[ What would you do if you had the power to change the world?]

[ Nothing...]

[ Nothing? Then you believe that this world is good just as it is? Nothing should change? What about those starving millions all over the world? Cancer? Parents killing their own children for petty reasons? You believe these atrocities should continue as they are?]

[ No... that's not the reason...]

[ Then what is your reason?]

[ It's too scary... to hold that much power. To know that I could change the world in any way I like... it's just too scary.]

[ Interesting... What is your name?]

[ Sayuki Matsuda]

[ Sayuki... it's time to...]

...

"Wake up! Wake up! Wake up, Sayuki Matsuda!"

Sayuki Matsuda woke up, her eyes opening wide the moment she heard the shrill voice of something mechanical. It took a while to notice that her head was lying against a rough wooden desk. She lifted herself off the desk and brushed her black hair out of her eyes and wiped the drool off her cheek. She lazily looked around the dark classroom, looking for whatever woke her up from her deep sleep.

"It's time to wake up! Sayuki Matsuda, it's time to wake up!" the mechanical voice yelled.

The voice sounded as if it were coming from a few inches away. Sayuki felt her sleepiness fade away and her focus sharpened as she continued to search for the source of the mechanical voice. Looking around, she was alone in the classroom full of empty desks. Once her eyes got used to the darkness, she could make out a few words on the black board in the front of the classroom.

You will never escape.

Sayuki felt her heart stop once she read the four large words written on the blackboard.

"Never escape..." she whispered. "But where am I?"

CLICK!

Sayuki spun around the moment she heard the classroom's intercom switch on. Second later, she heard a female's voice speak through the intercom.

"Hello? Hello? Hello? Is this thing working? I don't know, I haven't used it for a year..."

A few coughs later and the female resumed speaking.

"Hello! Hello! Hello! This is your student council president speaking," the female's voice announced. "I have graced you all with my voice to tell you all of a new student that has just entered our proud school. Her name is Sayuki Matsuda and she is currently in Classroom 3-2. Give her a warm welcome and congratulate her on her great luck of being accepted!"

The intercom switched off and silence returned to the empty classroom. Sayuki couldn't shake the feeling of dread as she stood there in the dark classroom. It took her a moment that she was wearing a black school uniform, very different from the heart-printed pajamas she fell to sleep in. She even wore a blank name tag above her left breast.

With nothing else coming to mind, Sayuki made her way to the classroom's door and slid it open as slowly as she could. Outside the classroom was a long and polished hallway, going so far into the distance that Sayuki couldn't see the end. Thankfully, there were a few lightbulbs flashing on and off in random places along the hallway.

Sayuki walked into the hallway and began making her way down the hall, hoping she might find someone who could answer a few of the questions she's been having ever since she woke up.

Luckily, she spotted someone walking towards her farther down the hallway.

"Hey!" Sayuki yelled waving her hand in the air. "Do you know..."

Sayuki stopped speaking once the lightbulb above the stranger flashed on, revealing the massive and bald man with black skin stomping his way towards her. He wore a black male school uniform but it looked tight against his massive body but that wasn't surprised Sayuki most. It was the many silver crosses imbedded into his skin that left her speechless. Every inch of his visible skin had silver crosses imbedded in his skin and it didn't take much evidence to say that underneath his uniform, there were more crosses in his skin. Sayuki's heart began to beat faster once she saw the anger in his glare.

Upon seeing the man's appearance, Sayuki ran into the nearest classroom in hopes of hiding from this terrifying stranger. She slammed the sliding door shut and hurried to find something to jam it in case the stranger tried to force his way in.

Sayuki, however, noticed that she wasn't alone in the classroom. There were two more strangers with her in the classroom and both of them were staring at her. One was a stocky young man wearing the same black uniform as the huge man in hallway and the other was a dark-haired girl with sunken eyes wearing the same uniform as her. Sayuki didn't notice anything wrong with the two until she focused on the girl.

The girl was inside the reflection of the large mirror placed in front of the man. Noticing Sayuki, the girl in the mirror picked up her bag and ran out of sight in a hurry.

"Great, there goes my plan to convince her to come out," the stocky man sighed.

"Turn around! I can't see who came in!" another voice, one far deeper and menacing than the man's voice. Sayuki wondered where the other voice came from since she could only see the stocky man in the classroom. The single man turned his head to see Sayuki at the door but the moment she could see his face, Sayuki screamed.

One half of his face was a normal human's face, if a little pudgy, but the other half of his head had absolutely no skin, exposing all the muscles and veins underneath. His abnormally huge eyeball spun around in its socket until it focused on Sayuki. The moment the skinless half of his face saw her, the mouth began to speak without the need to move the other half's teeth.

"Kill her! She messed with our plans to get that girl out of the mirror!" the skinless face yelled. "Let me chew on that pale skin! Hurry up and KILL HER!"

The man sighed as the skinless half of his head continued to scream. "Alright, I'll kill her if it gets you to shut up," he said as he stood up. She watched as the man's skinless left hand grabbed the metal leg of the nearest desk. Sayuki gasped when the man ripped the desk leg off with very little effort.

"NO!" Sayuki screamed sliding open the classroom door behind her and running out into the hallway. The young girl tripped on a loose board in the floor and fell into the massive chest of the black man in the hallway. Sayuki let out a loud cry as she pushed herself away from the huge man.

To her surprise, the man clapped his big hands together and bowed his head.

"Forgive me for the sin I am about to commit, Lord," the man's said in an amazingly deep voice. "All I do is for your glory..."

The black man separated his hands and lifted one hand over Sayuki's head. The young girl jumped away as the man swung his hand down. His hand struck the floor and pierced the wooden floor with little resistance. Tears of horror trickled down Sayuki's cheeks as she watched the man pull his uninjured arm out of the floor.

"What... the hell is happening?" she cried. "Why do you want to kill me? I... haven't done anything to you!"

"HEY! THAT"S MY PREY!" the skinless face screamed.

The black man turned his head to see the stocky man walk out of the classroom that Sayuki had just ran out of. The stocky man's left hand swung its weapon at the black man, striking the desk leg against his cheek. The black man fell to his knees after being surprised by the other's attack.

"I'd just listen to whatever he says," the stocky man warned. "Or else we'll have to kill you first."

"I shall not die before I complete my trials," the black man responded checking the wound on his cheek before getting back on his feet.

Faster than Sayuki expected, the black man punched the other man in the gut, sending him flying into the classroom. The stocky man crashed into the classroom's wall but he wasn't injured. His skinless face only screamed in laughter as he charged at the black man.

Sayuki ran away from the two while they were distracted by the other. She kept running, listening to the skinless face's scream becoming only echoes in the distance. Several times she felt like throwing up because of how much she ran but Sayuki continued to run down the almost endless hallway. She only stopped when she became too tired to continue running.

The instant she stopped running, she fell to the ground and began to cry. She had no idea what was happening or even why she was in such a terrifying place. With no other thought coming to mind, Sayuki cried while hugging her tired legs.

"So sad... what's a pretty face like yours doing crying?" A female's voice asked.

A finger from a stranger wiped off a tear trickling down her cheek, causing Sayuki to jump away the instant she felt the skin of the finger. Kneeling next to Sayuki was a girl about the same as her with dyed red hair and wearing the same black uniform as her. The girl gave her a smile but Sayuki still jumped to her feet and took a few steps away from the stranger. Laughter came out of girl's mouth once she saw Sayuki's reaction.

"Am I that scary to you?" she laughed. "I don't look like those other freaks, my face is normal. You can trust me..."

Sayuki shook her head and moved farther away from the strange girl. Her reaction received even more laughter from the strange girl.

"You're right to suspect every one you come across, especially considering where you are," the girl chuckled. The strange girl's smile quickly twisted into a scowl. "But don't try to anger the only person who can save your life..."

"Don't anger her!" A squeakier version of the strange girl's voice laughed. The voice was so close to Sayuki's ear that it sounded as if whoever spoke was standing right next to her. She got a far louder laugh from the strange girl when Sayuki looked around for the source of the voice.

"I'm here! Can't you see me?" the voice giggled.

Sayuki looked for the voice with far more effort but nobody but the strange girl were in her sight. Sayuki, however, noticed the strange girl was holding up a mirror to her face. She stared at her own reflection in the mirror until she noticed something that caused her to scream in horror.

There was a tiny grinning mouth, complete with its own set of teeth, on her cheek.

Sayuki screamed louder as both the strange girl and the mouth on her cheek cackled at her terror. The strange girl jumped to her feet and grabbed Sayuki's hand a second later.

"Become me! I can't trust anyone but myself! Everyone else wants to steal my things! So hurry up and become me!" the girl cackled.

The strange girl removed her hand from Sayuki's, letting her see what she did to her hand. Sayuki couldn't even scream as she saw the tiny mouths and eyes popping out of her hand's skin. Her eyes wouldn't move from her changing hand, watching as more mouths and eyes popped out of her skin. Every mouth on her hand cackled with the strange girl as Sayuki's hand continued to mutate. "Become me! Become me! Become me! BECOME ME!" The mouths chanted with the strange girl.

"Stop..." Sayuki cried as she hurried to roll up her sleeve to watch the mutation move up her arm. Hands and feet were now popping out of her skin, along with the mouths and eyes. Sayuki felt herself becoming thinner and thinner as more hands and feet came out of her arm. She shut her eyes, no longer wanting to see her arm mutate further. With her eyes shut, she could only focus on the strange girl's chanting and the feeling of her own body disappearing to create another person's body.

She continued to cry, not because of the pain or the terror but because she wanted to know why this was happening to her. Thrown into this mysterious school and having just everybody she met since try to kill her, Sayuki wanted to know who was responsible for her fear and pain. Who decided that she deserved this fate? That was her only question as she felt herself disappearing and becoming whoever this strange girl was.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING OUTSIDE OF CLASS!"

The sudden scream was so loud that the classroom windows around Sayuki and the strange girl all shattered to pieces. Sayuki opened her eyes in an instant as she felt the change her body was undergoing stop soon after they heard the scream. She looked at the strange girl to see that she was covering her ears with her hands, a reaction that Sayuki wished she could use. Sayuki's ears rung as the voice screamed once again.

"WHAT WOULD YOU DO IF A TEACHER CAUGHT YOU!" the voice screamed, this time with a lower volume, causing both Sayuki and the strange girl to flinch.

"Who's there?" the strange girl yelled, her voice echoing down the hallway.

The two girls remained silent as they heard the sound of someone wearing wooden sandels walking towards them. Sayuki turned around and stared down the endless hallway until they saw the figure of a young man walking towards them with his hands in his pockets. Seeing the man's appearance, Sayuki couldn't help but think of a delinquent. He wore the black male uniform but the sleeves were torn off, exposing his muscular arms, and the rest of his uniform was covered in cuts and bloodstains. He also wore a ragged student's cap on top of his messy black hair. A single scar ran down the young man's face from the top of his forehead, through his eye, and to the tip of his chin.

The young man chewed on the thin and long piece of grass while he spoke.

"You all are lucky that someone like me caught you outside of class and not the Teachers," the young man said frowning. "Wouldn't want to suffer through Detention at this school, would ya? Now, get back to class before the Teachers come out to search for any student stupid enough to try and ditch class."

The strange girl growled at the young man. "Who are you to tell me what to do?" she asked. "I'm not afraid of the Teachers! Let them come out! I'll simply use my Change ability to turn them all into me!"

The young man sighed at the strange girl's response. "For one, our Change abilities don't work that good on the Teachers," he told the strange girl. "Two, my name is Ryou Katsashi and that alone is enough for me to order you around. Three, weaklings like you can't survive Detention so..."

"GET BACK TO CLASS!" the young man screamed without moving a inch.

The scream caused Sayuki to lose her balance and fall on her behind. She couldn't stop her right hand from trembling out of some sort of instinctual fear of this young man. The strange girl was feeling even more pressure from the young man. She took steps away from Ryou but stopped herself once she noticed that she was trying to get away.

"So what if the Teachers come and give me Detention?" the strange girl laughed. "I'm Yuka Hakume! I'll be the one to survive until Graduation and earn the power to change reality! Everybody will become me! I'll be the epitome of genius and beauty! I'll be the greatest-"

The strange girl Yuka stopped once she felt something in her gut. Sayuki had her right hand over her mouth to keep herself from screaming. Yuka noticed Sayuki's expression and looked down at her gut.

A long flagpole had impaled the strange girl through her gut, Yuka's blood flowing down the metal. Looking at Ryou, the two girls knew that he was the one who had thrown the flagpole at Yuka.

"Who's going to survive until Graduation?" Ryou asked frowning.

Yuka vomited blood and continued to stare at the flagpole in her gut while she felt her life slipping away. "But I can't die... not until I'm the only person left in the world..."

Yuki's eyes rolled back and her body went limp against the flagpole. The last bits of life in her body faded as Yuka died in front of Sayuki and Ryou. Sayuki didn't cry or scream as she stared at Yuka's lifeless body, she continued to stare and tremble. She didn't notice the mutations on her arm disappear and her body returning to normal. Sayuki could only focus on the dead person in front of her.

"She's dead," she whispered. She glanced over at Ryou, who was walking towards her. "You... killed her."

"That's the only way to reverse the Change," Ryou told Sayuki. "Or would you rather keep those ugly arms and legs coming out of your arm?"

"No..." she answered feeling a sense of intense dizzyness coming over her. "But... you took another person's life. Someone died in front of me..."

Sayuki felt her consciousness fade away as she fainted.

...

"It's time to wake up, Sayuki!" Sayuki's mother yelled into her ear. Sayuki's eyes slowly opened but just as quickly shut themselves as she pulled her blanket over her head. She grabbed the nearest stuffed animal and squeezed it tightly while she trembled under her blanket.

"What's wrong, sweetie?" Sayuki's mother asked sitting down on the edge of the bed.

"I... had a nightmare," Sayuki answered.

"And it scared you this much?" her mother laughed.

"Don't laugh," Sayuki said. "It was really scary..."

"It was only a nightmare, dear," her mother said placing her hand against Sayuki's arm. "No matter how scary it was, it was only a nightmare..."

"Only a nightmare..." Sayuki repeated still trembling.

"Except this nightmare is real!" her mother laughed.

Sayuki's eyes opened wide open. "What did you say?" she asked.

"I said that you are still in that nightmare!" her mother answered with a louder laugh. "Don't you remember what the blackboard said? 'You will never escape' is what it said. It's true, you know... you will never escape that nightmare!"

The warm feeling of Sayuki's bed disappeared as it changed into something harder and colder. Sayuki shivered underneath the wet blanket and squeezed her stuffed animal tighter, only to find out that she was squeezing something far more soft and wet than a stuffed animal.

"Wake up, Sayuki!" her mother's voice ordered. "That man will kill you if you don't wake up! WAKE UP, SAYUKI!"

Sayuki threw the wet blanket off and took a good look at her mother sitting at the edge of the metal bed. What she saw had the body of her mother but in place of her head, there was only a black void with two glowing orbs for eyes. Both glowing eyes stared at Sayuki.

"He's going to kill you, Sayuki," a much deeper and terrifying voice told her. "He killed that Yuka and now he's going to kill you. He already took half your body..."

The voice cackled as Sayuki squeezed her stuffed animal tighter but now that there was light, Sayuki saw what she was really squeezing.

She held something squishy and dripping that hid itself from sight by a field of mosiac but she knew what she was holding. Looking down, she saw that she was missing the entire lower half of her body. Her violet blood pooled out in front of her and dripped off the edges of the metal bed. The whole world around her swirled around in a whirlpool of dark colors but the thing in front of her stayed intact. The light from its eyes brightened until it blinded Sayuki. It grew so bright that the heat made Sayuki feel like she was being cooked alive.

"WAKE UP!"

Sayuki screamed as loud as she could.

...

Sayuki's eyes flew open and without thinking, her hands moved to check if she still had legs. She felt her thighs and moved her toes and a sense of relief washed over her. She still trembled as her shaking hands checked if she was missing any other body part. After a minute of checking, Sayuki let out a breath of relief as she found out that she wasn't bleeding or missing a body part.

"I warn against falling asleep anywhere but the Infirmiry," Ryou's voice told Sayuki. "You can get some really terrifying and trippy dreams if you fall asleep outside the Infirmiry."

Sayuki found out that she was lying on a white bed in the middle of a space surrounded by white curtains. Sitting next to her bed was Ryou. The young man was lying back in his chair with little care despite having taken someone else's life not long ago. Sayuki got up but her body was shaking too much for her to take the chance of getting off the bed.

"You must be the new student Sayuki Matsuda, going from your reaction to everything," Ryou said sitting up straight in his chair. "As the first student not trying to kill you, let me welcome you to Henka Private High School, the school that's been teaching world-changing individuals since the first school in history was built."

"Henka Private High School?" Sayuki repeated. "But I never applied to any private schools!"

"Doesn't matter," Ryou answered. "The headmaster of the school picks out student at random from the general population and something throws us into this nightmarish school. If you don't know where you're going when you first come, it's possible to get lost in the hallways until a Teacher finds you and gives you Detention..."

Tears trickled down Sayuki's cheeks as she realized that she wasn't having another nightmare. She felt the pain just fine. "I... want to go home," she whispered.

"Sorry but there's no way out of this school," Ryou said sounding honestly sad to tell her. "The only way out that anyone knows about is to survive until Graduation."

"Graduation? When's that?"

Ryou sighed. "Three years," he answered.

Sayuki jumped after hearing his answers. "Three years? I can't survive in this hell for three years!" She yelled slamming her fist into the bed.

"We're all stuck in this! Not just you!" Ryou yelled back. "If you want out so badly, there is one other way you can take..."

"What is it?" Sayuki asked feeling a little hope.

Ryou, however, didn't give an answer she would like.

"Commit suicide and get out of our way."

...

Author's Note: This is the first time I'm writing this kind of story so I would like to hear any thoughts. Hope you liked the first chapter.