Mwaght

The smell of young fire coated the air. The toiletpapers in the air unrolled. The sound of screams—not painful--filled the air. They were enjoying the night and the spirit of competitive sports. The shirtless guys with the bottles of beer and war paint on their face are next to the girls in the cheerleading uniforms throwing themselves up in the air are next to the marching band member playing his instrument. The thousands of students all circled the twenty-foot-tall wooden figure of a Coalton University football player, their rivals, almost worshiping the fire they casted. The music blared from the instruments on one end and the boom boxes from the other, making the occasion all the more festive. It was a pleasant night one would look back at years ago and wish to return to.

But certainly not for some. Connor, Michaela and Laurel paced in the dark, cold and quiet woods only a quarter of a mile away from the people they wish they were with. They were shaking, but not from the cold—from the feeling of witnessing, committing and accomplicing in murder. They couldn't stop thinking of the the dead body, lying on the cold floor miles away.

"Stop acting like a little bitch baby," Connor ordered. In most situations, he was cool, calm and still able to make the occasional flirty joke, but right now he could cry if he wasn't so angry. He wished he wasn't stuck with Michaela, Laurel and Wes of all people in circumstances as awful as these. He didn't like them before, but he certainly hated them now.

"Don't you tell me how to feel," Michaela snapped back through tears. Out of all four of them, she was definitely the most distressed; murder was not a part of her dazzling five-year plan to graduate law school, marry her fiancé Aiden and become the best damn lawyer the state of Pennsylvania would ever see (after Annalise of course). The urge to confess to the police everything that has happened was getting harder and harder to resist.

Laurel, hands on her knees, was quiet, focusing on her heavy breathing from the adrenaline. She looked calm enough that one might suspect she had already been embroiled in murder before, but she had no idea what she was doing. Her brain was working hard to find a solution to the mess. But first, that meant Michaela and Connor needed to stop fighting.

In sight was Wes, running quick, despite the backpack on his back. Out of the four, he seemed to be the one best to handle it all. From the second the person in the carpet died, he knew what to do. "I'm here. Sorry it took so long. I went back for this," he said, reaching into his backpack for the trophy, a woman holding the dangling scales in one hand and a sword in the other. Its golden color was tarnished by the blood on it.

"Put that back where you found it, Wes!" Michaela shouted, frightened.

"No, it's smart," Laurel finally spoke, getting up. "Commonwealth v. Deloatche—case the prosecution should have one, but didn't because they couldn't find a murder weapon. We can clean it and put it back. Hide it in plain sight...after we bury the body."

"No. No, we are not doing burying the body," said Michaela.

"Yeah, we-we-we're not doing that," he stammered, talking quickly. Whatever ounce of collectivity he had was gone. "We can't, no, we're not. The murder trophy we need, but we're not burying the body. It stays where it is."

"The body is going to get us caught!" Laurel shouted.

"So we're just going to carry a dead body across campus on the busiest night of the year? Is that your plan, Laurel? You're not thinking! You don't know what you're talking about!"

"Well, this is murder! None of us know what we're talking about!"

"Scream a little louder, Laurel! Let the whole world know!"

And so the fighting ensued. Michaela and Connor together yelled at Laurel about the logistics of returning to the sight of the crime and carrying a body on campus if returning to the crime scene itself doesn't get them caught. Laurel, meanwhile, continued to sputter all of the court cases she could think of that lawyers won because there was no crime scene even if the body is found. She screamed the names of the court cases to overpower the screams of Michaela and Connor. They perfectly juxtaposed. But it was too much.

"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up!" Wes yelled. And shut up they did. "It's two-against-two. We need to make a decision and commit to it. So we flip a coin."

"Oh God, a coin is going to decide my fate," Michaela grumbled.

Wes ignored her. "Heads, we bury the body. Tails, we leave it where it is." With that, Wes threw the coin into the air.

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But three months ago, things were much different. It was a sunny day in Philadelphia, as it always is and the air was pleasantly warm. Wes scanned the the Middleton University campus as he rode on his bike, excited, but nervous for his first day of law school. He had only learned two days ago that he was enrolled in Professor Annalise Keating's Criminal Law 101 class after being accepted from the waitlist.

Passing by the posters of the missing girl, Lila Stangard, he entered the classroom, large enough to seat 100 people. Confident, he strolled to the front row and plopped his bag down next to a girl with jet black hair at her chest and soft ebony skin.

"Here we go. I'm not usually a first-row kind of guy, but I promised myself I wouldn't hide in the back of the class," he told her.

"I'm engaged," she said disinterested, without looking up. "There's a seating chart."

Wes was in the back of the room.

He barely had enough time to get to his new seat before the class went silent as the Annalise Keating entered the classroom. Every law junkie had heard of her before. She was the brilliant, cunning and austere defense attorney the world had seen. Every case ever, big or small, was won. An unstoppable force most definitely not to be reckoned with. Caramel skin and short brown hair glowing, she entered the room like it was no big deal. The law students aspired to have that effect.

"Good morning, I'm Professor Annalise Keating, I have no idea what awful things you have done up until now to land you in this class. This is Criminal Law 101 or as I like to call it," she announced, picking up the chalk to write something, "How To Get Away With Murder. I'm not teaching you how to study the law or theorize it, but rather how to practice it—like a real lawyer." She turned on the monitor to the right of her, displaying a mugshot of a white woman in her mid-thirties.

Everyone in the class shifted to grab packets out—everyone, but Wes, confused as to what was going on.

"Tell me the facts," Annalise said, staring at her clipboard, "Connor Walsh."

"The Commonwealth v. Gina Sadowski," he began, confidently standing up, speaking loud and clear, "was a case of attempted murder. The defendant, Ms. Sadowski, was the second assistant to victim, Arthur Kaufman, the C.E.O. to an advertising agency. Ms. Sadowski wasn't only his assistant. She was also his mistress."

"What happened after Mr. Kaufman' wife of 27 years, Agnes, found out about the affair?" Annalise asked, walking over to the other monitor, displaying a photo of Arthur and Agnes. She pointed to someone on the right side of the class room, a short, muscular boy with black hair and pale skin, Asher Millstone.

"Mr. Kaufman ended the relationship with Gina and transferred her to the accounting department. That's when she allegedly switched one of his blood-pressure pills to an aspirin, which she knew Mr. Kaufman is allergic to."

Annalise walked over to the the center of the room, asking, "What occurred when Mr. Kaufman ingested the aspirin? Anyone?"

Ignoring all of the hands raised, the girl with the black hair and ebony skin stood up. "Mr. Kaufman went into anaphylactic shock. His throats swelled and his brain was deprived of oxygen. He was unconscious for seven minutes before his first assistant resuscitated him," she answered, adding, "Michaela Pratt."

Wes, in the meantime, had no idea what was going on. He stared at the packets everybody had in their hand of the case study, wondering where they all got them from. He was glad that there were hundreds of other kids in the class. How big are the chances that Professor Keating would pick him?

"So we've established the actus reus. Who can tell me the mens rea?" Without giving the students a chance to raise their hands or for Michaela to stand up anyway, she called on Wesley Gibbins.

He stood up, legs shaking. He had no idea what the mens rea of the crime was, let alone what the meaning of mens rea was. His best bet was to stammer and stutter until she interrupts him, even though that would make him look like a complete idiot. "The...Mens Rea? Right," he said, looking through his book, hoping to find the vocabulary term. "The Mens Rea is, um, the, uh—"

"Day one and you're unprepared?" Annalise asked, bored.

"No. Um, well yes. I didn't know that there was anything to prepare for."

"I emailed the assignment to the class two days ago," Annalise snapped.

"Oh. I...did not get that email." All eyes were on Wes, not helping the sweat flourishing on his back.

Annalise stared at him for a second, eyes narrowed. She walked up the stairs over to the aisle. "Mr. Gibbins, as a defense attorney, I spend my time being around professional liars. You have to work very hard to fool me."

Wes sighed. He didn't want to admit this to Professor Keating, let alone the entire class. "I didn't get that email because I was accepted two days ago. From the waitlist."

Giggling and muttering interrupted all around the classroom. He felt the students' smirking behind him, already deciding that he wasn't competition. The blood rushed to his cheek, burning, but not as much as the feeling of humiliation. The only one who seemed not to care that he was on the wait list was Annalise.

"Let me help you out. Actus Reus means 'Guilty Act'—the poisoning of Mr. Kaufman with the aspirin—whereas Mens Rea is the guilty mind. So what is Ms. Sadowski mens rea?"

Wes just stared at her, cluelessly, trying to construct a plausible answer. He was about to confess that he still did not know when another girl stood up.

"The intent to kill," she answered.

Wes was partially glad she answered because the attention was no longer on him, but partially upset that she was making an even bigger fool out of him than he already was.

Annalise rolled her eyes, but still staring at Wes. "Will the individual who just said that repeat the answer?"

The girl continued, "The mens rea, also referred to as 'intent', was to kill Mr. Kaufman." She fidgeted with the pencil and paper in one hand.

"Correct. What's your name?"

"Laurel Castillo."

Annalise walked up to Laurel, eyes flickering between her dark green eyes and her long, brown hair. "Never take away a learning opportunity from a student. No matter how badly you need to convince everybody that you're smart." Annalise ordered. She was stern and frightening.

If Wes was humiliated, there were no words to describe how Laurel was feeling. Across the room, Michaela smirked, havig noticed Laurel's bold attempt to be like her.

"Before we moved on are there any other questions?" Annalise asked, again sounding bored. She called on Connor.

"I noticed that the verdict wasn't listed here. So my question is, did she do it?" He inquired, smirking.

"Mr. Walsh, I lied. Gina is not a case study, but the defendant I am currently representing. So if she did it, why don't you ask her yourself?"

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And soon, the aspiring lawyers were at the law office of Annalise Keating, doubling also as her home, a Victorian-styled teal house. All 100 of the law students piled in the spacious living room, where the chestnut wooden fireplace matched the chocolate colored chair, loveseat, sofa and the dark green walls. The students, leaning on the bookcases or sitting on the ground, noting Gina's every word as she recounted her Arthur's love story.

"This one day, I walked into his office, when I just screamed real loud 'cause Artha was standin' behind the door. Thought he was gonna be pissed at me, yell, but he just started laughin'. So then I just started laughin' and, well, um, that's when he kissed me for the first time." Gina chuckled, her rich New Jersey accent present even then, puzzling the students. It became her coping mechanism to fight back the tears. "Anyway, yeah I became that girl."

"Something tells me she's always been 'that girl'," Asher whispered to Laurel. She glared back. Asher looked away.

"It was my last day workin' for 'em, when I came back from lunch and the paramedics were there...when I heard that Artha was hurt—" she stopped to allow tears spill. Her voice began to tremble. "—I-I loved him. I know that's hard to believe, but I loved him. Why in the hell would I do this to 'em? I-I wouldn't."

There was a brief moment of silence from everybody, bar Gina, her crying filling the room.

"There, there, Gina." Annalise rubbed her hand along her back. She turned to the students. "Trial begins in two days. Tomorrow, each one of you will bring me your own and unique defense and present it to the class in one minute. See if you can beat mine. Mr. Gibbins?"

"Yes?"

"You'll go last --an unenviable position since no two students will be able to present the same idea."

Wes froze, allowing himself to take in her order. He was fucked.

"I knew this whole time. I'm sorry," Laurel speaks barely above a whisper. Tears stream down her face as remorse seeps in. But Bonnie is expressionless. Certainly, she feels something, but she would never show that kind of vulnerability to Laurel of all people. Only three words depart from her mouth.

"Don't tell Annalise."