A Letter In Blood

“ARIELLA…..wait,” 

Ariella turned her head around and saw her best friend and classmate, Emery, running towards her. Ariella stopped in her tracks and waited for her friend to reach her.

“So, did you prepare the assignment Professor Jace had given to us last week?” She heard Emery asking her. Last week, their professor, Jace, had given them a very important assignment and today was its deadline. That assignment was really very relevant for their upcoming exams of their junior year of high school. 

Ariella slowly nodded at her friend and they both resumed their walking towards their locker-rooms of their high school. Emery noticed that her friend was looking extremely silent and somehow worried and she knew exactly why.

“Did you talk to your parents regarding those letters, Arie?” Emery’s question made Ariella shake her head in denial. For almost a week now, someone was secretly putting some strange kind of letters, flowers and even chocolates inside her locker. First she thought someone was trying to prank her or something like that but when she started receiving those letters and gifts on a regular basis, it had started disturbing her a lot. She even properly locked her locker but somehow, that person managed to access her locker.

“No, I haven't talked to my parents regarding this yet,” 17 years old Ariella didn't want to trouble her parents by telling them that someone was secretly writing such kind of letters to her, revealing his romantic feelings for her. She thought that person would give up by seeing her throwing his gifts away in the dustbin and ripping his letters right there on the spot but that person still didn't stop.

Both the girls reached their locker room. Emery opened her locker to take out her books but she noticed Ariella turning into a statue in front of her locker which made her sigh.

“Don't worry. Just open it,” Emery placed her palm over Ariella’s shoulder, making her exhale sharply. Somehow, now she had started feeling terrified to even open her own locker as she didn't know what her secret creepy admirer might have put it inside for her. 

Hoping to not see anything like those letters and gifts inside her locker again, she unlocked it and took out her books from her locker but a paper slipped down from in between her books and fell beside her shoes on the floor.

Ariella's heart shuddered because she knew what it exactly was. That person again put a letter inside her locker. She looked at Emery, a bit afraid and found Emery slowly nodding at her.

Sighing, Ariella bent down and grabbed that paper. She got up on her feet and then unfolded that paper.

‘I LOVE YOU….ELLA…..’ her heartbeat inflated when she read those words which were written on that paper. That person had always written her name as Ella in every letter he had put inside her locker. He called her Ella. 

This was the first time he had written his love confession to her in his letter. Clenching her jaw, she was about to crush that paper and was about to throw it away but stopped when she noticed a very strange detail about the crimson red ink which had been used to write that letter. It was smelling.

Emery's brows arched in confusion when she saw Ariella bringing that paper closer to her nose and smelling it and as soon as she smelt it, Ariella's amber eyes widened in shock. Terror washed over her. Her body froze completely.

“What happened, Arie?” Emery clutched Ariella's hand which made Ariella take her eyes upward from that letter to look at Emery. Emery turned startled, seeing tears glistening in the corner of Ariella's eyes.

“Hey! What happened? What's written in…”

“It's written with blood,” Ariella halted her in the middle. Her words widened Emery's eyes.

“What?” Emery sounded aghast. She took that paper from Ariella and looked at it. She even smelt it like her and Ariella was right. That letter was written with blood. It had that vigorous smell of blood.

“This is really getting out of hand now. You need to talk to your parents and the school authority, Arie,” Emery suggested, getting worried by the situation.

“This person seems completely sick and obsessed with you. You really need to take action urgently against him to stop him,” Emery's words made Ariella squeeze her glossy eyes shut in order to hold back her tears. She was feeling petrified now.

“I will talk to my parents regarding this today,” she said, wiping her unshed tears. Now it was really needed to let her parents and the school authority deal with it on their own. She could not control this situation anymore.

Ariella was about to tear that letter but Emery stopped her by grabbing her hand.

“Don't tear it. Keep it with you as a proof to show the school authority,” Emery uttered in a low tone, only for Ariella to hear her. Her suggestion made sense to Ariella. She needed proof against that person.

Ariella sent her a nod and then folded that paper. She looked around her surroundings to catch anything suspicious because she was sure that person might be seeing her right now but she couldn't suspect anything. Everything seemed normal around her. The students and the school staff were minding their own business. 

Exhaling heavily, she shoved that letter inside her school bag and zipped it, filling those turquoise eyes with satisfaction and extreme amounts of content which were gazing at her from a distance and in secret. He couldn't hear her from such a distance but she could clearly see her putting his letter inside her school bag which made his desperate heart assume that she had finally accepted his confession. She didn't throw his letter away this time. That 19 year old boy knew, witnessing him writing his confession for her with his own blood, her heart would definitely fall for him. His Ella accepted his love finally. His Ella.

The school bell rang, gaining everyone's attention towards it.

“Let's go to the classroom before Professor Jace reaches there or else he wouldn't let us enter his class,” Emery said. Their professor Jace was extremely strict. He never let any student enter his class after he entered the classroom. It was his rule. He was a very big follower of time and wanted his students to respect the time too.

Ariella nodded at her friend. Closing her locker and grabbing her books, she turned towards Emery. Both the girls were about to walk away from there but Ariella had barely taken a couple of steps when she felt a piercing pain hitting her lower abdomen and that dampness in her panties. Her feet paused.

“Hey! What happened?” Emery asked her, seeing her stopped walking. Ariella sighed.

“I think I got my periods,” she told her. Could this day have turned any more bad for her? First that letter and now this? Ariella always got severe cramps and extremely heavy bleeding during the first three days of her menstruation cycle, especially the first day which always became impossible to endure for her everytime she got them. She mostly took a leave from school in those two days of her periods and stayed at home but this time, she got them on school. 

“I am going to the bathroom,” Ariella said to her, feeling her cramps already hitting her.

“Wait. I will come with you,” Emery said.

“No, it’s okay. I will manage. You go and attend the class,” Ariella uttered. She didn’t want Emery to turn up late for professor Jace’s class because of her. 

“But Arie….”

“Don’t worry. I will be there in five minutes,” Ariella said and dashed towards the bathroom’s directions, feeling her panties already drenching up.

Ariella entered the bathroom and did the necessary work there but when she was about to come out, she felt her cramps getting worse. She clutched her abdomen and growled in pain. Her cramps turned so bad that she ended up sitting down on the floor of the bathroom and tightly grasped her stomach. Tears stung her eyes. For almost five minutes, she continued to remain seated on the floor while grabbing her abdomen and when finally she felt her cramps lessening a bit, she slowly stood up on her feet.

Ariella wiped her teary eyes and then looked at her wrist watch. She was already ten minutes late for Professor Jace’s class. Her gaze enlarged. He would not let her enter his class but today was the only date of submitting their important assignment which was extremely needed to pass her junior year of high school. She could not risk missing it.

Hurriedly unlocking the bathroom’s door, she stepped out of the door, still feeling that numbing pain in her lower abdomen but now it was a bit bearable. Getting out of the girl’s washroom, she found no one around her. Ariella was about to stride away from there to reach her class but that unfamiliar voice which came from behind stopped her.

“Excuse me…” that gruffly voice made Ariella stop in her tracks. She turned around and saw that unfamiliar face of her senior who had those captivating turquoise eyes which were gazing at her amber ones.