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Giselle Petrova had been up since she had been reborn, or unborn, or whatever she was now. However, she was not tired at all. She had never felt so awake in her life, and there was some kind of power, for lack of a better term, coursing through her veins. Giselle had never been physically strong. Now she felt like she could fight a bear.

And, more importantly, win.

It was unfortunate that the power came with the hunger, because even though she had found a hairtie and tied her tresses into a tight ponytail, the hunger was just as difficult to ignore as ever. It was a hole demanding to be filled, and every time Giselle saw someone else, it clamored even more loudly. Without the hunger she wouldn't have minded being, for lack of a better term, undead so much. With it, she felt she was barely in control of herself, and power was worthless without control. Without control she was just Robespierre, she was just Marat, just Desmoulins, or Danton. Just riding the wave, and the thing about the wave was it was bound to crash down on her eventually. No. Physical strength was interesting, useful even, but as long as the hunger was there, it was dangerous. No matter which way she sliced it, she needed to find a solution somehow, and the best way to do that was to take on the situation like a historian, not a charging bull (or zombie, as it were). And since there was no historical precedent for sudden second lives that she knew of, she would have to gather eyewitness accounts and get the history of the event itself straight in her head. Mind over matter. History over hunger.

She heard her name and turned around.

And then the hunger was drowned out by the feeling that her stomach had dropped straight out of her. Elke. Elke, who she had last seen-

DON'T THINK ABOUT IT, Inner Giselle shouted from the front lines of the fight to stave off the hunger, traumatic memories, and self doubt that seemed to be plaguing her all at once. Giselle honestly tried to obey, but Elke was right there. It was impossible to not think about her, or how she failed her. But, and this one thought vindicated Giselle, Elke was, for lack of a better term, alive. She had failed both of them, but she had been given a second chance.

Giselle was not going to make the same mistakes again. "Elke," she responded, striding over to her pupil, "Do you know what has happened to you?"

The writhing feeling had yet to go away, sharpened when Elke talked about her death, but now that it was no longer new, the hunger crept back and joined it, creating a kind of pain that made Giselle's mouth and shoulders tense, that made her want to curl over and clutch her stomach.

Because she was Giselle Petrova, the only concession she made to it was to put her hands on her hips. Pain and guilt aside, Elke had no new information to offer her, it seemed. "Weird, yes. Inexplicable, no. Everything is caused by something, and as a historian, I must find out what caused this. If I know what caused it, I can find out how to solve it. There must be a way to solve it."

The last part was emphatic, but Giselle was trying to convince herself more than she was trying to convince Elke. There was a way to do anything if one was clever enough, and Giselle certainly considered herself clever enough to do anything, but making them back to how they once were seemed a little farfetched even to her.

No. Failure was not an option.

"Who else have you seen? I am attempting to collect more accounts of the fire."

"Failure is not an option, Elke." Giselle snapped fiercely, before she could really think about it. More gently, she added "There is no historical precedent for matters like this, so for all we know, there could be. Can you think of anything better to do than try to investigate? What else are we supposed to do?" She paused, listening to Elke recount her story and bit her lip.

"'Kicked her butt'," she repeated slowly. So the living were attacking the, for lack of a better term, dead. That was not good. Living people were more likely to have seen who left the building, like the teachers for instance. If they attacked, for lack of a better term, undead students who came near them, Giselle had no way to interrogate them. She had to rely completely on the, for lack of a better term, undead, and though they seemed to outnumber the other students, one-sided histories were rarely reliable.

She noticed the blood around Elke's mouth as she went to brush it off, and her filmy, undead eyes blinked. "What had you been doing to Yahya?" she asked cautiously.

"So they're together in a group, then?" Giselle asked grimly. That would make it even harder to collect their stories, even harder to even approach them unless she had backup.

Giselle Petrova was good at many things. Knowing enough allies to have backup was not one of them.

Rubbing her temples and stopping as she felt how strangely the skin now slid under her fingers, she added "You think you bit someone." From the sound of it, Elke had just blacked out when attacked. It was for the best, really. Giselle could not imagine Elke biting someone while conscious no matter ho hard she tried. The whole situation made Elke sound weak, but with the hunger nagging at her, Giselle wasn't sure she could have been stronger in Elke's situation. Leaning down to look at the shards, Giselle shook her head. "Well, we know that wherever the, for lack of a better term, living students are, they're suspicious. Did they attack you right away? If they did, they may know less about the situation than we do. We know we're conscious."

"That's absurd." Giselle said, but it lacked emphasis. She was thinking about it.

Shaking her head, she emphasized "Absurd," trying to focus.

She bit her lip, and then had to stop herself from trying to eat it. Nighttime was coming, and the hunger was getting worse, roaring at her until even her willpower, that inner self that had kept her going, seemed to be faltering. Elke looked delicious. Elke smelled delicious. And she was so hungry, surely just a bite...

"Elke." she said suddenly, half hypnotized, "Let me get a closer look at those wounds."

Inner Giselle was shouting at her, but she could barely hear it over the rumbling of her stomach.

"Drink what." Giselle said flatly and hoarsely as she got closer to Elke.

She was salivating. Despite the scars and dead, green skin on Elke's face, she was actually salivating. Elke was so trusting. She always had been, and it made it so easy. It would take less than a moment, and how could she fight back? She was Elke. Giselle was her superior. She was in control.

Something in that thought rang a bell for her, and though she couldn't quite grasp it through the hunger, it made her hesitate. Something familiar. Something she thought often, like a prayer or a hymn. Something she should have lived by, and therefore, in unlife, particularly difficult to grasp. "What?" she murmured, half to herself.

A nervous tic appeared briefly in Giselle's face, a spasm of muscles that was gone as quickly as it came.

I am in control.

Giselle was not speaking. She had not been speaking for too long, instead she was looking at Elke's face, her scars, her eyes, the same frighteningly distant expression on her face. Giselle was somewhere darker than the oncoming night, but Inner Giselle was still shrieking at her. It was making her head hurt, so Giselle finally listened.

Who is in control?

Her stomach rumbled, and Giselle woke up from her trance, face paling as she saw how close she had gotten to Elke.

Elke, her responsibility. She had nearly failed her again, and failure was not an option. It had been too close, and the most alarming thing of all was that Elke had just stood there while she was overtaken by the hunger.

She had to do something. Elke was her responsibility, and she had to make sure she was safe. She had to do a better job than in the fire, but if the hugner overtook her again, that would mean that the most immediate threat to Elke was she herself.

"Elke," she said, and it was hoarse again, because for some reason, it was getting harder to speak clearly. "Why don't you help me collect stories? If we split up, we can do better. And we need to find people, too." If Elke was in danger because of Giselle, the solution was obvious.

Elke could no longer be near Giselle.