“She’s here!” a girl alarmed the people around her.

They quickly ran towards the side of the corridor, making a big space in the aisle, acting as if they were gossiping about nothing.

A girl with a long black hair, reading a 5 inch-thick book in her hands, walked slowly in the aisle. Her eyes are only on her book. Everyone was quiet as only the sound of her shoes can be heard. The people around her were not even looking at her as she walked passed by them.

As soon as she walked inside a classroom, everyone breathed in relief.

A girl sighed in dismay, “I am regretting she is in our class.”

“She should transfer in other school!” one exclaimed, “Didn’t she know that everyone does not want her here?”

Everyone nodded.

When the bell rang, everyone rushed back to their classrooms.

------

“Now turn your books into page twenty two.” Mr. Song ordered, “Read it quietly and I will ask questions later on.”

The students did as they were told. They really hate it whenever Mr. Song order them to read four-page long crappy stories in their books. Whenever he’s going to start asking questions, the dismissal bell will interrupt them, making them to read the next story at home as their homework. It is so much work for them.

Mr. Song roamed around the room as he was watching everyone reading the book. He smirked looking all their faces, they got no choice to read the book filled with boring, no-plot and picture-less stories Mr. Song proudly authored. But Mr. Song is a very proud man boasting his book, saying his book is one of the popular books in the campus, because all students bought it. Of course, he requires everyone to have it or else, he will give them a failing grade.

 

“Krystal Jung!” Mr. Song yelled, making everyone startled.

Krystal immediately looked over him from the back, with her hair was covering her cheeks, only half of her dark eyes can be seen.

“You are not reading the book I asked you to read, are you?” He squinted as he walked towards her.

Everyone looked at her as they started to buzz around.

“She never learned.”

“She’s reading that book again. How scary!”

Krystal quickly hid her book under table, but Mr. Song was too quick to grab it from her. He took a glimpse on her book as he speculated it with his judging eyes.

He opened the book on the page Krystal were reading, and he read a phrase out loud, “I grabbed a knife behind me and started stabbing him on his chest. I am not satisfied. I want him to suffer. I did not know how many times I did it. Maybe fifteen? Twenty? His blood is splattering around the room. Now, I am satisfied.”

The students in the room gasped from what they heard. They were disgust and eyed on Krystal.

“You’re enjoying reading books like this, huh?” Mr. Song questioned.

Krystal did not answer him as she remained on her seat, keeping her head low. She can hear everyone’s whispers.

Her classmates never talked to her ever since she transferred in the school. People call her in many names–weirdo, mysterious, introvert, creepy girl, and the list of names will never seem to end. No one ever dared to talk to her, with her gaze alone make everyone shiver.

She never made friends.

She has no siblings.

She lives alone, with her scary books.

But that does not mean she’s lonely, because she knows, she’s not really alone.

 

Mr. Song banged her book on her table, “What a trash.” He rolled his eyes and walked back to his table.

Krystal can feel she is still in everyone’s gossips. Nothing is new, anyway. She is always in everyone’s gossips.

The dismissal bell rang.

Everyone took their things quickly and left the room. Krystal was the only student left in the room. She sighed before putting her book inside her bag and stood up.

Every after classes, she always go to the school’s library and borrow more books, scary books, to be exact. She sometimes take home ten books and finish them all night.

Her favorite genre of books is murder, scary or mysteries – but mostly she chooses to read murder books, as in her perception, murder books are the best genre because people think rational but act irrational, through the involvement of emotions.

Just like when the person you love cheated on you, the thought of having a revenge on that person is rational, since you only want to be fair. But with emotion, you become irrational, you were hurt that you want to hurt them too. People were killed, and it is all because you made your emotion and irrationality take over you.

She had this thought in her head, “Murder books helped me to know myself well. It taught me to be who I really am, to express how I really feel. It taught me to do what my mind tells me, and never let my emotion take over me.”

 

Krystal carried out six books from her bag and put them on the 3-feet high table of the librarian, making a small thump.

The librarian got a mixed weird and shock in her face, “You finished reading all of these?”

Krystal nodded.

“But, you just borrowed these yesterday.”

Krystal nodded again. The librarian peeked on her seeing she was not holding any books, “Perhaps you’re not going to borrow anything today, huh? Rest day?”

Krystal shook her head and managed to put five thick books on the table. The librarian gasped, but Krystal remained still.

“Oh, woah!”

After encoding the books in the computer, Krystal carried them and left the library. The librarian looked at her until her sight cannot reach her anymore.

“Rumors are true, she is one weird girl.” She whispered.

------

The moment Krystal reached her place she was staying, she walked in her room and started to read the books she just borrowed.

Krystal is not living with anybody, but herself only. Her parents passed away from a car accident when she was ten. She witnessed everything and had been traumatized from the tragedy. Until then, she had a hard time to communicate with people. The only person who have been supporting her and in her studies is her aunt from abroad, who sends her money every month, but never speaks to her.

It is hard to live where you got no one to share with the happy moments happened to you, and the sad moments when you needed someone to cry on, to vent on, and to lean on.

Whenever Krystal tries to communicate with people, often, she got ignored or rejected. That’s why she came to a conclusion that nobody wants to be with her, and instead of being called by her real name, people are making names out of her.

But Krystal is used with it, ever since, she thought, she was destined to live alone for the rest of her life; she was destined to be different from everybody.

She looked over the books she borrowed and picked what she was going to first.

“This looks interesting.” she mumbled to herself as she took the book entitled, ‘Scary Myths’.

Once she flipped the book open, leaving the foreword unread, she felt something weird, she cannot explain it, just the feeling is strange. But still, she started to read the book, with no breaks, no pauses. She can finish one book in one or two hours straight.

The moment she read and absorbed each sentences, she cannot fathom the random feels she was feeling that night.

The next morning, she found herself sleeping while sitting upright on her bed. She looked down on her book, she can almost finish it, but she was quite disappointed.

“Oh.” She sighed, “I thought I can finish it overnight.”

She glanced over her clock, she still had enough time to prepare to school.

------

On her way to school, she continued reading it so she can return it after class. Once she arrived her classroom, she remembered about what Mr. Song said yesterday.

She quickly took out her book and read it as fast as she could before Mr. Song arrived.

But her classmates were not bothered to do the same, instead, they started to gossip about Krystal’s incident yesterday.

“The phrase Mr. Song said yesterday from that weirdo girl’s book was really…”

“I know! I even had goosebumps until now!”

“Who knows, maybe she was doing it too.” a girl whispered.

“Doing what?”

“She is probably planning to kill someone too, like in her book. That is why she was getting tips from those books!”

“Plus the fact that she has been reading that book, maybe seven times already!”

Everyone got scared.

 

That is the common dilemma; people often misunderstood other people, they were judging, they were plotting and jumping into conclusions, but if only they spare time to get to know the inside stories of each other, they will understand why people behave like this, like that.

We need to open our eyes and minds for people, sometimes.

------

After class, Krystal headed to the library, not to return the book just yet, but to finish it there. Since, no one will try to disturb her, after all, almost everyone were making a wide distant from her. Sometimes, it is an advantage for her too.

She sat on the corner where no one is around, and flipped the book.

She only got one page left, and the last myth written in the book, made her think in many ways. Its letters and words were seem to be faded, as if it was erased, but she insisted to read it, still.

“It was said that when you start counting the people, more likely a stranger, you meet–it does not matter if you two had an eye contact or not–while walking in the corridor, hallway or even crossing a road, without stop, without interruptions, the two hundredth person you will meet, is said to be a ghost.”

Krystal had this thought in her mind full of dark thoughts, that she should try this out.

She whispered to herself, “After all this is just a myth.” She looked over the book once again, before standing up. She walked straight to the librarian’s table to return it, without saying a word and left. The face of the librarian for Krystal never seem to change.

While she was walking on her way home, she started to count the people she met on her way.

“One…” she muttered.

Without stop, without interruptions, she continued muttering the number counting in her head while meeting people she do not know.

She had no idea where she was heading but she just kept on walking, her mind was only focused in one thing.

“One hundred ninety one…”

Even though she was so close reaching the number, she was never seem close to her house. Perhaps, she was lost? She do not know.

“One hundred ninety eight…”

She stopped walking before looking around for the last people who will prove that the myth is not true – just a real myth, as the book said.

But she cannot seem to find anyone around the place anymore, so she continued walking.

It took her ten minutes to find a stranger to add to her counting.

“One hundred ninety nine…”

She was grinning because she knew she was an inch away from her goal.

The moment she kept walking, she suddenly walked passed by a big mirror, seeing her full self’s reflection through it, making her stop.

Krystal found herself looking at her reflection for bit longer, realizing she looked really weird in her hair covering almost entire of her face.

“No wonder... No one likes talking to me.” She said to herself as she swept her hair on the side and hooked it behind her ear before deciding to continue from walking.

As she was crossing the road, she had no idea, something had been going on her way too. She turned her head to the right, spotting a truck becoming closer and closer in her sight.

The truck was honking her to move away but it was too late, she was hit by a truck, making her collapse on the ground.

Slowly, her blood started to scatter around.

Krystal had no idea.

She was clueless.

Krystal did not realize that she do not know herself anymore. From reading scary and murder books, they will never help you know yourself, rather, they are going to turn you into different person, a completely different person.

She was wrong about it.

She let a devil live inside her mind full of dark thoughts.

She took care for it, the more she took care for herself.

She was indeed clueless about herself.

“All the myths are just myths. But counting the people who do not know as you meet them while casually walking down the street, is never a myth nor a legend. It is true.” – Foreword, Scary Myths

Krystal had no idea.

Krystal is the 200th person… and she appeared to be a ghost, now.