Chapter 1

Kiana stared at herself in front of the mirror. She saw her face looked like someone who was going to a funeral. That face didn’t suit her. Kiana lifted her fingers making a peace sign, then pushed the fingers upwards to the corners of her lips. She showed a forced smile face.

“Yes. People want to see me like this,” she told herself in front of the mirror. She caressed her own face at the mirror and suddenly thought it would be nice if she could smile like that every time and everywhere.

She went out from her room and greeted her mother, yet she was being ignored. It wasn’t uncommon for her to get such treatment. She used to it since her childhood days.

She arrived at school very early. It was still dark and there were no other students arrived before her. She put her bag and slept in the classroom while waiting for her classmates to arrive.

“How funny. School feels more like home than my real home,” Kiana muttered to herself. She felt more comfortable being at school as she spent most of her time there, about 12 hours. Starting 6:30 a.m. till 6:30 p.m. she changed her character totally. From a gloomy girl to a cheerful high school student.

“Morning, early bird!” a girl with long black hair greeted her with sweet voice.

“Oh, it’s you, Adelle. Morning,” Kiana lifted her head and found that her best friend had arrived after her. Both Kiana and Adelle had been best friends since their second year in middle school. They started becoming friends when they were sitting next to each other in the classroom. After then, they chatted and found out that they both had the same interest, which was music. Adelle would recommend some of her favorite songs to Kiana, but most of them were Korean songs. It was fine for Kiana as she appreciated any genre of music, as long as it would bring calmness and happiness for her as the listener.

“Have you eaten breakfast? My mom made fried rice for us,” Adelle opened her mini pink lunch box. The aroma of fried rice was lingering around and flying into Kiana’s nose. There was no way Kiana would be able to resist such temptation.

“The aroma’s great. I want to have some, please,” Kiana grinned as she was eager to taste that fried rice. Adelle’s mother was a very good cook. There’s no food that Kiana would say no if it was from Adelle’s mother. Kiana hated to admit that she preferred Adelle’s mother’s food more than her own mother’s. Just one reason, because of there's no love in her mother’s cooking. Not that she minded that matter so much.

They ate slowly as it was still warm when munching. Kiana showed a satisfy face. Adelle’s mother’s food never failed to amaze Kiana. Indeed, that day’s breakfast saved them from their stomach making duet in front of classmates. Soon, after they saw their classmates entered, they finished eating and cleaned up their desks.

The first lesson started as soon after the teacher put her things on the teacher’s desk. It was English subject which was Kiana’s favorite subject. Mrs. Mariah Webb was a very passionate teacher. She would never neglect any weak students and tried to teach them using many techniques. And also, Kiana and her group members (the excellent students) would always be assigned to teach those weak students until they could write an essay with minimal grammatical errors and using simple vocabularies they had memorized. As for Kiana, she reminded her fellow classmates to write essays with correct grammar. Grammar was the most important for her to ensure that the readers could understand the message she wanted to deliver. Kiana always got around 45 to 47 out of 50 for essay writing in the examination. She couldn’t get full mark as she lacked bombastic vocab. Well, that was said by Mrs. Webb.

“Alright. Now, get ready with your pen and a piece of paper. Listen to what I’m going to instruct you,” Mrs. Webb stood in front of students while holding reference book. All students obeyed and put their pens and papers on the desks.

“Now, listen to the question for today’s essay. Write an essay using this sentence as the ending: Since then, I never go to that place again.”

“Hmm… Interesting. That sentence can be written for many genres. Don’t you think so, Kiana?” Adelle whispered to Kiana.

“Huh? Oh. Yeah,” Kiana was almost spacing out.

“So, what kind of genre you want to choose for this essay?”

“Lets see,” Kiana thought while scribbling list of genres matched with the sentence given.

“I think I’ll go with psychological.”

“Fantastic! As for me, I’ll do horror,” replied Adelle.

“You sure love horror a lot, right?” Kiana chuckled. Adelle was truly a fan of horror stories. She had a complete collection of Midnight Mystery books. Just name any title of those books, she knew all of them.

After deciding the genre for her essay, Kiana began writing it. She took quite some time for brainstorming the introduction of the essay. Kiana thought it was easier to write using the sentence given as the introduction. Then, she would make her essay as a flashback story.

30 minutes later, she finished writing and Mrs. Webb took her paper to mark it. She looked at her other classmates who were still writing. Some of them had finished and gave their papers to Mrs. Webb.

“Kiana, come here,” Mrs. Webb called out her name and asked her to come to teacher’s desk.

“Yes, Mrs. Webb. How’s my essay?” Kiana waited for Mrs. Webb’s comment.

“As usual, yours are terrific. You are able to elaborate the story. It’s easy to understand the whole story plot,” Mrs. Webb tapped her pen on Kiana’s paper.

“But, I just have one question for you. Is the protagonist is someone related to you? Either your family member, relative or acquaintance?” Kiana bit her lip slightly.

“No, I just extract the protagonist from a movie I’ve watched last week,” she smiled to her teacher. She had to lie the fact about the reason she wrote that kind of story.

“Oh, is that so? I thought this protagonist is someone you know. For example, maybe she’s your alter ego?” Mrs. Webb raised her eyebrow while shrugged.

Kiana laughed. “Maybe I’ll try behaving like her as my alter ego,” she then took her paper and went back to her seat.

“I’m almost got my cover blown by Mrs. Webb. Better I’ll be careful on my act and also my writing,” that’s what Kiana thought.

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