Try not to breathe. Don’t make a sound. Nobody needs to know you’re here, right?

Katharine Ashley clutched her hands to her mouth and tried to keep still and silent. She was going to cry for certain, there was no helping that now, she just had to try and hold it off until they left. If she opened her mouth she’d suck a desperate breath into her throat, and break into wailing guttural sobs. She didn’t want that. They would hear. They’d find her and laugh and toy with her some more, eventually leaving her as a spent wreck, broken and scared, huddled in the corner of the bathroom.

She didn’t want that again.

At Westfield School the girls fell into one of two categories, the socially acceptable and the 'other’. Katharine was an ‘other’. There was no definite reason why anyone got picked to be one, you could become an ‘other’ overnight and not know why. And once you where there you could never go back again.

A gaggle of ‘Acceptable’ girls had gathered on the other side of the door, probably parading in front of the mirror, scraping on orangey layers of foundation or cheep lumpy mascara. They flaunted themselves like perverse underage Lolita, tottering around on spiky black heals and dressed in almost scandalous tight shirts and skirts, trading insults and half spent cigarettes.

“I think we made the kitty cat cry”

(Laughter)

“Cat? More like pussy!”

(Laughter)

On the other side of the door Katharine felt an urgent painful pressure gathering in her lungs, she had to take another breath soon. She tried to resist the urge, but failed and drew in a mouthful of air between the gaps in her fingers.

The Dam broke. Her body quivered with rasping, rattling sobs.

“Looks like the kitty’s closer than we thought...”

There was a heavy thud as someone kicked the door to her stall.

(Laughter)

The bell rang. The crowd of acceptable girls gradually disintegrated yelling promises that they’d ‘see her later’.

Katharine emerged from the cubicle, twisted a tap on, and splashed icy water on to her face. Her eyes felt hot and swollen, and there was a dull ache in her head.

What do I do now? I can’t go to registration, can’t let them see me like this. Can’t go home without a note...

Her headed ache pulsed. Katharine pressed her fingers to her temples in a futile effort at gaining relief.

I could go to the nurse. Tell her about my headache, and hope she lets me sit in her office until they’ve calmed down...

The nurse wasn’t in. Cutbacks in the Local Authorities health budget only allowed for a nurse to be present at Westfield three days a week. God knows what you were supposed to do if you got hurt on the other two. Just shut up and bleed. Probably.

There is a Romantic notion that feelings come from the heart. This is untrue. Emotions are always felt in the gut, something Katharine knew to well. She’d missed registration and had to go straight to first period science, and now found herself staring at the door to the lab, and now a cool knot of dread twisted in her stomach. She was late. Everyone would look at her, watching, eagle-eyed for one mistake, one little thing they could criticise until it blew out of proportion to truth and became sharp barbed insults.

She almost managed a bitter laugh as the familiar childhood mantra floated through her brain. Whoever wrote the rhyme must have lived in a time before psychological warfare, she concluded, the idea that words were harmless was meaningless. Words were powerful. Words could build you up or break you down, and most of all, words could cut deep and unseen

...But words will never hurt me. Yeah right!

Katharine rested a shaking hand on the door. Her Headache flared, pulsing against the inside of her skull. With her free hand she massaged her temples in a futile attempt to gain relief.

She pushed open the door and stepped into sixty minutes of hell.

Nancy was a blonde blue-eyed girl. She skipped meals, had a flat stomach and a collection of highly visible ribs, in short she sported the preferred appearance of the fashion conscious youth.

She was working back-to-back with Katharine (that ‘snivelling piece of trash who cries like a kicked puppy’) and for no reason in particular, took a forceful step back, knocking into the girl while she was holding a beaker of water. Katharine gave a startled yelp as icy liquid spilled from the beaker, down her clothes and all over her work. Her wet shirt turned see-through and clung to her like sodden paper, whilst the neat letters in her workbook faded to blurry grey smudges.

Nancy flashed her friends a knowing ‘I did that and meant it’ glance, before turning to meet her prey.

“Oh I’m sooooooooo sorry” she cooed “ I didn’t see you there, I don’t make a point at looking at rubbish”

Katharine gulped. The whole class had turned silent, watching, waiting for the storm to hit.

“And now you’re all wet...Hmmm, I can see that Bra through that damp shirt of yours. It looks mangy; did you buy it at a jumble sale or just scavenge through a bin for it?”

Everyone laughed. Katharine stayed silent.

If I stay quiet she’ll get bored and stop. Talking will just antagonise her...

Her heart was pounding faster and faster, she could feel her face turning red from embarrassment. She realised she was still holding the beaker in one hand. It felt unusually cool against her skin. She stared down at the glass, willing it to absorb the heat spreading through her body.

“ Naw, she bought it” Yelled a boy from the other side of the room “Whored herself to get the money”

“Yeah, that's right” added Nancy. “How much did they pay you? Ten pence? Five pence?”

Look at the glass.

Her headache pulsed, suddenly increasing intensity.

Nancy’s pretty face twisted into a smile. She leaned in close so just the two of them would hear what she said next. “Or was it your mother that played the whore. We all know your mother is just a filthy slut!”

Look at the glass

Look at the glass

Look at the....

The beaker shattered in her hand, the shards fell to the floor with a clink.

For the first time, the Teacher taking the lesson looked up from the test paper mountain he was marking. He failed to notice Nancy and her cackling laughter, looked straight past the tears running down the face of an obviously distraught girl, sighed and said “you really should be more careful Miss Ashley.... Don’t just stand there, get a broom and clean the mess up”

It was lunchtime. Katharine ate alone, sitting on a rusty bench in a forgotten corner of the schoolyard. The dining hall was too dangerous, eating in the library wasn’t allowed, otherwise she would hardly leave the place. Most of them never went there unless they had as really had to, which wasn’t often.

Her sandwiches were untouched. The headache was putting her off her food.

There was a throbbing cut in the centre of her right palm; a shard of glass had cut into her when she broke the beaker. She kept looking down at her hand and thinking about that moment when she broke the glass. Surely she hadn’t been squeezing the beaker that hard, had she?

Her headache had flared a few seconds before it happened. Maybe that was, maybe I cracked it with my mind... She laughed. This was real life, not some cheep horror novel, things like that just didn’t happen...

It was raining. It was British summer time, so such a thing should have been expected. Katharine hadn’t thought to bring an umbrella with her, so she walked at a brisker pace than usual. Her head was pounding, like something inside her skull was trying to push its way out, all she wanted was to get home, swallow some aspirin and sleep the damn thing off.

Nearly there now...all I have to do is get past the bus stop safely, then I’m free...

The Bus stop was the last obstacle to be navigated before Katharine was free from school. A few people from he class were assembled there, waiting for the 64 Bus to arrive. One was Nancy. Katharine could see her standing close to a boy she didn't recognise. Nancy was giggling at something he’d just said, and was probably trying to flirt with him.

Looking at the floor, Katharine tried to make herself as unnoticeable and quiet as she walked past. It failed. Almost instinctively, Nancy turned around and fixed her with a mocking glare.

“You don’t creep by that easily, kitty Cat Katharine. Slinking back to your cardboard box, we all know your to poor to own a house”

Don’t let it get under your skin....

“Oh, so this the girl you told me about” Said the boy “She’s uglier in person...you never said she was fat as well”

“Fat? Nah, the dog-faced bitch is freakin obese. And a slut, but she’s to gross, she has to pay the men to screw her, not the other way round, if you know what I mean!” Replied Nancy. A few people in the shelter laughed.

Katherine's hands balled into fists, squeezing so tightly that her nails cut neat blood half-moons into her palms.

Don’t say a word.... Don’t sink to there level...don’t sink...

The pain in her head started to build again. It hurt so much her eyes were watering. The edges of her vision had blurred a little.

“Awww look, she's crying again” Said Nancy is a mocking childish voice “Poor baby, how many times is it now...four, five?”

Katharine snapped.

She heard someone shouting" Shut up! Shut up! Just shut the hell up!” and didn’t realise until afterwards that it had been her. It felt surreal, as if she no longer had control over her body, becoming just another stunned observer.

“I can’t take this anymore” fat hot tears slid down Katharine's cheeks “ stop it already, I never did anything to hurt you!”

The crowd in the Bus shelter broke into a chorus of screeching laughter.

“STOP IT!” The white-hot energy building in her brain decided to makes its presence felt once again. Katharine yelled in pain. Refusing to be contained any longer, power spilled out to act on the first target it came into contact with. Smashing into the Perspex of the shelter window and shattering it into a thousand pieces.

Silence.

A murmur of shock passed through the crowd, some fled, but most stayed, curious

or possibly to frightened to move.

Nancy opened her pretty mouth to say something, but didn’t manage to get the words out.

Katharine was visibly shaking, feeling a mixture of amazement and fright. She could do anything with this power, anything at all. There was nothing Nancy or the rest the them could do to stop it.

Wham. Another block of energy struck the metal skeleton that had once been a Bus Shelter.

“You make me so mad. I don’t even know why!” The sentence ended in a yell. Nancy felt like she’d been kicked in the gut. The girl doubled over in pain, tears welling up in her eyes.

“Why Nancy! Why did I have to be your plaything?”

By this time Nancy had fallen to the floor, her body curled into a tight protective ball.

Katharine walked towards the shelter “Don’t make me hurt you. Just tell me why you, and the rest them hate me” the tone of her voice had dropped to a quiet calm. She looked at what remained of the previously laughing crowd. “Don’t bother sticking around to help her. No one offered when I needed it, so why help that pathetic bitch...”

The crowd gladly took her advice and ran for it while they had the chance. Some one shouted “Get help, call the police or something” but at that point Katharine didn’t care.

She towered over the terrified Nancy and repeated her earlier question “why did you pick me?”

“Leave...me alone” croaked the other girl between desperate sobs.

“That wasn’t what I wanted to here”

Nancy received another psychic blow. She winced in pain. The coppery taste of fresh blood filled her mouth.

“I...I...” Blood dripped from her mouth to the pavement. “I ...Don’t know...maybe because I could...”

“How dare you” Katherine said in a quiet whisper “ how dare you say that. You tried to ruin my life because you thought it would be fun, wouldn’t it?”

Nancy whimpered.

“I you did it because ‘you could’! What kind of an excuse is that? I think I could kill you right now. Should I kill you because I can? Or because it’s entertaining”

“Sorry...I never realised that....”

“But you did... Goodbye” Katharine willed the Energy to build in her mind; she reached into her memories, pulled out all the hate and all the anger, converting it into force. This was it. Nancy would finally know what it felt like, and then she’d get the rest of them to. And no one would beat her down ever again.

She raised her arms, as if trying to focus the Psychic energy in her hands.

She brought her hands down, launching everything she had at Nancy.

...I’ll show them! I’ll show Them, I’ll...

Time seemed to slow.

She saw Nancy cowering below her. Scared, weak and fragile. Her eyes seemed large, like a rabbit caught in a car headlight, terrified and full of pleading “not here, not like this...”

And worst of all, Katharine saw an image of herself reflected in the other girls’ eyes, a monster with a manic grin.

...I can’t I’m not like her, this isn’t me I’m better than this!

Katharine screamed. She desperately tried to stop the energy she had unleashed, frantically willing it to stop and disappear. But it was to no avail, the Psychic attack was too powerful, it couldn’t be stopped or destroyed. It could only be redirected...

There was the horrible sound of force hitting flesh. The girl felt a terrible weight slam into her body, almost crushing her chest. In agony she fell to the floor, only realising she’d done so when she felt the cool of the concrete against her back.

...Sticks and stones will break my bones but names will never hurt me...

There was blood in her mouth. Katharine could taste it. She was also bleeding from her ears and nose, but was probably too far-gone to realise it. Her body felt very heavy, as if was about to collapse in on its self. Nancy had started to scream, but it seemed to be coming from somewhere else, or muffled, like from the other side of a wall or door.

I never liked that rhyme. It never made sense...

Her body in tatters, the girl closed her eyes and soon stopped feeling anything.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I wanted to write an Epilogue, or even a better closing for ‘A Pain in the head’, but found it to difficult to compose. I started this story in a gloomy way, I wanted to end it like that. I didn’t want to give a tacked on ‘all is forgiven’ ending, or to add yet another cliche to the tangle of them in this piece, end with Nancy becoming other. I guess that's cause there are a few autobiographical elements in it . Some details, the psychic powers, are totally made up, but the rest...well I know to much about being the ‘other’ the highs, the lows, the uncontrollable rages... Okay, so I punched one girl and practically strangled another, it finally shut them up, but I didn’t like the feeling of falling down to there level. Even if my parents had always told me ‘if they give you any trouble just wallop them’, I still felt bad about doing it.

Anyway, I never planned for it to end like this. It just wrote itself like that. Which is pretty scary.

Thank you for reading. This is my first Angst/serious Original fic, and I would appreciate any help/pointers you can offer me.