*Rhea's POV*

Day by day I was more and more convinced that life and everyone who breathed it was worthless. I dwelled in an existence void of meaning just to endure every day the dull and obnoxious existence of everyone around me. I not only felt trapped, but also helpless in my own special place at the bottom of the food chain. I had no friends or people who loved or cared about me. Despite my age, I believed I was one of the most miserable beings in this planet.

Columbine was my special hell. In my Spanish class, we had read a book titled La Divina Comedia. In it the author illustrated his journey to hell, which according to him was composed of several layers, the final one bearing the worse tortures for the worse sinners. To me, Columbine was the last layer of my own personal hell. Although instead of bearing only one devil, it harbored hundreds of demons that found fun in tormenting me. It occurred to me that I must have been a terrible sinner in my past life, or perhaps, if a God truly existed, he must have a terrible sense of humor by making me an easy target to natural selection.

I have been in Columbine High School since the start of my freshman year, and since then for some strange reason, my classmates began finding some sick entertainment in making fun of me. I'm now a senior, only months away from graduation, and things really haven't changed that much.

It all began with only a few people from my class who seemed to clearly dislike me, but they had friends and their friends had friends too, so it soon became like a cancer that rapidly spread throughout the school. Not everyone pushed me around though, most simply ignored me completely and made it really obvious when they talked behind my back. There was a group of students, though, that did take their dislike to a more physical level, I guess you could say. And no, they were not only girls, in case you thought only girls bully other girls. There were at least three jocks that have more than once 'accidentally' pushed me against the lockers, or smashed against me when I was walking down the hallway. Most things were immature gestures that simply shouldn't bother me but somehow still did. But sometimes, when they really felt like it, the school could really be a frightening place for me.

At first it were only girls who made fun of me. Jocks began targeting me when one of their girlfriends left them with the petty excuse of having been seen them flirting with me and rumored to like me. I had the slightest feeling that the rumors had been started by someone who disliked me a lot, although the list was too long for me to suspect on who the rumor starter was.

If you are wondering why people even bother on making my life a living hell, you're in the same page as I. I guess sometimes people simply can't stand others for being different. Or maybe it was something personal that began between me and a fellow classmate without me even realizing it. Or maybe I simply had terrible luck. I suspected it was a mixture of all three.

Tomorrow would be another day like all the rest. As I lay in my bed with the lights off, I stared at the ceiling with an incessant headache and a consuming depression. The cuts continued to pierce, a constant reminder of the pain that never waned. The physical pain was never as bad as the pain I felt inside, though. I hated myself for being so miserable. And yet, I was too much of a coward to end my pain.

I awoke to the sound of my alarm. I had to blink several times for my eyes to adjust to the unwelcome light of a new day. During school days I always left my blinds open, knowing that my alarm was usually not enough to get me out of bed, and always regretted it immediately the next morning.

I got up and took a quick bath to completely awaken all my senses. The warm water falling against my skin should've been comforting and relaxing during such a cold morning but the still fresh cuts on my inner thighs and wrists prevented it from filling me with any kind of comfort. Regret never failed to follow self harm, and yet I was never able to resist the urge to inflict myself pain when it came. That's because pain was, in some weird way, like a drug to me. It replaced my inner pain for a while and then merged with it in coexistence. It was a temporary replacement from the pain that stung more than any other kind of pain, yet it was not even close to what I needed to numb it. I knew it was not something that would held, but I didn't know of anything better. That's why, despite the constant regret that followed afterwards, I always ended up doing it again.

I just hoped that I would someday find something that wouldn't only numb the pain, but finally make it go away. I wondered what that something would be. Hopefully, I would find it after graduation.

I put on a blue floral dress that I really liked and my cargo boots. I liked my boots because their practicality. If I ever needed to run, they were perfect for the job. They were good for fighting as well, although I kind of needed to be good at fighting too for it to make a difference. Over my floral dress I put on a jean jacket, and wrist bands to cover up the mess I was inside.

I looked at myself once more in the mirror before deciding with a sarcastic smile that I looked good enough to assist my hell.

"Let's get this day over with," I encouraged myself and headed for my car.