She could barely hear the professor.
On her shoulder, a slight poke.
“Psst! Hey!”
Then the giggle.

She hunched over her chemistry textbook. She was alone in this class. Three years of medical school with the same snide people.

The poke came again, as hard as a shove. “Hey, Bethany! You know what I heard about you?”
She looked down at the cover: Biology 101. Squinting her eyes in concentration, she strained to recognize the poem they were studying. Or was this a lecture period? Yes, astrology. She forgot. Her head pounded. She almost had it…

“I heard you failed the medical procedures test”
Right. This was anatomy. They were studying..what were they studying?

“I heard you didn’t know the extreme procedure for choking”

She looked down at the page in front of her, squinting. Medical procedures..choking..extreme case.. What was it?

“Hey!”

In one motion she turned and sunk her pen into a smooth flesh of his neck. “Tracheotomy, that was the answer,” She croaked, then cackled as blood poured.