I wake up the next morning confused. The pale white walls of my room, only partially illuminated by the morning sun through the pulled curtains, still seem unfamiliar. But it isn’t long before I can feel the memories begin to stumble in from the back of my mind, the strange events of the day before repeating themselves once more. I briefly feel a flutter of hope that the entirety of yesterday was nothing but a dream. A quick glance at my phone dispels that illusion immediately. The app icons I was familiar with are still replaced by the new designs I saw yesterday. To my annoyance, I’ve also woken up a good fifteen minutes before my alarm was set to go off.

As much as I wanted to roll over and go back to sleep, I drag myself out of bed to get ready regardless. Muscle memory leads me through most of the routine, though I still have to consciously, and groggily, stumble my way to and from the bathroom. Last night, I made the oft repeated lapse of judgment that’s plagued young men since home gaming was invented. Quite simply, I stayed up too late. I forgot to check the clock before loading up another game for one more round… and I did that maybe four or five times too many.

But who can blame me? The discovery that the collection of games currently loaded on my laptop were wholly unfamiliar to me was akin to a Christmas morning, and the sudden deluge of new time wasting opportunities was entirely too enticing to ignore.

Ah, well. Not the first time I’ve had to head to school like this. I’ll survive. I get dressed in my finest functionally identical uniform, save for a different tie, and made my way out of the dorm. Luckily, I’m able to avoid seeing anyone, and I don’t stick around to cook my own breakfast, lest I run into Mira again while I’m stuck at the stove. I’m not afraid of her, of course. That’d be ridiculous.

And anyway, I don’t want to meet any of the other girls while I’m half asleep. Better to run off early and grab breakfast on the walk to school. Just like the dorm mother said, once I'm not looking down at my phone I can see that the walk to school passes by a couple of cafes as well as a delightful little corner shop that proudly displayed that they had breakfast sandwiches on offer. I end up grabbing ham, egg, and cheese bagel, as well as an iced coffee that I load up liberally with milk and sugar. Maybe it was a bad idea to set myself up for a crash later, but I desperately needed some source of caffeine to keep my feet under me and moving on my morning route.

As I enter the school and make my way to English class, I’m wholly unsurprised to see masses of girls watching my every move. As much as I’d like to puff my chest out proudly and ignore them, or at least put up a passable front of faking it, they're simply too numerous and undeniable for me to work up the courage to do so. I really, really wish I could walk to school with Freddie. There was something about her presence that was calming, and having her around yesterday made everything a little more tolerable. Is it possible it's because she's part sheep? Are sheep really chill animals in general?

...

Can a sheep be an emotional support animal?

In any case, if I can make it until lunchtime, where I’ve got the solid rock of Freddie to provide a break against the waves of feminine attention, then at the very least I’ll be able to survive through the day.

One day at a time, Kelly. One day at a time.

English is, unsurprisingly, mostly a recap of what was covered last year, as well as the teacher letting us know about the year’s syllabus. To my absolute horror, the teacher reveals that we’ll be covering Orwell this semester, and that meant we’d be reading 1984. While I’m sure I saw the book on the reading list when we went to buy my textbooks for the year, that was before I tumbled through the rabbit hole into bizarro world. Unfortunately for me, it seems that even in this new reality it was a high school required reading staple. I was also a bit surprised to see that it's the first bit of culture I've seen in this world that was at all familiar. During quick searches on my phone yesterday, I saw no mention of things like Harry Potter or The Avengers or a dozen other pop-culture staples of the last couple decades, but 1984 of all things was still around. So on top of dealing with the dread of being trapped in a virtual panopticon with everyone's eyes on me at all times, I’d also be spending the next couple of months reading about Orwellian nightmare scenarios, including the horrors of a surveillance state.

I’m starting to wonder if I committed a particularly heinous crime in a past life. Or maybe some malicious trickster god delights in tormenting me from afar. Perhaps the fates just have a sick sense of humor.

After the period ends, I drag myself to my Chem class, though now I'm beginning to feel that sugar crash. The effects of my ill advised late night gaming session make me feel like my limbs weigh an extra 30 pounds each. As I shlep my way to the classroom, I end up walking in the exact opposite direction I should be going, only to have to double back after realizing my mistake. When I enter into the science classroom I can see that, like my Bio class yesterday, there are long tables with seating for two students each rather than the usual individual desk setup. And, to my total consternation, it seems the only available seat left in the room is next to my newest nemesis.

Mira gives a small, nearly imperceptible smile at me as I walk in, assumedly smug to see me forced to take the only remaining seat next to her. “Heyyyyyy, Jason,” she greets me, drawing it out like a gourmand savoring a particularly tasty morsel.

“Good morning, Mira,” I reply, completely mirthless.

She looks ready to follow up, no doubt to torment me further, but the bell signaling the start of the period cuts her off as the teacher takes her place at the front of the room. Her name is written on the whiteboard behind her, in blocky, easy to read letters; Mrs. Urakawa. She's wearing a smart looking blouse with a long skirt. Very professional, much like many of the teachers I've seen so far. Like every other person in this world, myself and the rare unaltered individual excluded, she’s got a few distinct animal features; in her case, a pair of dangling bovine ears stick out of her straight black hair, and a matching pair of short white horns jut up from the top of her head. She’s also pretty tall, nearly as tall as Freddie, and occasionally swishing around behind her is a long black cow's tail.

"Good morning everyone,” she says, a voice smooth and sickly sweet, almost like she was addressing a room of kids half our age. “Welcome to Chemistry, the science of matter. This semester, we’ll be looking beyond the basic primers you’ve already received in the elements and molecular structure, and into some more directly applicable uses of the physical sciences. It's noted on the syllabus of course, but it bears mentioning that more than half of your grade in this class is going to come from the experiments we conduct.”

“Look at the person sitting at your table with you,” she says, and I begin to feel my heart sink with dread. “They will be your primary lab partner for this semester. Remember that science is a team effort, and collaboration is key! As such, all experimentation in this classroom will involve your partner, so I hope you try your best to get along!”

Even though I really don't want to, I glance over at Mira for a moment. She looks up at me, her massive brown eyes staring straight through me, no doubt peering into my very soul.

“Please Jason, take good care of me,” she says, batting her eyelashes.

“Just shoot me now,” I mutter under my breath.

“Jeez, you look rough.”

I sit down across from Freddie, dropping my lunch tray with an unceremonious clatter. Unlike the day before, I ended up getting a proper lunch from the cafeteria, which has some surprisingly impressive offerings. While I had gone with a simple chicken club sandwich for lunch, the menu (an actual menu!) had dozens of options to choose from, from a lovely sounding tomato bisque to a proper personal-sized margherita pizza. If there was one thing I'll never miss about public school, it’ll be the god awful food.

And the cafeteria itself isn't half bad. Unlike your standard high school bench setup, each of the round tables in the room has seats for five students, and the tables themselves have fitted tablecloths covering them. The simple fact that everything looked fairly clean and well maintained would have elevated the room above anything in a public school, but the extra care for presentation really adds to the impression that this place was a cut above even your standard private school.

“You have no idea,” I reply to her dryly. While the stress of being in bizarro world alone would probably have been taking its toll, I'm sure that the bags under my eyes and the dead weight of my limbs did me no favors at the moment. "I had the worst run in with this one girl in my dorm last night...”

“What did she do?” she asks with a sudden intensity, the drop in her tone immediately telling me something is wrong. When I look up at her, there’s a fury behind her eyes that startles me, but it quickly shocks my mind into remembering her reaction yesterday. When Ken told her about his bullies, she looked damn near about to hunt the culprits down herself. And all of a sudden, I realize that my annoyance at Mira is a far more petty and minor issue than what Ken’s already had to put up with. It really puts my own problems into stark contrast.

“Nothing like that!” I say, feeling quite guilty for making such a big deal in my own mind of a relatively minor issue. “There’s just this girl who’s been a bit annoying, that’s all!”

Mollified, the aura of anger that seemed to exude from her begins to dissipate. In moments, she's back to her usual laid back self. “Oh, alright then,” she says, moving her focus to the meal in front of her, grabbing the largest forkful of delicious lasagna that she could. “How was she annoying you?” she asks through a mouthful of it.

“Well,” I start, “one of the girls in my dorm has been watching the videos that were posted about me.”

“Uh, yeah Jason. Everybody in the school’s seen those.”

“Sure, yeah, granted, but she seems… I dunno, really interested in me. More than should be normal.” I tactfully leave out her dissection of my mental state. I don't think I'm quite ready to relive that experience at the moment.

Freddie shrugs. “After yesterday, I think a lot of girls are getting more interested in you."

I sigh. "Christ, I hope not."

"Or at the least more curious about you," she amends. "Shouting ‘I don’t want a girlfriend’ is basically painting a target on your back, ya know?”

I look up at her puzzled. “What? Why?”

She shrugs again. “I think some girls take that kind of declaration as a challenge, ya know? The school gets a new guy, and he's an 'experienced' guy.”

"I'm not that experienced."

"You said you had an ex. That's enough to declare open season, dude. And now they probably think you're playing hard to get."

I slump my head onto the table. “Fuck my entire life, Freddie.”

Her face contorts into a sympathetic wince, but before she can explain further, she looks over my shoulder at something that’s seemed to catch her attention. “Hey, I know we’re in the middle of something, but do you mind if I invite a friend to join us? She’s really smart, she knows how to handle people. She’d probably be a good person to talk about this kind of thing with.”

“No prob,” I answer, still laying my head on the table but feeling a little bit of the weight on my shoulders lift. “I’ll take all the help I can get at this point, and any friend of yours is probably good people anyway.”

 “Cool,” she says, a wide grin on her face as she stands to wave at someone. 

“Hey Mira! Come join us!” she calls out as my heart drops into my stomach.