The Shrink Program

Chapter 95

"Wait for it..."

"Do we really have to watch it again...?"

"Shhh!"

The room full of Supervisors sat in utter silence, intent on the giant screen before them.

On the screen, a teenaged girl with wild blond curls sprinted down a staircase, incredibly nimble on her feet.

Up until the point, she slammed face-first into a door.

The entire room exploded into laughter.

"....I can't believe she did that...!"

"....Help! Help Winkle! I can't breathe!"

"They're called lungs Peri. Use them. "

"....She's definitely one of yours Garmen!"

"Enough Havoc, this is completely inappropriate behaviour!"

"Why are you still smirking then?"

"That's...!"

"...Oh my...."

"Can we watch the rest of the tape now? I have better things to be doing... "

"Wait, wait, one more time!"

"No, let's go back to the bit where she starts screaming at the elevator...!"

"Uh... Maddison...?" Nigel began nervously beside me.

I turned my head slowly around to face him.

"Don't. Talk. To. Me. Ever."

Nigel flinched back, cowering.

"...okay Maddison...."

On my other side, Artemis quietly chuckled, and I spun my head around to glare at him, eyes daring him to make a single sound.

The short boy quickly raised a hand to cover his mouth, but I could still see him smiling behind it.

When he saw my darkening scowl, he sent me a sentimental look.

"Oh Love, I don't mean to be rude, but...."

Suddenly the room burst into laughter again as the footage showed me trying to kick Artemis in the back of the head, only to miss when the boy bent down, supposedly to pick up a coin.

Why the hell was there a coin on the ground in the first place? We don't even use money here...

"...Make it stop! I'm dying!"

"That's it! No one is leaving this room until you all shut up and watch the tape like serious adults!"

At this, everyone only started to laugh harder.

"This is all your fault." I hissed at Artemis, tears of humiliation threatening to rise up and conquer.

"...Sweetheart, you do realise that I can see the tape just as well as anyone else...." Artemis' pale green eyes flickered to the incriminating evidence as he spoke.

I opened my mouth in outrage, only to find that I was all out of intelligent words to speak.

Kind of hard to argue your innocence when there is a video of you acting like a menace playing in the background...

"It's not Maddison's fault!" Nigel protested for me when it became clear that I wasn't going to recover any time me soon. "She just... Well, you do look a lot like your brother... Identical even. Are you guy's twins or...?"

"W-Well...I suppose I do have a bit of a babyface..." Artemis mused, suddenly turning his gaze away and cupping his cheeks.

"How old are you?" I asked suspiciously.

".... Oh... Ah, Nineteen. Only four years older than Apollo." Artemis smiled a little nervously.

"So you would have been in the year above me!" Nigel enthused, but my brain had suddenly shifted into slow motion.

If my math was correct, what Artemis just said would make Apollo fifteen, and a first-year at the school.

Which made my smartass tormentor... two years younger than me.

"Maddison?"

When I didn't respond, Nigel placed two-finger to my neck, checking my pulse.

"She is dead." He declared.

The laughter in the room rose another level, causing my gaze to focus on the screen once more.

The Maddison on the screen had finally noticed the crowd of angry people approaching them.

It didn't require a diploma in the obvious to figure out the source of the mob.

One Laurel Thompson led the group.
, Covered in food stains from having a certain distracted teenage girl run her over in the cafeteria.

The three targets of the mob's anger stared for a second longer. Then all three reacted, each in a different way.

The Maddison on the screen grinned maniacally as her brain finally broke.

"Screw this! I'm going to kill every single one of you!"

She threw herself forward, only to be yanked back by a panicked Nigel, who proceeded to scoop the insane girl up and throw her screaming over his shoulder.

"Run!" He cried, immediately sprinting off with me still slung over his shoulder, struggling like a wild animal.

Artemis raised his hands defensively as Nigel ran past him, taking a few steps forward, intending to soothe the mob.

"Now now, there no reason to... "

When a tomato came flying at his head, his fight or flight instincts kicked in, and he promptly turned tail and ran after Nigel.

By the time The Supervisors on the screen arrived to save us, The Supervisors in the room were all but rolling on the floor with laughter.

My gaze lowered to my clenched hands, cheeks burning red.

Maybe, if I wish hard enough, the sun would go supernova and incinerate the entire galaxy.

Seriously, I would really appreciate some form of cosmic destruction right about now.

"That is enough! All of you idiots get out!"

"B-but we haven't decided what we are going to do with them yet!" Peri protested, barely able to get his laughter under control.

"I'm sending them to isolation for the night."

Thank you, God. Anything to get me away from these people.

"But after the train incident, we only have one room available, sir..."

"I know. Put all three of them in the room together. Let them sort it out among themselves. Then hopefully this can end without them causing another riot."

Thanks for nothing, God.