I step down from the lunch table. Walter's standing in front of me, his eyes wide with concern. "Easy, Leni…" he says.

Chaz simply looks up at me like I'm crazy.

The bell rings, ending lunch, and one by one people look away from me and resumes whatever conversations they were having before my outburst.

I giggle. "Sorry about that, boys. I'm just a bit worked up from all of the homework we've been getting lately."

They say nothing.

I stand and look at the ground. In shame? In embarrassment? In regret? I don't know. I'm not exactly used to having these feelings. The other students walk past me one by one until I look up at last and see that I'm alone in the cafeteria. I grab my backpack and sling it over my shoulder, but not before kicking it hard and hurting my foot.

Night. It's warm out, and I'm wandering aimlessly through the eastern part of Royal Woods. Eastern Royal Woods is basically the same exact thing as western Royal Woods, but made better by its proximity to the train station to Detroit. I don't like black people. The street lamps cast a dim, ominous light down at the sidewalk underneath them, and I hum a tune to myself as I walk up the sidewalk on a small hill.

In my pocket, my phone vibrates, and I fish it out and look at the screen. Lori is calling.

Why does she have to call me when I'm enjoying a quiet walk? I look around. I'm alone "You bitch!" I yell, getting my anger toward my older sister out of the way. Sighing, I answer the call.

"Hi!" I answer in a fake syrupy sweet voice.

"Leni?" she asks.

"What's up?"

"You're coming home soon, right?"

"Uh, yeah. Why do you ask?"

There's a brief pause. "It's just… dangerous out there, you know? I just want to make sure you're safe."

This shit again. It's dangerous out there. I check my watch. 8:56.

"That's very kind of you, Lori. I'm glad you're worried about me!" I chuckle. "But I'll be fine. I'll start heading home now."

"Where are you?"

"Eastern Royal Woods." I look up for a landmark, and see the town cemetery. "By the burial site."

"It's gonna take you a while, then. Can I come pick you up, Leni?"

"That sounds good. Thanks, Lori!"

"Alrighty, I'll be there in 15 minutes."

"I'll see you then. Love you," I lie.

"Love you too, Leni," Lori says. She hangs up.

I walk ahead to the entrance of the cemetery, my destination all along. I briefly look behind me. There's nobody around. Casually, I walk inside. I scan the area, and the cemetery is empty. I am alone.

I went to Coyle's funeral, so I know where his gravestone is. I saw his casket lowered into the ground. After a short walk, I am standing in front of it.

COYLE HAVEN, 1999 - 2018

Beloved friend and kind soul to all.

I scoff. The way you are remembered, I think to myself, is determined by the way you die. If you die trying to do a stupid stunt while you're drunk, people will remember you as an idiot. If you die victim to a gruesome murder, people will remember you as a kind, gentle, tragic victim.

I didn't know Coyle well, but from what I know, he was a genuinely unpleasant person. Because he happened to be unlucky enough to run into me when I was looking for a person to kill to calm my nerves, he's remembered as a beloved friend and a kind soul to all? It's rubbish. Bullshit.

Not that I care. Humans are surface-level and plastic as a whole, and I don't really concern myself with them either way. Let them cry over some random kid dying. There's literally thousands of people that die every week. Horrible things happen to people every day. As soon as something happens to someone in their community, though, they go ballistic. It's pathetic. You have to be a shallow, brainless idiot to get upset over one random kid dying. I'm completely surrounded by fools, flanked on all fronts with no escape. I hate it.

I kneel down on the fresh dirt set out in front of Coyle's headstone. "Look at you now," I mock. "Dead. Try fighting back against me now, you stupid bastard."

Silence.

"You were just like the rest of them. You were able to make friends, have a good time in school… you probably had a girlfriend or two at one point."

Coyle says nothing.

"You could… connect with people," I continue. "You… enjoyed spending time with others. People cared about you in return, I suppose. If they didn't, you wouldn't have a nice little grave."

He raises no defense.

"But… it doesn't matter, now… does it?"

…

"Coyle, do you know why it doesn't matter?"

…

"Because you have nothing left but your epitaph."

Silence.

I begin to smile and laugh. It's little more than a chuckle at first, but quickly, it grows until it's a roaring howl. I don't know how or when I got in this position, but by now, I'm on all fours on top of his grave, clenching dirt below me with a death tight grip.

"DO YOU HEAR, YOU FUCKING IDIOT? YOU'RE DEAD! I KILLED YOU!"

…

"ANSWER ME, COYLE! HOW DOES IT FEEL TO BE DEAD? HUH!?

…

"ANSWER ME!"

Coyle's tombstone is silent and still under the moonlight.

My laughter quickly cuts out. My smile fades. My eyes, once wise, grow narrow.

I stand up, brush the dust off of my clothes, and look down at Coyle's silent grave.

I don't know how long I stand there, but it must be a decent amount of time, because I eventually hear Lori's horn honking. I turn away and leave… I go back to the land of the living.

Back to the land of my torment.

I'm sitting on my bed, and Lori is laying down on hers, reading a hardcover novel. Soon, she puts her bookmark in her book, sets it down, and leaves. I'm alone.

With nothing better to do, I wander over to my desk, pick up my laptop, and bring it back to my bed. I decide to read the news. The biggest headlines are as follows:

- NEW SPORT ADDED TO OLYMPIC ROSTER: DWARF TOSSING

- POPULAR MUSICIAN CAUGHT TRYING TO HAVE AFFAIR WITH HIS BRAIN DEAD GRANDMOTHER, WHOM IS PLUGGED INTO THE WALL AT NEARBY HOSPITAL

- IS HALLOWEEN BECOMING TOO SEXY FOR KIDS?

These aren't really the titles of the articles but I changed some of the words around in my head to make them funnier to me. Lol! I get bored of clicking through the news and eventually I gravitate to darker websites, watch some violent and bloody rape but this does nothing for me and I get bored so I play an online game for a little while. In the game I play as a little red WWI plane and I need to shoot down enemy planes, as well as bomb anti-aircraft guns and enemy vehicles on the ground below. In the final level, I fight a big German zeppelin that is dropping bombs and marvel at the size of it compared to my tiny plane.

I manage to entertain myself for twenty minutes or so before I hear a cry from the bathroom. I close my laptop and get up to investigate. In the bathroom, I find Lola looking into the toilet with disgust and fear.

"What… is… that!" she bellows, pointing into the toilet.

I look down and see a big, black, wet rat trying to crawl its way out to freedom.

I screech, not because I'm scared, but because the Leni that Lola knows would be terrified at such a creature.

"I'll-I'll catch it!" I say, rushing downstairs. I bolt out of the house and go to the garage, where I grab a cage, the same cage that I stole from the park whilst it had a squirrel inside of it. I noticed that the garage is beginning to smell a little bit from the innards and organs of the squirrel which are still in the trash, and make a mental note to myself to spray down the garage with Febreze or something later.

"There you are!" Lola says when I run back into the bathroom with my cage. "Kill it! "Kill it, Leni!"

"Killing is wrong," I say, trying not to laugh, and open up the cage. I quickly manage to get the big, black, wet rat into it.

I quickly close and lock the cage and turn to Lola. "I'm returning this to the woods, far away from here," I say.

She crosses her arms. "Fine," she says after a brief moment of thought.

I walk out of the bathroom and close the door behind me. I look down the hall. I'm alone. Good.

I rush back to my room, open my closet, and put the cage deep in the back of my side. I put my finger in the cage, and the big, black, wet rat, with it's chipped front tooth, bites deeply into my finger. It tries sinking its teeth deeper into my finger for a little while before I finally take it out. It's bleeding terribly and it hurts.

It's hungry, I think. I plan to starve it for at least a few days so it's still hungry, and very much so, when I have need for it.

I cover the cage with a heavy pile of clothes so that it can't be heard squeaking or trying to escape, and then close the closet door, and then wait outside the bathroom for Lola to get out, and put my bleeding finger in my shirt pocket so nobody can see it but it bleeds through, and when Lola finally comes out of the bathroom she looks at the red on my shirt and asks "what's that, Leni?"

"Ketchup, you little high-strung devil," I say, smiling, before going in the bathroom and closing the door behind me.

"There is victory in the Lord!" says the priest behind the tall, wooden pulpit. Our family takes up an entire pew of the church. It's hot in here.

I'm feeling much more drained than usual. Even the thought of undergoing the simple act of standing makes me feel tired. It's not a sleepy kind of tired, though. Many times sitting in church I feel my eyes feel heavy and fantasize about being in my warm, cozy bed. This is not one of those times, though. I'm feeling rather awake today, in fact. The kind of tired that I'm feeling right now stems more from motivation, or rather, a lack thereof. I don't feel like doing anything. Talking with others, fiddling on my phone, combing my hair. The thought of doing these things that I usually do repulse me. They're all so… banal. Trivial. Pointless.

Then again, doing something worthwhile like writing a book or studying for school or expanding my mind in any other way, are things that also sound like they'd currently bore me if I try to do any of them. So…

"We must repent!" drones the priest. "The Lord is our only way to eternal life!"

My family doesn't come to church regularly (having everyone get up in the morning five days a week to get to school is insanely difficult, so nobody really wants to bump that number up to six), but it's become a bit more frequent of an occurrence since Coyle kicked the bucket. Maybe father and mother think it will somehow help us stay safe, as if going to church will make God happy and he'll protect us better in turn. Maybe they're afraid that we could be next, and if we are, then we'd have a better chance of getting into heaven if we had more regularly attended Sunday services.

I bite my lips against a chuckle. The thought of Lola playing with her pink jeep, laughing and smiling in the joy of youth, only to suddenly drive out in the road, not paying attention… only to have her car run out of battery… only to look behind her and realize it's too late when she sees a car had been speeding down the street, unaware of her…

I suddenly feel another intense wave of demotivation wash over me. The thought of being dragged to the hospital, then a wake, then a funeral, then whatever other events would happen as a result of Lola's death drains me even by simply thinking about it. The joyous event of hearing the screams of terror of my siblings as they realize, too late, that Lola had been hit, and their hopeless struggles to convince themselves that everything is going to be alright, only for such thoughts to die as a doctor somberly walks over to them in a waiting room to deliver bad news, is not worth is considering the boredom that would follow. It would take weeks for the family to return to a normal state, and even then, Lola's death would always cast a shadow… I'd have to pretend that I cared. It would be easy but taxing on my energy. I'd hate it.

These thoughts are not normal, I think. This is not what a 16-year-old girl with a perfect family and lots of friends thought be thinking.

Obviously, I think back to myself. But who cares?

You want to get better, don't you?

Well… yeah… but…

Then stop this right now! Act NORMAL ! ! !

I turn to Lynn, whom is sitting next to me. I place my hand on her leg. She looks up at me quizzically.

"Hey…" I whisper. I point at the preacher. "Good message, huh?"

She looks at me and nods dumbly. "Uh… yeah…"

"Are you having a good time?"

"I… I guess?"

"Good. Good." I turn back. I can feel Lynn continuing to look at me, probably thinking what the hell was that?

I don't know how to act normal.

The priest continues on, and about 20 minutes later, Lynn farts. I hate her.

"Lynn!" whisper-yells Lincoln next to me. "Really?"

Although I, like all people in the Loud house, are used to Lynn's juvenile sense of humor, that she could consider something as simple as the basic human function of farting as funny, I think that the smell of Lynn herself is far worse. In my opinion, she is a terribly unpleasant human to be around. If I could pick any one of my sisters to have suffered a miscarriage and never be born, it'd easily be Lynn.

Lynn, like most people, said that she secretly enjoys the smell of her own farts. When she told me, I shook my head. The smell of Lynn herself, though, was something else. Something worse, in my opinion. It is so bad as to seem evil in a moral way. I hate Lynn.

…

Lol!

At last, the priest finishes. By the end of the message he is sweating and dabs his forehead with a wool cloth. Father sallys up the family and we march out of the church. It's chilly out and I shiver.

"There's a cold front coming through," father says, breaking the silence as we walk to Vanzilla. He's trying to make conversation. Nobody says anything else.

We drive home in silence as well. I look out the window as the car moves down the road, surrounded by the rural part of Royal Woods. The madness of a cold front: you could feel it. Something terrible was going to happen. The sun hangs low in the sky, a minor light, a cooling star. Gust after gust of disorder. Trees restless in the wind. Temperatures falling. The whole northern religion of things coming to an end. No children in the yards here. Shadows lengthened on yellowing zoysia. Red oaks and pin oaks and swamp white oaks rain acorns on houses with no mortgage. I spot one of them that is abandoned. When we get home and I sit on the couch, I don't think to turn on the TV and I am bored, so I make a list in my head.

List of four things that I hear around me right now:

1. The occasional quiet conversations from my siblings and parents

2. The faint drone and hiccup of the clothes dryer from the basement

3. The nasal contention of Mr. Grouse's leaf blower from the yard next to ours

4. The ripening of local apples in a paper bag

5. The danger of the gerontocratic suburbs of Royal Woods

6. A bell that nobody but me can hear directly. It is the alarm bell of anxiety

I somehow can sense it before it happens. I don't have superpowers nor am I a psychic, but I can tell that it was coming before it got here. Something terrible.

The doorbell rings and Lori opens.

"Hello," it says, fastening it's tie.

"Hi," Lori says dumbly. "Can I help you, sir?"

"I'm here to speak with Leni, if that's alright," says detective Donald Elbert.