Wildbow - Worm

Table of Contents

Gestation 1.1

Brief note from the author: This story isnt intended for young or sensitive readers. Readers who are on the lookout for trigger warnings are advised to give Worm a pass.

Class ended in five minutes and all I could think was, an hour is too long for lunch .

Since the start of the semester, I had been looking forward to the part of Mr. Gladlys World Issues class where wed start discussing capes. Now that it had finally arrived, I couldnt focus. I fidgeted, my pen moving from hand to hand, tapping, or absently drawing some figure in the corner of the page to join the other doodles. My eyes were restless too, darting from the clock above the door to Mr. Gladly and back to the clock. I wasnt picking up enough of his lesson to follow along. Twenty minutes to twelve; five minutes left before class ended.

He was animated, clearly excited about what he was talking about, and for once, the class was listening. He was the sort of teacher who tried to be friends with his students, the sort who went by Mr. G instead of Mr. Gladly. He liked to end class a little earlier than usual and chat with the popular kids, gave lots of group work so others could hang out with their friends in class, and had fun assignments like mock trials.

He struck me as one of the popular kids who had become a teacher. He probably thought he was everyones favorite. I wondered how hed react if he heard my opinion on the subject. Would it shatter his self image or would he shrug it off as an anomaly from the gloomy girl that never spoke up in class?

I glanced over my shoulder. Madison Clements sat two rows to my left and two seats back. She saw me looking and smirked, her eyes narrowing, and I lowered my eyes to my notebook. I tried to ignore the ugly, sour feeling that stewed in my stomach. I glanced up at the clock. Eleven-forty-three.

Let me wrap up here, Mr. Gladly said, Sorry, guys, but there is homework for the weekend. Think about capes and how theyve impacted the world around you. Make a list if you want, but its not mandatory. On Monday well break up into groups of four and see what group has the best list. Ill buy the winning group treats from the vending machine.

There were a series of cheers, followed by the classroom devolving into noisy chaos. The room was filled with sounds of binders snapping shut, textbooks and notebooks being slammed closed, chairs screeching on cheap tile and the dull roar of emerging conversation. A bunch of the more social members of the class gathered around Mr. Gladly to chat.

Me? I just put my books away and kept quiet. Id written down almost nothing in the way of notes; there were collections of doodles spreading across the page and numbers in the margins where Id counted down the minutes to lunch as if I was keeping track of the timer on a bomb.

Madison was talking with her friends. She was popular, but not gorgeous in the way the stereotypical popular girls on TV were. She was adorable, instead. Petite. She played up the image with sky blue pins in her shoulder length brown hair and a cutesy attitude. Madison wore a strapless top and denim skirt, which seemed absolutely moronic to me given the fact that it was still early enough in the spring that we could see our breath in the mornings.

I wasnt exactly in a position to criticize her. Boys liked her and she had friends, while the same was hardly true for me. The only feminine feature I had going for me was my dark curly hair, which Id grown long. The clothes I wore didnt show skin, and I didnt deck myself out in bright colors like a bird showing off its plumage.

Guys liked her, I think, because she was appealing without being intimidating.

If they only knew.

The bell rang with a lilting ding-dong, and I was the first one out the door. I didnt run, but I moved at a decent clip as I headed up the stairwell to the third floor and made my way to the girls washroom.

There were a half dozen girls there already, which meant I had to wait for a stall to open up. I nervously watched the door of the bathroom, feeling my heart drop every time someone entered the room.

As soon as there was a free stall, I let myself in and locked the door. I leaned against the wall and exhaled slowly. It wasnt quite a sigh of relief. Relief implied you felt better. I wouldnt feel better until I got home. No, I just felt less uneasy.

It took maybe five minutes before the noise of others in the washroom stopped. A peek below the partitions showed that there was nobody else in the other stalls. I sat on the lid of the toilet and got my brown bag lunch to begin eating.

Lunch on the toilet was routine now. Every school day, I would finish off my brown bag lunch, then Id do homework or read a book until lunch hour was over. The only book in my bag that I hadnt already read was called Triumvirate, a biography of the leading three members of the Protectorate. I was thinking I would spend as long as I could on Mr. Gladlys assignment before reading, because I wasnt enjoying the book. Biographies werent my thing, and they were especially not my thing when I was suspicious it was all made up.

Whatever my plan, I didnt even have a chance to finish my pita wrap. The door of the bathroom banged open. I froze. I didnt want to rustle the bag and clue anyone into what I was doing, so I kept still and listened.

I couldnt make out the voices. The noise of the conversation was obscured by giggling and the sound of water from the sinks. There was a knock on the door, making me jump. I ignored it, but the person on the other side just repeated the knock.

Occupied, I called out, hesitantly.

Oh my god, its Taylor! one of the girls on the outside exclaimed with glee, then in response to something another girl whispered, I barely heard her add, Yeah, do it!

I stood up abruptly, letting the brown bag with the last mouthful of my lunch fall to the tiled floor. Rushing for the door, I popped the lock open and pushed. The door didnt budge.

There were noises from the stalls on either side of me, then a sound above me. I looked up to see what it was, only to get splashed in the face. My eyes started burning, and I was momentarily blinded by the stinging fluid in my eyes and my blurring of my glasses. I could taste it as it ran down to my nose and mouth. Cranberry juice.

They didnt stop there. I managed to pull my glasses off just in time to see Madison and Sophia leaning over the top of the stall, each of them with plastic bottles at the ready. I bent over with my hands shielding my head just before they emptied the contents over me.

It ran down the back of my neck, soaked my clothes, fizzed as it ran through my hair. I pushed against the door again, but the girl on the other side was braced against it with her body.

If the girls pouring juice and soda on me were Madison and Sophia, that meant the girl on the other side of the door was Emma, leader of the trio. Feeling a flare of anger at the realization, I shoved on the door, the full weight of my body slamming against it. I didnt accomplish anything, and my shoes lost traction on the juice-slick floor. I fell to my knees in the puddling juice.

Empty plastic bottles with labels for grape and cranberry juice fell to the ground around me. A bottle of orange soda bounced off my shoulder to splash into the puddle before rolling under the partition and into the next stall. The smell of the fruity drinks and sodas was sickly sweet.

The door swung open, and I glared up at the three girls. Madison, Sophia and Emma. Where Madison was cute, a late bloomer, Sophia and Emma were the types of girls that fit the prom queen image. Sophia was dark skinned, with a slender, athletic build shed developed as a runner on the school track team. Red-headed Emma, by contrast, had all the curves the guys wanted. She was good looking enough to get occasional jobs as a amateur model for the catalogs that the local department stores and malls put out. The three of them were laughing like it was the funniest thing in the world, but the sounds of their amusement barely registered with me. My attention was on the faint roar of blood pumping in my ears and an urgent, ominous crackling sound that wouldnt get any quieter or less persistent if I covered my ears with my hands. I could feel dribbles running down my arms and back, still chilled from the refrigerated vending machines.