No one could ever really say how it started, or what could have caused this tragedy. At least, that was what most people thought, all who had never thought to look harder. There had been quite a turn out for the procession. Stifled sobs, sniffles, and murmured laments filled what little of the air wasn’t heavy with the deep silence of shock and sorrow as the four caskets were carried to what would be their final resting places.
The four deceased had been popular. They were social butterflies, adept at being noticed for all the right reasons by all the responsible adults and the drone-like students of the high school. Even those who didn’t join the ranks of plastic copies often wore masks to stay under the radar and go about their business. One girl never wore her mask.
Kari was a sweet, unassuming girl. She studied diligently, remained respectful to everyone, followed the rules. It was her following the rules a little too well that caused her mask to break. Kari had some of the highest marks in the school system, and they were well-deserved. She was a firm believer in many of the common rules of thumb, such as working hard to earn what she wanted, and doing unto others as she would have them do unto her. As such, when one of the four most popular students asked her to let them copy her answers on the take home test they had been given, she said no. She adamantly refused, and as absolutely no one refused the four greats of the school, hell’s fury was soon brought down upon her in every way imaginable.
It started off simply enough. Untraceable messages scribbled on her locker, messes left in her desk every morning, occasional mishaps in the hall when someone just so happened to knock her down on the way through the crowd. The messages stung, but they were merely written words. The messes were annoying, and cut a little into her morning review. Falling multiple times a day left her sore. But there wasn’t all that much she could do about it without proof, even if she knew full well who was behind these annoying little acts of revenge. But that was all they were, annoying, little. She was bigger than that, or so she told herself, and no petty displays were going to affect her.
Kari found things were getting worse, though, since she seemed so unwavering in the face of their attempts at revenge. Her locker was broken into one day during school, anything even remotely valuable was taken from it, plus a personal item or two, and all that remained was left scattered about the hallway. Once again, there was no way to prove who had done this, but she had her firm suspicions, and this made her angry. But once again, she went on and told herself to be the bigger person. She couldn’t bother herself with acknowledging people with a coward’s way of handling their anger anyhow. None of their tactics were terribly direct after all, and for a time things seemed to get better. Nothing was happening to her desk, no more rude words or phrases or crude drawings appeared on her locker, and she was no longer tripped in the halls. She figured that they had finally gotten over it and seen how terribly spoiled and bratty they had been behaving in the first place, and as such continued on and chose to forgive and forget.
But then came a long awaited day in the lab. Kari’s passion was science, she loved biology and chemistry especially, and today’s chance to work with chemicals in her advanced class was one she had been looking forward to since the semester began. She followed the instructions perfectly, measured every chemical as accurately as she could manage, and took special care with the Bunsen burner. But she made a mistake. She must have, what else could explain how terribly wrong her long awaited experiment had gone? Somehow her mixture had violently combusted, her face and hands were covered in a chemical burn, and were it not for her quick movement away from the table her torso and legs may well have been next. An ambulance was called as the teacher tended to her as well as he could, and she was taken away shortly thereafter.
Given the nature of her burns, Kari was kept in the hospital for a week to ensure there weren’t any further reactions to the chemicals, during which time she had a very small handful of visitors. Among those few were the four rulers of the school, and never once were their visits monitored, save for a nurse passing by to hear murmurs, giggles, and chuckles at one point as Kari quietly spoke to them.
There was something very different about Kari when she returned to school. Her once quiet, warm demeanor had changed completely to one of an odd sort of icy meekness. She acknowledged no one, and kept her head down for the most part rather than maintaining a straight posture and a friendly little smile as she once had. It was no secret that she now possessed scars from the incident, so it was written off as her being self-conscious. Besides, the four most well-known students in school were always tending to her personally now. They were so terribly sweet about helping her, always seeming to whisper little words of encouragement, and trying to be positive for her, if those smiles on their faces were anything to go by.
Prom soon came around, and the dance went off without a hitch, though Kari didn’t show up. Though, she did make an appearance at one of the after parties. She was in good spirits, it was the first time she had seemed even remotely sociable in weeks after all, even if she did take her leave early. No one paid much mind, the drinking was fun and the music was loud, those sorts of things never had suited the unassuming girl all that much. But upon the discovery early the next morning, they didn’t seem to suit anyone all that much anymore. Each of the four rulers of the school were found in different parts of the house, laid out flat on their backs, their tongues cut out. Whether they died of blood loss or by drowning in their own blood was difficult to discern. It was a gruesome discovery, to put it lightly. It seemed they had been too intoxicated to put up a fight with whoever had done this, further investigation found that their drinks had been spiked with something, but there was no real way to find out who had done this heinous crime what with all the dancing and drinking that had gone on.
The funerals were over now, all four services had concluded and the caskets were buried. Most of the mourners had left by this point, all save the poor, unassuming girl that had seemed to be taken under their wing these past few weeks. Kari smiled softly as she walked to each freshly turned grave, murmuring a little something at each. It had been such a lovely set of funerals; she had to admire how nice the four had looked at their viewing, as well. She felt she deserved a little of the credit though, after all it had been her careful precision with the scalpel she’d borrowed that kept their faces so intact. She still remembered clearly how easily the sharp edge had carved out their tongues, like a hot knife through butter. She couldn’t help the content sigh that escaped her as she stopped at the fourth and final grave, and crouched down, “Didn’t I tell you…? If you can’t say something nice, then you should say nothing at all…”
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