I gave mum a quick hug before I stepped out of the car. The day was another signature overcast day for the city and that was fine with me. I didn’t feel like dealing with weather today, be it hot or cold.

I had a meeting with the dean before class, so mum had dropped me off about half an hour early. Making my way towards the office building, I saw a few faces I recognised, but which did not recognise me. Kegan gave me a curious look, and a curious once over, his huge rugby player frame towered over me even more so that previously. He was actually so good at rugby that even as a year 11 he was in the first fifteen.

To those who don’t know how rugby works in New Zealand high schools, the first fifteen is the top team comprised of, you guessed it, the top fifteen players at the school. I thought back to the last time we had interacted. If this was a vapid american high school movie, he would be the bully, but this is reality where bullying is not so obvious as throwing people at lockers. Either way, I hoped to steer clear of him.

Another person I recognised from my year was Zach, the dour and frumpy guy who looked like life was kicking him in the gut at any given time. He looked up and met my eyes and I noted he looked pretty depressed today, even more so than usual. Instead of giving me the once over, he seemed to take me in and become even more upset. Sheesh, sorry buddy. I picked up my pace towards the offices.

I stepped up to the glass doors and opened them, only to be greeted by Juliet. I froze up, holding the door open for her as the memory of what had happened two days previously flashed in my mind. She might be wickedly smart, with excellences across the board, but she was also such a massive bitch that most of the other smart girls ignored her. She was, I also noted, very attractive. I gulped as she swept past me without so much as glance, her strawberry blond hair whipping behind her.

Up at the door to the dean’s office, I hesitantly tapped on it. A few seconds later, a hulking Mr Forsythe opened the door and got confused for a split second when no one was in his field of view, before he looked down. I forgot to mention it the last time I was here, but Mr Forsythe is huge. He’s seven feet tall, but that’s not the end of it. He’s also just massive in general, with a huge barrel chest, broad shoulders and muscles straining against all the seams of his clothing. I was literally almost half his size.

“Hi sir,” I squeaked in a very small voice.

“AH! Sylanna! Glad you could make it to our school on such short notice, seems like it was only yesterday that you were in my office!” he laughing uproariously at his own joke.

I gave a small and very frightened smile in return.

“Right, young lady, I asked you to come and see me just as a formality, you already have a map of the grounds, so I hope you can make it to your classes on time. I’ve told your other teachers via email about you and they should be forgiving of tardiness while you are getting settled in. But don’t make it a habit!” he bellowed.

“Yes sir,” I said again in a tiny voice.

“Good girl! Now, if you have any problems do not hesitate to come and ask for help okay? Don’t let the other rascals give you any crap, got it?” he bellowed kindly.

“Yes Sir,” I said again.

“Great! Good luck with your study young lady, and don’t be too late to first period!” he said as he held out his hand for a shake.

I hesitantly placed my hand in his, where it disappeared as he clasped it in a firm but gentle handshake. I sighed in relief when he released it. Then he spun on his heel and closed the door. Whoa.

That man always left me a little shell shocked when we spoke, and today was no different. I stepped away from the door and turned to head further into the school towards first period math.

Then I heard a low chuckle from behind me, “You’re like, fuckin tiny compared to him.”

I turned toward the speaker and saw Kegan leaning against the wall a few meters away. I met his eyes and immediately looked down at my feet. I was feeling pretty intimidated by all these huge guys around me. Please don’t recognise me! I really don’t want this day to go the same way as last time.

Mumbling something incoherent, I turned back and rushed off towards my first class. I didn’t have the same math class, and I wasn’t sure who my teacher would be. I really hoped it wasn’t Mr Forsythe.

The class was in the math block, and I was one of a few people who was there early. When I arrived outside the class, I sat down with my back to the painted cinderblock wall of the corridor and waited for the teacher to arrive and unlock the door. Mindful of tripping up anyone walking through the corridor I pulled my knees up against my chest and smoothed my dress out.

While I waited, I thought back to earlier this morning, to Feslia. I hope I could collect more faith out in the wilderness. Maybe I could ask my friends to pray to her? Also she’d taken my first kiss. My first kiss had been with a goddess! Wow. I would have liked it to be someone I had feelings for, but it also wasn't an intense kiss or anything… not a romantic kiss. It felt like one of those kisses that really intimate european cultures would do.

I was woken from my thoughts when a pair of legs blocked my vision. I looked up and met the eyes of a girl I only vaguely recognised from my year. She had long dyed blond hair and was kind of tall in a willowy way.

“Hey,” she said, smiling down at me.

“Hey,” I said cautiously. I struggled into a standing position so I could speak to her properly.

“My name is Jasmine, I don’t recognise you, are you new?” she asked.

She was still way taller than me, and standing so close I still had to look up when I spoke, “Um, yeah. This is my first day…”

“Oh cool! I just wanted to be friendly and say hi!” she said happily, like she was congratulating herself more than anything else.

“Thanks, um, oh my name is Sylanna. You can call me Syl,” I told her shyly.

“Wow I’ve never heard that name before. Where’s it from?” she asked.

“Um… Shadesmar, I think,” I said with a little smile, I don’t think she’d have a clue where that is.

“Oh wow, that must be far away!” she smiled.

“Yup, pretty damn far,” I said brushing my hair behind one of my ears. This turned out to be a mistake.

Her eyes widened when she saw my still pointed disguised ears, “Why are you wearing pointed ear thingies?”

I wish the disguise hadn't made them fully pointed. I wonder why it hadn’t? Maybe the spellmonger thought he was helping?

“Uh, oh… crap. I’m not, they’re real ears. It’s, um, something that people from Shadesmar have, pointed ears…” Nice save Syl, super convincing. Dumbass.

“Wow… that’s really cool. I thought you might be a weirdo who thinks they are like an elf or something but if they are real,” she reached out and touched them, “Wow they are real, that’s cool!”

I jerking away I self consciously covered my ears with my hair again, “Um, thanks. I-”

I was saved by Mr Forsythe’s hand landing on Jasmine’s shoulder, “Jasmine! Don’t go touching the newbie without asking! You’ll scare her!” He laughed with his signature bellowing laugh.

Oh no. Please no. Not again.

“Sorry Sir,” said Jasmine meekly.

“Alright class, let’s get mathing! Today we’re going to be exploring some more ratios and proportions!” He said excitedly. This had the effect of increasing his volume even more.

No God! No god please no! No! No! Nooooooooooooooooooo!

Utterly defeated, I trudged into the classroom. This was all a mistake. I wanted to be Sam again. I didn’t want to spend another year being taught by…. him. I wanted Ms Kimberly back.

“Sylanna!” he bellowed, “You’re sitting in at that desk!” He pointed to one near the back.

At least I wasn’t near the front. Small victories. I rushed to my seat, dodging my fellow students until I was sat down. Mr Forsythe started the class soon after, and I sat through it like I was a private in the battle of the somme. Explosive verbal artillery slammed down amongst my classmates, turning their brains into so much raw meat. When it was over, I rushed out of that room like my ass was on fire. Second period was painting, and since there was only one painting class, I knew Dana would be in it.

When I arrived wheezing from the climb up the stairs, she was already inside. Unlike the other more mainstream departments, the art department had an open door policy. Anyone could come and go from the open plan top floor of the tower block. The room took up the whole floor and had large grey divider curtains that could be used if there was more than one class going on. Students tended to roam in and out of the place throughout the day, more than a few of whom were skipping class. None of the art teachers cared.

Dana was sat at a table already and I rushed over to her, throwing my arms around her like she was a surf lifesaver.

“Whoa! Hey there Syl! What’s wrong?” she asked in a concerned voice.

I mumbled incoherently into her neck.

“Uhhh, what?”

“I have Mr Forsythe as a math teacher,” I mumbled.

“Oh… I’m sorry. Is he really that bad?” she asked in confused sympathy.

“He. Doesn’t. Stop. Yelling... Ever,” I told her with fear in my voice.

“So I’ve heard,” she wrapped her arms around me and returned the hug, despite any misgivings she had about my reaction to the teacher.

When we seperated, she whispered, “I guess you’ll take your old seat?”

“Yeah,” I grinned at her.

I sat down at the desk. The class was made up of several duo desks that had always randomly shifted around every time you came into the room. This time the desk we’d taken was set against the floor to ceiling glass window on the edge of the room. Nice and isolated.

Looking over at our teacher, Mr Yossan, I saw he was already helping a student. Another quirk of the art department was that class never really started or ended. There was a kind of fuzzy grey area on either end instead. The system worked great in my opinion.

Once Mr Yossan was done with the guy he was helping, he started towards me, as I’d known he would. He failed to make it all the way to me though, as he was accosted by another student along his journey. A minute later and he was helping another girl. A few minutes later he finally made it to me. He was a short balding man with a big bushy ginger beard. He looked like a thin dwarf.

“Hey, what’s up. You must be Sylanna! Nice to meet you,” he said, offering a hand for me to shake.

“Hey, nice to meet you too sir,” I said bashfully.

“So, you’re a bit behind, did you have any projects that you were working on at your last school?” he asked.

“No… Yes. I forgot to get them out of my cubby when I left,” I lied.

“Ah, then you’ll be starting again. I’m having everyone do one big work at the start like this so we can all get that one cool idea out of our heads before we move on to improving skills. Will you need help or can you find a subject for your piece on your own?” he asked.

“Um, I think I can figure something out,” I said with a smile.

“Cool stuff, if you need help I’ll be around,” and with that he left to help others. He couldn’t really help me with my work until I actually had something to show him.

I sat back and pondered what I would base my painting on. I no longer had the drive to paint shirtless men, funnily enough. I thought of Pellan, there were some great opportunities to paint cool scenes in that. I wonder if there was a screenshot feature. Inevitably my thoughts went to Karen and just like that I knew what I wanted to paint, or rather, who. I spent the rest of the lesson sketching out a pose and trying to figure out how I would get some reference pictures.

The problem with having painting before any break was that it took a while to get down all the stairs. When we got to the bottom of the tower block, we had to then walk along the edge of the tennis courts and then around the math block to get to the music block where we usually hung out. It was during this walk that Dana decided to try and get some answers out of me.

“So how is it? Being a girl?” She asked tentatively.

“It’s amazing Dana… It feels so right. It’s like I wasn’t even me before. It’s like I was going through the motions of enjoying life, but deep down I was grey and empty about it. I don’t really know how to fully describe it,” I told her.

“Wow, that sounds like it sucked... You’re okay now right?” she asked with concern.

“Yeah! I’ve actually been most worried about my sexuality-” I trailed the word off, losing my train of thought as the object of my confusion walked around the corner at the other end of the tennis courts.

Dana followed my gaze and saw who I was looking at. Karen hadn’t seen us yet, and I dropped my gaze to the ground with a blush. It was going to be so hard to talk to her now that I knew I was crushing on her.

“Really? Wait, if you’re confused about your sexuality and you’re into Karen, that means... you were into guys before?” she asked with excitement, “Oh man I knew it!.”

“Yeah I was, and I… I’m not into Karen, she’s straight anyway,” I stuttered.

“Oh come on Syl, You can’t seriously think I’ll believe your bullshit,” Dana laughed.

“I-” I started.

“Syl! Dana!” Karen called out.

“Hey Karen! How are you? You should come hang out with us for morning tea!” said Dana enthusiastically.

“Oh where are you guys going? I was just going to sit outside my next class,” said Karen.

“To the music block,” Dana told her.

They went silent after that. I was still looking at my feet right now, but from Karen’s body language I could tell she was trying to get my attention.

“You okay Syl?” she asked.

“Her first day at school as Syl. She’s feeling a bit overwhelmed I think. She could probably use a hug,” Dana said in the tone of voice she used when she was subtly getting one over someone.

“Oh! Um... Okay!” Karen chirped, turning to allow us to keep walking together.

She walked next to me for a few paces before she put an arm around my shoulders and pulled me to her as we walked. My whole body broke out in goosebumps and the points of contact between my body and hers fired waves of sensation through me. She was warm and soft, and I couldn’t stop my head from flopping to the side and landing on her shoulder. Even being held in this side embrace, I ached for her.

My breathing increased, each breath I took sending little echoes of longing into my mind. My brain was begging me to turn and hold on to her with everything and never let go, to press my face into her neck, to kiss her, to wrap my arms around her waist and hold on tight, to put my arms around her neck and look into her eyes. Through all of these desperate needs, my mind chanted, Karen Karen Karen Karen Karen Karen, over and over and over.

I felt the emotions send tears bursting out of my eyes, big fat ones, but I didn’t sob or make too much noise. A sniffle still alerted the two girls that something was wrong, and Karen reacted fast, stopping to pull me into a full hug. She wrapped her arms tightly around my torso and I shuddered at the sensation of her arms sliding around to hold me. Every inch of friction sent more emotion surging into my mind. Getting comforted by the source of my roiling emotions was not helping in the slightest.

“What’s wrong?” asked Dana worriedly, placing a hand on my shoulder to join in the comforting.

“I don’t know she just started crying all of a sudden,” said Karen, her voice choking with sympathetic emotion of her own.

I held her even tighter when I heard her emotions struggling for purchase in her voice. I didn’t want her to be upset, especially not over me. Strangely, the need to comfort and cheer her up outweighed my own roiling feelings. I felt a tender caring for her surge past my turmoil, shattering my desperate need and replacing it with the need to hold her until she was okay. I reached one of my hands up and placed it around her neck, gently stroking up and down with my thumb. I felt the soft hairs on the back of her neck with each stroke and it felt incredible.

We calmed down over a few minutes together, and I grew accustomed to the feeling of her body against mine. It felt right, to be held by her like this, and hold her in turn. I pushed my nagging anxiety over her being straight away and just enjoyed it. I think we would have stayed like that the rest of the day if Dana hadn’t cleared her throat and prompted us to seperate.

“We should get moving,” she said quietly.

“Mhm,” I replied, and Karen nodded.

We didn’t go back into our side embrace, but we walked very close together, and I swear she was brushing my hand like that on purpose. It was crazy, she seemed to reciprocate my feelings at every turn now, but she had pulled away that time and told me she was straight. I was really confused.

We made it to the meeting spot without much conversation, and Dana went straight to greg and cuddled up next to him on the bench. I dropped my bag onto the concrete with a thump and sat down with a few extra feet of room between me and Jeremy. Karen chose that spot to sit, shielding me from Jeremy in the process. I smiled up into her bright green eyes and got a heart stopping return volley from her.

Eating was hard in the eight or so minutes we had left, so I didn’t say much and just wolfed down a sandwich. Karen ate an apple. I watched her eat with fascination, she was so meticulous about it.

“How much further do you think we should travel in Pellan before we’re safe from the warzone?” asked Greg as morning tea began to end and we packed up.

“Don’t know, maybe another day?” asked Jeremy.

“Yeah, that would take us out of range of most players. Only the no lifers might find us if they have Dailsil as their base of operations,” I said.

Jeremy turned to look at me then for a moment. Then he nodded slightly. I gave him a cautious smile in return. Okay, fixing things. This was good.

“I hope we can outpace the people back in the city,” said Karen with concern.

“I’m sure we can,” said Greg with a grin, “We’re way better at the game than those morons!”

“You have absolutely no data to base that on Greg, you dumbass,” said Dana fondly.

I quietly packed my lunchbox away and stood up as they continued their banter.

“I’m going to english,” I told them and began to leave.

“Wait I’m coming too!” exclaimed Karen, quickly packing her things and falling into step beside me.

“What do you have now?” I asked.

“Uh study period. I’ll probably go to the library” she said hesitantly.

“Oh! Lucky. We don’t have those yet.” I said quietly.

We walked the rest of the way in uneasy silence. I wanted so badly to hug her again. Sadly we did not hug, and she gave me a little wave when we reached a junction in the hallways and turned to head to the library.

“See you later Karen!” I called to her, forcing a smile on to my face.

She turned back and said, “See you later Syl.”

She gave me a smile that turned my own one genuine, and I carried that smile the rest of the way to my classroom.

When my english teacher arrived, she turned out to be Mrs Elliston. She was a short and thin elderly scottish woman with grey hair and a strange taste in dresses.

“Come in!” she called as she unlocked the door.

We all filed in after her and took seats. I waited near the back to see which seats would be taken since not all teachers made us sit in a seating plan. Turns out the front row was relatively empty. Oh joy.

“Ah! The new girl!” said Mrs Elliston, checking her roster, “Sylanna Walker is it? Could you please tell us a little about yourself?”

Oh no.

“Come on, stand up, it’s easy,” she encouraged.

Easy for you maybe, but for a shy introvert like me, it was far from it. I stood up anyway and half turned to face the class. There were a few expressions of amusement, a few of indifference, and a few of sympathy.

“Um… I’m Sylanna Walker…” I said timidly, “I like Science, Painting and Video games. Oh and dancing and fashion.”

The last part was very new.

“Make up your mind, are you a nerd or not?” I heard one of my classmates whisper, to quiet chuckles from her friends.

I thumped back into my seat and hunched over, trying to recover from my anxiety before it ruined my ability to concentrate. Mrs Elliston began to teach the lesson, and it seemed we were required to write a creative writing piece about something that had happened to us over the christmas holidays. I figured that writing about my experiences in Pellan would make for fun reading, so I picked that.

The class revolved around techniques we could use in our writing. I took notes and tried my best to ignore the fact that someone behind me had decided to quietly make fun of me. I managed to get a look behind me at one point and saw that my quiet tormenter was Juliet. Great. How typical, new kid gets picked on by the popular girl.

I heard things like, “Looks like she’s a child, what is she even doing here?” and, “She probably lied about dancing and fashion to make everyone think she’s more interesting.”

I needed to stop this before it became a thing, and so I gathered my courage and when class ended, I waited and watched. If I remembered correctly, Juliet had the student council to go to, which was held in a small building on the other side of the school. The fastest route there would take her around the back of the science block.

When I saw her separate from her friends, I ran as fast as I could to get ahead of her. Arriving in the alleyway behind the science block, I dropped my bag in a little alcove and tied my hair back. Then I let my ears extend to their full length. I lounged casually in the nook and waited, my heart pounding in my ears and my anxiety pummelling my consciousness. When I heard light footsteps on the gravel I stepped out into the main pathway. There was Juliet, my heart rate went through the roof. Was I really going to confront her?

She looked up startled, then an amused smile grew on her face, “Hello Sylanna.”

Something about her smile seemed not so genuine though, and I saw her eyes flick to my anxiety clenched fist.

“Hi Juliet. I heard those things you were saying about me in class. I’d like it if you would stop,” I said, tilting my head to the side.

“Oh look at those silly plastic ears you have on. You’re a weird one aren’t you? No, I’m not going to stop,” she rolled her eyes at me with forced nonchalance.

“Why are you being a bitch? Like fuck I literally just got here. What did I do to you?” I asked plaintively, my heart sinking. She didn’t intend to be nice at all.

“That’s for me to know and you to not know little girl,” she said with a condescending smirk.

“Well, alright then.” I said, and held up my fist. Maybe if I scare her? I’m so much more powerful than her in reality, even if she holds all the social power.

She laughed cautiously, “What are you going to do? You’re tiny. I could probably pick you up and throw you.”

Her laughter faded when my hand began to crackle, the smell of ozone piercing the air like the lightning pierced the clouds around my fist.

“These ears aren’t fake,” I said with a little smile.

She began backing up, her eyes wide with fear, and I advanced on her. Next to us was a bank of dirt and rock where the hill had been cleared away to make room for the rear of the science block. I pivoted on my forward foot and slammed my fist sharply into the rock with a loud crack like a gunshot, and pieces of stone flew in all directions whirring and buzzing as they went. I had to shield my face with a glowing buckler of light to avoid being cut up. When the rocks stopped flying we were left with just the sharp earthy smell of charred rock.

I looked down at Juliet and found her lying on the ground, staring up at me in shock and fear. She had bleeding scrapes on her face and I could see bruises beginning to form. Before she could react, I knelt carefully next to her.

“I’m sorry Juliet, but I have way too much to deal with right now. I really don’t need lowkey bullying from Ms Perfect the Gorgeous okay?” I asked gently, cupping her face with my hand.

She nodded up at me, cringing away from my glowing buckler like it was going to bite her.

“Let me take care of these,” I said, my hand beginning to radiate healing light. I tenderly traced each abrasion, erasing it with a trickle of healing energy. Then I took her hands, scraped and cut when she had caught herself as she fell. I started to heal those too, softly running my smaller fingers over her palms to sooth the injuries. When I was done I stood up, prompted my ears to conceal themselves, dismissing my shield and gathering my bag.

“You can keep being a bitch, and we can be enemies, or you can not be a bitch, and we won't be enemies,” I told her as I walked past.

When I got out of sight around the edge of the building, I sank to my knees and let myself freak out. What had I just done? I mean I had defended myself, sure, but I’d also frightened a defenceless girl. What could she really have done to me? Nothing. No Sylanna that’s wrong! Words do damage too!

I was gathering the courage to stand again when I saw Karen rush out of the building and turn wildly, her eyes searching. When they found me, she relaxed and hurried over. Oh Karen.

“Syl! Are you okay? What’s wrong? I was looking for you and I heard your lightning fist ability go off and I thought maybe someone had tried to hurt you!” she said in a rush, kneeling down and dropping her bag unceremoniously onto the ground.

“I’m okay,” I told her in a quiet voice.

She didn’t believe me, and kept checking my body to make sure I was okay. It felt incredible. Subtle and tender sensations zipping around inside my body with each touch. Unbidden, the thought of her doing that to me while I was naked came to my mind, and I let out a small gasp at the phantom sensations that thought produced. Not the time hornbrain! To distract her from what I thought was my obvious arousal, I began to tell her the little saga that had happened. I included all my fears about what I had done and if it was right.

During my story, she moved to sit next to me shoulder to shoulder with her hands fidgeting in her lap. I wanted to reach out and hold them, but I didn’t.

“I think you did okay Syl. You could have probably done it better, but there’s always a way to do it better,” she told me with a smile.

We sat there in silence for a second, looking at each other and smiling. Then her phone went off. Her ringtone was some foreign pop sounding music I couldn’t understand. I raised an eyebrow at her and giggled.

“I... hold on,” she stammered, going bright red before answering the phone, “Liam! Why the fuck are you calling me jeez!”

There was a pause, and then, “Oh sorry… I didn’t check my phone. I was um, looking for Syl. Yeah I found her. Okay see you soon.”

She turned to me, still blushing and said, “Um do you wanna come hang out with me and Liam and our friends for lunch? He was wondering where I was.”

“Sure,” I said with a grin, “That sounds great!”

We got up and started walking, Karen leading the way.

I glanced over and asked, “So um… what type of music was that?”

She blushed even harder and looked down at her feet, “Uh, don’t judge me. Some people think it’s really weird. It was Kpop, I’m into Kpop.”

I only vaguely knew what that was, “That’s like, Korean pop music right?”

“Yeah,” she said with a sidelong look at me, trying to gauge my reaction.

I laughed and leaned over to nudge her as we walked, “I’m not judging. I’m so boring with my music tastes, I just listen to random bits of everything. What bands do you like from Kpop?”

“Oh um, they’re called… nevermind. I like Blackpink, Speed and… well a lot of them.” She said sheepishly.

“Oh my god you’re so cute!” I blurted. Oh dear. My face started to match hers in colour.

“Really?” she asked in surprise.

I nodded like a bobblehead.

I tried to mask my outburst by asking her about her interest in Kpop the rest of the way to her friends, and she indulged my questions happily.

Arriving to meet her friends, I was introduced to everyone, but Karen pretty much monopolised my time the whole way through lunch. I got a message from Dana asking where I was at one point, and I explained I was with Karen and her friends.

I told Karen about my dream of taking up dancing, how I liked researching the shit out of games that I was playing. She told me more about herself, how her parents were really strict. Her transgender sister had gone missing years ago and she missed her deeply. The sister Nia, had been a big role model in Karen’s early childhood. She also told me more about her interests. She wasn’t usually a big video game player, but every now and then she found one she really enjoyed, and then binge played it. She told me about how she loved playing football and tennis.

I was more than a little sad when lunch was over and I had to go to class. My next class was Physics and so I trudged off alone back to the science block. When I got there, I leaned against the wall and checked my phone, replying to a message from both mum and dad asking how my day was going. I told them it was going “school”. Slowly more and more of my classmates began to show up, and pretty soon the small corridor was clogged with students.

Mr Brown was about as interesting as his last name. He was a forgettable man in his late thirties, with a balding head that he tried to disguise by combing his remaining hair into place. He ushered us in without speaking and I watched as everyone took their seats. I saw a seat near the back that wasn’t taken, and hurried to sit in it. When I looked to my left, I saw why the seat was empty.

The dour and depressing Zach I’d seen at the start of the day was sitting in the seat next to me. I could smell the faint odor of unwashed clothing coming from him. I turned back to the front and watched as Mr Brown began to write out a screed of notes onto the electronic whiteboard, occasionally stopping to explain a point in detail, all without turning to face the class.

Great, one of those teachers. I became bored very quickly, and started surreptitiously looking over at what my classmates were doing. The girl to my right was messing around on her phone under her desk, so that wasn’t interesting either. I turned slightly and looked over at Zach. He was scribbling on his notepad, but it wasn’t the same notes that Mr Brown was writing. I leaned over a little more to get a better look.

At the top of the page he’d written the name “Isabelle” and surrounded it with little sad cartoon plants. Further down he had written out notes for something. I looked closer and saw “Druid Build” followed by a bunch of video game skill names. It seemed he was theorycrafting a druid build, and I began to realise the game he must be playing was Pellan Rise. With that much build modularity it couldn’t be any other game. When I saw he’d written “Not available in Dailsil” next to a bunch of abilities, I decided to try and talk to him. My normal nervousness at talking to someone was mostly absent with him, since I thought he would probably be much more nervous.

“Hi, um… Zach is it?” I asked quietly.

He started and looked over at me, meeting my eyes for only a moment before they glazed slightly in pain and dropped down.

“Yeah,” he said.

“You play Pellan? What’s your character name?” I asked.

He looked over in my direction without making eye contact, staying silent for a few seconds before we oh so quietly spoke a name, “Isabelle.”

I narrowed my eyes and took him in more carefully. He didn’t care at all about his appearance, apart from his face, which was perfectly shaved. Hmm.

“You’re making a druid?” I asked softly.

“Yeah,” he said again.

“And you’re in Dialsil?” I asked.

“Yeah,” he said with a noticeably angry expression growing on his face.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t mean to make you angry. I’ll be quiet,” I said hurriedly.

“It’s not you. Just the assholes at Dialsil killing everyone. I can’t do anything because I keep dying,” he said bitterly.

“Oh? My friends and I just ran away from there. We’re running out into the wilderness to hide and get levels in peace.”

“Lucky for you. I don’t have a party,” he said sadly.

I was about to ask him if he wanted to join us out in the wilderness when I realised I couldn’t make that decision on my own. I had to ask the group.

It didn’t matter anyway, since Mr Brown grumpily told us to stop talking and concentrate. I spent the rest of the class trying to stay awake. When it finally mercifully ended, Zach had bolted out the door before I could talk to him some more.

Sighing, I made my way towards Chemistry with leaden shoes. I hoped Chem was more interesting, because I was pretty much spent by this point. How had it only been like five hours since school started? It felt like forever.

Chemistry was much more interesting than Physics, the teacher was a wild eccentric woman in a tweed suit named Ms Eviet. She looked like she was around mid thirties in age but I couldn’t tell because of her strange makeup. When I sat down in an open seat... Kegan sat down next to me.

“Hey,” He said with a smile, trying to get my attention.

“Hi,” I said quietly.

“How’s your first day going?” he asked.

“It’s okay,” I told him. After the yelling he’d given me as sam, and my new tiny stature, he really intimidated me.

He didn’t get to speak to me anymore, as Ms Eviet launched into a whirlwind class. She was emotive and expressive, sweeping her hands around and roving about the class as she lectured. She was an amazing teacher. Her vibrancy rushed through my tired and cobweb filled brain, purging it of all the boredom and replacing it with a newfound appreciation for Chemistry. I loved every moment, and on a few occasions I even put my hand up to participate in class.

When it was over, I rushed out the door before hunkomatic could pin me down in a conversation. I had less than zero interest being his new romantic target. I’d seen the way he treated girls, regardless of the fact I wasn’t attracted to him. I knew mum would be waiting to pick me up anyway, so I had an excuse for not being social.