Flight School: Prey

Living Dead

Her office was a place that trembled strength and arrested souls. They faltered at the sight of a dark, looming shadow; cast by the winding stairs of Gothic design, black; as with the rest of the furniture, and dull, like the warm, almost-red glow of the ceiling lights.

The dark crystalline desk, placed before towering shelves that rose like stones—tombstones—reflected a sinister beauty that belonged to the woman who sat behind it.

V stroked her Avian on his head, smiling as though she would very much like to have this peace murdered.

It was then when he entered; his hair kept into a low ponytail; his arrival swift and barely audible.

She glanced up.

"Oh. You're early," The headmistress waved a dismissive hand—a usual gesture for him to take a seat. In fact, her greeting was not any different from the one she did the day before, or the day before that either.

Vaughn was always early.

"You have news for me?" She proceeded to ask calmly, eyes trained on the unimportant papers before her despite the presence of another.

The student did not sit. He stood, quite still, beside the gothic armchair that was really meant for décor and not for sitting. V didn't particularly mind; as long as it served its purpose of making the room...fashionable.

An office should, after all, look like an office.

"Mother, did you know about the girl?" Vaughn began quite strangely; after all, it wasn't like him to cut to the chase. But perhaps there were times when everyone would, for reasons, behave differently in changing circumstances.

Vaughn however, never really stopped to think if this was change that he was experiencing; or merely a discovery of another him.

"Girl?" The headmistress laughed, as if amused, "what about this...girl, you talk of?"

Her Avian—a bearded vulture—fixed a dead stare at Nox.

"Mother," He felt the dried cracks in his patience with an anguish. "You know she is not."

"Not what, child?"

"Dead."

She smiled.

"Of course she isn't," Her gaze lowered to her nails, as if finding the conversation rather unnecessary to her dearer time.

Vaughn waited, Nox ruffling her feathers impatiently by his side.

She however, refused to continue.

"Mother—"

"Oh please," The headmistress snapped with a mocking laugh, "don't bore me any further. I don't remember bringing you up in this manner, really. Have I not made myself clear that some lives are far less valuable than others?"

She raised her voice as if she was a parent reprimanding her child for spilling a glass of milk.

"Believe me Vaughn, there are some people who leave the world as if they were never here in the first place. Such insignificant existences—oh you don't want to end up like one of them do you?"