors. For those who don't know, it's a form of Japanese ritual suicide originally reserved for samurai. They would write a death poem, which I assume is on that paper on his desk, open their kimono and do the same cut in their abdomen with the short sword, wakizashi, just like Mr. Smith did. Though, this didn't seem like a ritual at all, and the last time I checked, throat cutting wasn't a part of tradition." Dante shrugged.

"Dante!" His classmates shouted. They couldn't cope with the fact that he could stay completely calm, even when their teacher just spilled his guts in front of them, and still take it as a joke.

"What do we do now, Dante?" Asked David, currently the only one with the ability to form a full question.

"I don't know." Dante said seriously, giving them a dismissive shrug. At that, his classmates gulped. "I'll talk to the principal. We'll meet at the old place after school at 3 p.m., okay? I need some time to think." He said slowly getting up from his seat and walking towards the door.

"We seriously need to call the police and have someone clean this mess up. Oh, and someone better take that paper, before the cops get their hands on it. I want to know what kind of death poem Mr. Smith came up with." He added before exiting the classroom.

*****

First chapter finished! :)

Hope you enjoyed reading it. If you did, comments, votes or shares would mean a lot ;)

What do you think for now? Is the introduction okay? Is the pacing fine? Critiques are always welcome. That's what helps us in progressing, right?

What do you think of the characters for now? I didn't want to introduce all of them in the first chapter. Wanted to leave some mystery (can I call it that, lol) for later chapters. From the 'for now' introduced characters, who do you like the most?

Your overall thoughts?

Thanks for reading this chapter, hope you'll continue reading it and won't get bored of it.

Have a nice day/night,

Hugh