Author's note: Consider this a teaser. No idea when more might come.

The Dead Kid Returns

Part One: Beth’s story

The dead kid didn’t show up for class again today, and nobody knew what that meant.

When the dead kid first missed a day, the debate went up and down the schoolyard as to what might have happened to it. But as days went by, and still no sign of it, people started to forget that the dead kid had ever been there.

Except one girl..

Her name was Bethany Ann Cooper, and she was there the day when the dead kid had first come to class. Like most of her classmates, she had been a bit frightened at first, until she figured out that the dead kid wouldn’t eat her brains, or anything like that. After a while, having the dead kid in her class was just - normal.

Like most people at the school, she saw the cycle that the dead kid followed, where some days, it moved very slowly and looked like it was going to fall apart, and other days where it moved much faster, and seemed almost alive. The other thing she noticed was a impression of femininity that it had, a impression that seemed strongest on its good days, and faded on its bad ones.

Because of this confusion, she ended up being part of an argument over the gender of the dead kid, an argument that led to her being dared to give the dead kid a kiss.

So, on one of the dead kid’s worst days, she came up to the dead kid at recess and kissed it on the lips.

Everyone saw the results, although they didn’t know about the kiss - the dead kid somehow healed its worst injuries and went back to class with more vibrancy than it had ever had before.

Strangely, it didnt solve the issue of the dead kid’s gender, because although the feminine quality it sometimes had got stronger, there was still no definite source for it. Worse, after a couple of days, the effect of the kiss seemed to wear off, and the dead kid went back to its old pattern, and even Beth, who had been so sure that it was a girl, began to have doubts again.

And then one day the dead kid just didn’t come to class. And eventually, the story of the dead kid seemed to fade, and became all but forgotten.

But not by Beth, who couldn’t forget.

She felt something, some force, some magic that had been born of her kiss, was inside her and now was simply waiting.

Waiting for the day when the Dead Kid would return.

Waiting for the day when the secret of the Dead Kid wouldn’t be a secret anymore.

And the Dead Kid would finally have a chance to become alive.