Enter Brake!

She was slightly smaller than the average girl. A simple brown skinned child with thick, black rimmed glasses. She had long, wavy light brown hair and a robust presence. But none of that was important, because it wasn’t her looks that kept him frozen in that spot. It was the intensity of her eyes that seemed to bind him to the ground. Such an indescribable fierceness that left him feeling debilitated.

“Don’t make me say it again”

She growled. Her dark brown eyes pulled him into their grasp. Choking the life out of him, into a hell the human world could never imagine; into a nightmare.

It however was not the first time that such a scene had taken place. Many times previously those who looked into her eyes without a mental guard would get involuntarily sucked into her own nightmares and despair. There was even a case where someone had to be sent to the mental institute because they were unable to handle it. But Howl who had thought that humans were all weak and frail things could never have thought that he would come across such a devastating creature, nor did he ever think possible that this human would change his life. And when he looked back on it he was p***ed at himself because for the first time in his life he had tucked tail for a human.

He moved quickly to the side trying not to get in her way and watched as she passed him by with firm ease. After all she didn’t care what Howl’s future thoughts would be about, if he was cursing her in his mind or not made no difference; no, all she thought was:

‘I’m late’

For she was proud of going to school and savored every moment of her learning experience any hindrance to her education was not acceptable. Yes the kind of girl who loved school more than the student council members, more than the principle and teachers. She who asked for homework on the weekend and extra credit even though she had 100. She who had read every book in the library out of pure entertainment.

Brake.

She moved swiftly to her seat in the front corner of the class and slammed her books on the desk hard enough to silence the class. The girls with tears in their eyes turned desperately for help but didn’t utter a word of it and the guys stood ashamed, frozen with the cell phones in their hands.

Brake briskly walked toward the dying Jacob. She could tell the situation from the screaming the girls made down the hall and sighed,

‘No class today huh.’

She bent down over his bloody body to see a hunting knife jabbed in his right lung, a dangerous and lethal place to be. Blood poured out of his mouth like a cup runneth over. Without any plausible air going through his body his respiratory system would shut down and next his heart. The way she looked at it he might just die.

‘At this rate we won’t have a good class tomorrow’

She rationalized that if Jacob died the teacher being the ignoramus that he was would make a speech on Jacob’s behalf even though everyone hated him. So she decided if there was a 2% chance that he could survive; she’d increase it.

She had read dozen’s of books on medicine, the human body and surgery. In fact it was only those few books that were actually going to be of use in her life. She flipped Jacob’s body onto his back. The girl’s screamed as a ton of gooey maroon colored blood gushed out of his body and spilled onto the floor. Brake’s hands were now painted red and a sickening feeling flooded over her as the flesh jiggled lifelessly. She sat there calmly though, this not being the first time she saw a dying person, and stared at the wound.

It wasn’t that she didn’t know what to do she was just unsure on how to do it.

First comes first, the knife had to come out. Now being a semi heartless creature she was more than willing to yank that baby out. But she was irritatingly determined to save this waste of life and forcibly pushed the persistent thoughts away. To pull it out smoothly without making the wound any bigger,

‘What a pain’

She moved lower to the ground gently hovering over the body. The class was silent all were watching hanging on a spider’s string watching as they watched her grab the hilt firm and tight.

‘3…2…0’

She snatched the blade from its bloody sheath gracefully and beautifully. Blood splashed as the wound was now exposed. She moved quickly in a doctor like manner ripping off a piece of his shirt and pressuring the wound. She exhaled smoothly trying not to breathe in the smell of the quickly drying blood. Next she took a pen that lay in her shirt pocket and broke it emptying all the contents on the floor and taking the broken, hollow exterior of her blue bic pen.

Now for safety precautions I must advise not to do this at home as it is very dangerous and even in a dire emergency do not handle such a situation just because you have read this after all Brake had read many books on the matter and had been to many seminars and had a first class experience with a patient that had this same problem but being unknowledgeable at the time had no choice but to watch the dear comrade die. So she was not ignorant of what could happen if something went wrong she was just over confident that nothing would and with as much force as she could she raised the broken pen in the air and then with a speed too quick to see brought it down on his left undamaged lung and punctured his skin. The class screamed in unison so they were unable to hear the wheezing sound of the excess air escape.

And the reason for her actions? Simply that when falling on the knife after wounding his lung he could no longer exhale his left and only usable lung was over working itself do to the other lung and had some gathered to much air. Had Jacob been awake the pain would be excruciating and so to ease it Brake had to create a whole new airway altogether.

Now he was stabilized.

Brake stood up her clothes stained with so much blood that if the class had not witnessed her save him they would have sworn she killed him.

“you called the ambulance, right?”

Brake questioned no one in particular while at the same time trying to flick as much blood off her hand as possible.

“yes”

Said some none important character.

“two minutes ago”

Brake didn’t acknowledge her answer because she honestly didn’t care. She was tired already and the school day was supposed to have just begun. She decided that as much as she loved school the teachers themselves would not appreciate her coming to class drenched in a sea of blood. And worse come to worse they would have every right to kick her out of class, not what she wanted. She walked over and picked up her backpack invisibly pouting at the thought of lost school time.

Howl who had been about to leave had remain frozen in the position he had moved to. He had been hypnotized by her presence and hadn’t been able to look away at all. He watched as she mystically managed to save the waste of flesh and was more shocked at how calmly she had executed it all. She seemed a little bored in fact and more irritated than determined or scared she, in herself, was a strange human he had never in countered.

After picking up her backup moving as swiftly into the classroom she moved out. There was nothing left for her here and so she thought it best to leave.
Howl felt compelled to leave just as the class seemed to distort again. He walked out into the hallway trying to alleviate his mind of the girl but she seemed like a just ripened scar that he was going to have to live with. In the hallway he put he's hands in pocket like usual and started to walk away when he noticed that there she was standing staring at him.

How long they stood like that was unaccounted after all they both were sizing each other up. For Howl all that seemed to pass through his mind was the simple fact:

'This is a human'

So he tried to calculate her in those bounds, Brake on the other hands thought flew to the simple fact that:

'He ruined my class time'

Both utterly different but both vital because these two thoughts would collide once again in a more horrible scenario.

"Oh Brake!'

Brake turned to see Mr. Corcoran come up happily behind.

"I see that you came late, well I had some things to run so don't worry about it"

Brake stared at the teacher with blank eyes,

'What a stupid man'

"Someone’s dying in the classroom"

Brake said. Shock and disbelief spread across his face as the only logical thought he could think of appeared, the transfer student!

He raced without hesitation into the classroom to assess the situation and to do absolutely nothing after all even if he did know what happened what could he do? Brake shook her head if teachers would just continue their learning forever and ever they would be more efficient. She turned back to the trouble making student but surprisingly found that he was gone. The hallway was clear and all that remained was the open window not that she could believe that he had jumped out but there were always those fantasy possibilities. And although it was not impossible for him to disappear the fact was to get out of the school he would have had no choice but to pass her.

And there he was walking across the school yard.