Halley really didn't want to get a stick up her bum like Jada just did.

Why couldn't they just strangle her or something? She wished she could leave behind a beautiful corpse... Not something gross and unnatural like this machine was doing to all her classmates.

Her screen lit up

DECAPITATION

No... it was another awful death. Halley didn't want to be some neck spurting blood. She deserved a painless death...not this.

The laser sprang to life, buzzing loudly as it swept up and separated Halley's Head from her neck. It was fast... but it was hardly painless.

Her body went numb, but her neck was on fire. Halley's world spun around, and her face slammed into a metal chute. She didn't quite know what was going on.

Her vision righted itself as her head came to rest in the trophy collection bin, and the poor head realized what had happened to her.

She'd really been decapitated. That meant... The shaking naked body she could see spurting blood and collapsing to the conveyer below was her own body.

She couldn't breathe, swallow, or speak. She wanted to scream but no sound came from her. Her lips moved wordlessly.

Tears ran down her pained face.

Even as her vision went blurry and darkened, she looked down at the backwards words printed below her - 'Trophy Heads' What did that mean? Her eyes wandered around and saw her horrified classmates hanging in line behind her. Soon, she though lazily... soon... they'lll.. . be ... like... me?

Then Halley finally croaked more than half a minute after she'd been beheaded. Every second had been agony, but now she looked at peace.