Greendale's Oddest Human Beings

A Sad...ish? Beginning

    Ruth had always gotten good grades... then the disease got her. That sounds incredibly dark, but it's not a real disease and that was just an attention grabber. She did, however, fall victim to burn-out (as most ex-honor-students do). It's sad that her mother died when she was 17, but she was already going downhill before the sudden death. It is what happens though: a child who was told they have great potential begins to grow up and realize that they're not as special as they were told they were. Somewhat luckily for her, Ruth's fire didn't completely burn out until she was about 17. She did, of course, have many issues before that (depression, anxiety, ADHD, etc.), but she kept near-perfect grades until her mother died. Her grades plummeted after that, which is what placed her at Greendale Community College.
    Ruth lived in a dorm on campus; she wanted any remnants of "real" college that she could get. Sadly, after hearing the Dean's announcement that morning in which he basically called Greendale "loser college", she began to realize that there weren't many remnants of "real" college at Greendale (despite how hard the Dean tried to convince students otherwise).
    The first class of Ruth's day: Spanish. Despite being a fairly smart girl, Ruth had always struggled with Spanish. She did know ASL (sign language) since her mother had been hard of hearing and she had some deaf friends, but Spanish just... eluded her. Despite fearing Spanish class at first, she soon realized that she struck gold when the teacher introduced himself. "Señor Chang" (aka "El Tigre") wasn't just any teacher (not at all); the man was practically (if not actually) insane. He had pretended to eat a students brain and the way he talked reminded her of some terrible song with random fortissimos (loud parts), probably played by children on recorders. He entertained the young woman; she was fascinated by him.
    Everyone else seemed uncomfortable and even frightened, but, in observing the classroom, she did find one other student who also seemed to enjoy the show. He didn't have many expressions, but she did see him tilt his head and/or flash a smile sometimes when the "professor" said or did something crazy. That's when she got the idea to start a new journal.
    She had been keeping what she called "people records" since she was in middle school. Said records included sections in her journals for each person she observed as well as notes about them. Her notes could sometimes be seen as mean (calling a random boy in her class a "douchebag" didn't exactly spring from the kindness of her heart), so she never showed anyone her notes, but some of the dirt she was able to capture on the pages of her journals was legendary. She had incite into not only who was dating who, but who was secretly cheating on who. The girl had blackmail for days... but she never used it. She considered the point of her journals to be more... anthropological. She observed people and slowly began to understand them more (or sometimes less).
    In Ruth's fresh journal, she began to write some notes on the student she had noticed. That's when the class ended and the "show's" proverbial curtain closed. As Ruth exited the class, she debated whether or not to speak to the man that she was observing. 'What would I even say?,' she thought to herself. '"Hey, I've been observing you and you seem cool?"' No. That was creepy, right? Yeah. Ruth would just have to hope that she'd one day get a chance to interact with the man; lucky for her, she would get that chance sooner than she expected.

    At lunch, Ruth sat by herself, eating and writing in her journal. She enjoyed being alone most of the time and this was one of those times, but, to her dismay, someone decided to sit across from her. The young woman looked up to see a man. He must've been in his late 20's or early 30's, dressed in a casual T-Shirt and cargo shorts. Ruth had seen him before in Spanish class, though he almost... blended into the background next to a dead plant at the back of the room.
    "Hi!", the man said with a (somewhat annoyingly) upbeat attitude. "I'm Buddy," he said, "I'm in your Spanish class." Buddy reached out his hand for her to shake, but Ruth didn't, instead going back to writing in her journal. Maybe he'd just go away. The young woman didn't have a very friendly appearance (she wore a black sweatshirt, loose, distressed dark blue jeans, Doc Martins, and a black beanie), so maybe her coldness would push him away as it did others.
    Devastatingly though, he stayed. "I saw that you were looking around the class and writing stuff down," he continued on, "I was wondering if you were writing about anything interesting." Ruth looked up at the man, shooting a glare his way, but a smile still remained on his face, making the young woman finally cave.
    "Why do you care?", she asked with a sigh, not looking at the man, but rather her journal. "Because you're a mysterious, dark chick who could be plotting to kill us all and I don't want you to kill me when you finally snap," the man said as though it was obvious. 'Chick?!', Ruth thought as anger started to boil up within her. "Don't call me that," Ruth snapped. "What?", Buddy asked, "Chick?"
Though Buddy was just clarifying, him just saying that word again Ruth snap. "Do you know what 'flaying' is?", Ruth asked angrily. Buddy looked confused. "What?" "Do you know what 'flaying' is?", the young woman repeated. "Uh... no? What does it mean?", the man asked as his confusion deepened. "It refers to when an individual peels the skin off of a corpse or carcass," Ruth explained, looking Buddy dead in the eyes. The man was terrified. His eyes had grown wide and his mouth had dropped open; he looked much like a carp who had just been hooked by a fisherman.
After a moment of intense silence and eye contact, Ruth finally cut the poor "carp" free. "I think you should go," she said, breaking eye contact and looking back down at her journal. The man took her advice and practically sprinted out of the cafeteria, turning some heads in the process. Ruth couldn't help but smile a little bit at her handwork. Yes, maybe "flaying" was a bit of a disturbing term and, yes, she probably could've toned it down a bit by using a term like "hobbling" or "altruistic homicide" instead, but she needed to make a notable first move at her new school. If she was lucky, "Buddy" would spread the word and people would avoid her.