I see you again after the first snow of the year: you're by the window, curled up and floating above the ground. The moonlight pales your face even further, so that you step right out of my past onto the cold, desolate ground of the present, with all its whorled wood flooring and tucked-away sheets of shredded paper.

"You're here," you say, tracing crossed eyes in the windows. Your face is turned far from me as possible. Your hand shakes like your voice, so delicately I could be imagining it. "Of course. Usually it happens around now."
"What are you doing?" I ask, creeping towards where the light falls from the moon onto the floor.

"Waiting for the deer," you say. "You know..."

"They should have taken me," we say, at almost the same time.

"That was my thing. Are you really Amy?" I ask. "If you're an apparition sent here to torture me, you're doing a great job."

"Are you really Derrick?" you echo. "You don't even look like him. The Derrick I know had his whole face broken by mutation. I have nightmares about you dying on the floor of that facility every night," You pull your legs closer to you. They're thin, as I remember them, but there's an extra layer of muscle that an emaciated lab subject wouldn't have the luxury of. "I don't know why the world would try to bring us together again when I was just getting over you."

"You don't have to," I say.

You finally turn from the window, looking me right in the eyes. "What, think about you or get over you?"
I bite my tongue.

"Focus. Do you know someone named Finch?" you ask. "I've been working on how to see you again. I've had help. Do you think you can get one of these?" You raise your hand, but there's nothing in it. The area where your hand should be is a small crevasse in reality.

"Thanks, that's, uh... I can't see that at all," I tell you. I'm still reeling from the sheer insanity of the situation, so much that it casts this facade of calm upon the entire situation. It's alright. Probably dreaming. Never mind that my sleep is nothing but forests I don't know and people I've never seen with their faces washed out.

You nod starkly. "You're looking for Glimpe's Eye. It's stone around the edge, soft in the center, large black line through the center. I don't know why I'm bothering describing it. Finch should know what it is. It looks like an eye." There's some old humor to your voice-- it's the first time you've sounded entirely human since we started talking. You make this incredulous hand gesture, like you can't believe you have to explain anything at all. "Sorry."

"Me too," I say.

"It won't last long. I have no idea when it'll give out," she says. "I spend all this time thinking about what I'd say when it happens, but then, whenever it does, I'm a complete tool."

"I'm always a complete tool, independent of circumstance," I explain, with a slight laugh.

You laugh too, but it sounds a little broken. When you cough, it breaks my heart.

"Please tell me the coughing thing isn't-- you're okay, right? Really, really okay. This isn't an Amy ghost or some kind of nervous breakdown and you're not going to choke in front of me, because I'll--"

"I choked?" you ask. Your voice is like a thin line of light, a sunbeam through the trees, a candle. It's waiting to be snuffed out.

"Yeah."

You turn back again, putting a hand to your mouth, and the moonlight hits the edge of my foot. At the same moment, you fade out like streetlights passing through a window in my house, blaring into being before receding gently out of existence. It leaves me completely, desolately empty, and I feel a deep hunger settle in my gut.

Okay. You'll hate me for admitting this. I hate me for admitting this. My first thought is, I need to tell Mikayla about this.

Like it's any of her business.

The next morning, everything is eerily normal, with Maris in the front talking with the other Ground-classes, the popular Portal-classes nudged into the middle rows, and then Sarah blabbing to Finn, who is tuning her out. He doesn't look at me when I pass him, which is great, because I love getting ignored by people after we have a heart-to-heart, and Mikayla looks dead tired.

"Renard!" I turn around to see Arthur in the front. "Brought the field trip slip?"

"Uh, yeah," I say, dragging it out of my backpack. I hold it out and he snatches it from me, tapping it against the table like he's going to throw all the files together. "We wouldn't want you to miss out. You might see some friends of yours."

"Oh, ha ha. That's very funny," I say, flashing him some finger guns. "You're a very funny man."

Arthur gives me what I want to believe is a well-meaning "huh" before going back to slinging his arm around Brittany, who let me tell you, looks just thrilled about that. I sit down next to Mikayla, who is gently drumming her hands against the table.

"You know what's funny," she says, "It's funny that we're sitting here, pretending everything is normal, when there was another abduction last night."
"Portal-class?" I ask.

"No, actually, the sources I can find on it say 'ground'. Not like there are many sites that track every Extra incidence, there are laws against that, but I keep up to date where I can."

"Not the only weird thing that happened last night. I saw Amy again." I say this half to myself, but I find myself eyeing her the whole time. Please interrogate me. Do your worst.

"You're sure it's not a dream or some early form of trauma-induced mental illness?" Mikayla asks.

I don't know what I expected. "You know, if I'm going to go along with your bullshit, the least you can do is believe me when I have something going on in my life."

"I'm going along with it. I just followed it to the most logical conclusion--"

"This is coming from Ms. Government Conspiracy over here," I say. "You are so incredibly selfish."

"You're an asshole," she snipes back.

"I'm going to be on the other side of the classroom," I tell her, flipping my lapels. It's been a while, so this is a rare return to form for me, and she seems to notice, judging by the way her lip draws up when I do it. In fact, I can see half of my fellow Ground-classes watching, looking somewhat amused, which is just great.

"Were you two, like, having domestic issues?" asks Lilith when I sit down next to her. Ms. Shinke strides in front of the class, which is usually my cue to fall asleep, but I might as well pretend to look occupied with something.

"Uh, like, no, she's just a huge bitch," I say, rolling my eyes so hard they're going to make it through the stratosphere. "It's Mikayla."

"We're going to be watching educational videos today... I want everyone to document their thoughts on these, paying special notice to what is and isn't included about Extras. I figured this would be an excellent exercise for all of you as part of your rehabilitation into society, as everyone's watched these in grade school. How have your perceptions changed? How have you changed? Do these videos serve as educational material?" Ms. Shinke says, and a swarm of hands go up.

"I've got some news for you guys. The answer is no," Alya says, sounding, as always, far too enthused about this.

"I'm not going to have organized slander of my family take place right under my nose, Ms. Shinke," Arthur says.

"Students, please keep your journals to yourself. We will do reflection as a group shortly." Ms. Shinke says, grimly, as she slips what must be a thirty-year old VHS tape into the archaic television set that usually sits in the back, ominously watching over us as it awaits its own impending death.

Endine continues, "We've been hanging out with Mikayla a lot, actually. She's pretty cool when she wants to be, but, she's got all these crazy hang ups."

Lilith looks to Mikayla, her painted lips tainted by candy-red malice, and then leans in to say, "Like, like, her man."

My mouth drops. "Her what?"

"She had a guy in the otherworld. Apparently, he was a total stud, but whenever she talks about him she twirls her finger through her hair and gets super frustrated. It's really cute, but I bet he's a total tool. I think she goes for that." Lilith looks up at me. "Bet that's why she thinks you're cute."

"Great, I'm not interested," I say, and both of them look appalled. I follow up, "What?"

"Keep your voice down," Lilith says. Mikayla is fixing me with a dead glare, and I notice Maris and a few of the Ground-class kids are watching me. I sink into 'my' desk. "Don't worry, no one heard us, so they've got no idea what we're talking about."

"Excuse me, in the back. Do I need to break up the gossip section or can you handle yourselves like adults and watch the movie?"

"If we could handle ourselves like adults, we wouldn't be here," I mutter, but Endine and Lilith both comply, if resentfully. In front of us, the movie rolls on, the flickering images giving evidence to the outrageous age of the footage we're watching.

"Living With Extras: Volume Five," drones the tape. I've watched these too many times to care. I file my nails down with my other nails, feigning interest. "The Origins of Extras."

Ms. Shinke's face flashes an ominous blue in the light of the tape.

"Ever since the first abduction of a human child, Arthur Spienwell, the First," (The whole class breaks out into something between heckling and applause here, and I see Arthur's face twitch with the sheer pain of being forced to associate with peasants.) "Extras have become a normal part of our lives. Where do these events come from? Why do they occur? No one is entirely sure, however, there are some correlations between certain behaviors and Extradom."

This lapses into the same few heckling warnings and reminders that we're already familiar with. Everyone in the room is still as death, save for Mikayla, who is furiously scribbling away on her scrap paper. I think Olive is doodling in the corner. She looks up and gives me a big grin, waving furiously, and I avert my gaze back to the screen.

"Guardian or guide animals are a common sign of Extradom. While you or your loved ones may be attempted to interact with these animals, they are as deadly as they are intelligent..." A deer stares at me from the screen, and I can feel its breath on my face. Hah. Nope.

Finch is ruffling through their wares, which gives me a chance to make a quick transaction. I slide over, brandishing the twenty dollars of allowance that I received before the money started drying up, and ask, "What do you know about Glimpe's Eye?"

Finch breaks out into a grin, revealing their massive buckteeth. "Only ever found one. It doesn't do anything, except maybe, if you want it, make me money."

I grimace. "Ten enough?"
"Twenty."

"Sure."

They slip me a stone under the table and I slip the money over it. An eye not unlike that of a cat's stares back at me, opalescent even in the failing light of the room. The VHS tape seems to be stuck, repeating over and over, "While little is known--" in that same cheerful voice, slowly succumbing to garbled static.

Ms. Shinke clicks the tape out.

Lunch ensues. Mikayla stirs her soup, boredly, and I listen to the Portal- and Ground- class kids mock the announcer's voice. I eat my bread, because we ran out of ham three days ago and I'd rather stick my hands in a wood shredder than ask for more. Finn has his Game Boy out on the table.

"Really?" I ask.

Finn nods. "I am emotionally numb right now."

Thanks. Great chat.

My superior ears twitch as I hear Maris's fingers drumming on the table.

"Have you... been okay?" I ask, her in the corners of my forwards-set eyes.

She recoils slightly, not as if she's been in pain, but as if she's been waiting for someone to ask, practicing the response. It's too soft to be natural. "Oh! Of course. Why wouldn't I be?"

I gesture towards the gloves, awkwardly.

She smiles. "I'm not a threat anymore."

"Red slip?" I ask. "Formerly."

"My parents wouldn't have stood for that."

"Lucky you," I say.

"You'd think," she says. She holds up her own sandwich, uneaten. "I respect yours for giving you space to be yourself. Doesn't seem like you get reeled in much."

Understatement of the century.

When we enter class again, Ms. Shinke waits for us to settle in. She doesn't even ask for comments before Alya raises her hand. Brittany follows, and Mikayla folds her arms, a filled sheet of paper before her. Ms. Shinke watches the group and croaks, "Relics."

I clench the stone you wanted in my hand.

"Would anyone like to discuss the material in the tape?"

Mikayla stands. "What were we supposed to take from this?"

Ms. Shinke raises an eyebrow.

"No one on those tapes knows anything about Extra origins whatsoever, and almost all the information is about things you can do to 'prevent' or 'cause' an abduction, but none of it discusses root causes. It's a few steps above superstition, at best. Are you seriously telling me that if I let some fox out of a trap or stop to pick up pennies on the way home while the sun is setting, I'm going to be transported to a different dimension?" Mikayla asks. "You know we all know this. You know there's no useful information on there at all."

"They're introductory tapes," Arthur says. "No one here's trying to get a master in the paranatural field. Anyways, what's on there is how much the world at large knows. Nothing's changed in the last thirty years since they were made. There's no pattern to make a breakthrough from. Things happen according to some higher plan and we live out the consequences."

"That's not true." Mikayla says. "There is a logic to it."

"Would you like to tell us what you've figured out, then?" Arthur asks.

"Just because we don't understand something doesn't mean we can't understand it," she says. "I don't need to know all the answers now to suggest that we should be looking for them."

"Yeah, science!" Alya cheers from the back. "Anyways, the correlation constants for what does and doesn't cause things might be random, but location isn't. There's been a slow convergence for years on certain locations. There was an abduction last night, wasn't there? We already have half of our class for next year, even assuming no one else shows up, just from the area."

"What about post-abduction anomalies?" I ask. "Or treatment for those of us who've been out on trips like this. Even if we don't understand the science behind disappearances, we understand our own brains. There has to be some way to help people, right?" Maybe I just need some good psychoactives. I'm not saying I'll ask for them, but let's just say if someone offered them, I might take them.

The class breaks out into a new, dissonant chorus of excited arguments as the class begins debating personal knowledge, questions, all of them a resounding chorus of excitement that slowly, surely, begins to fall downwards.

"But if they don't know what causes it--"

"--and we don't know how to move forwards after it--"

"There has to be some reason behind all of this, doesn't there?"

"What if there's no reason?"

"Then why us?"

I hear their conversation as pounding noises, the kind no sane animal would think to tell apart. We are looking at her with hungry eyes, asking for answers she doesn't have, that Arthur doesn't have, that no one does. Olive clings to the edge of her desk. Finch chews something that vaguely resembles pocky in the back row. Mikayla folds her hands together, and I can see the dissertation burning in her mind.

"I won't tolerate a riot in this classroom. No one's hiding anything, no one's pointing fingers anywhere," Arthur says sternly as a teacher might. "All of you. Chill out."

Castelia rises, crowbar in hand. "Like you'd tell us if something were afoot."

"No one needs to get hurt," says Maris, gesturing for all of us to sit down with the gloves squeezing her flesh red.

"And you're one to talk, too," Castelia snipes.

Maris's gold eyes flash with pain.

"Now that you've been neutered. They'd do the same to any of us if we so much as raised our voices the wrong way," Castelia runs her hand down the crowbar. Ms. Shinke is watching it as if regretting never taking it... okay, so I'm almost definite Castelia must have ten at the least. "Isn't that right?"

Ms. Shinke begins, "When I was in my second year of school following my quest, there was an armed insurrection of students." The classroom is still as death. "It accomplished nothing."

The bell rings in response. It takes a while for some of us to get out of our seats, but we leave in clumps, with the usual Dream-class suspects and Derrick bringing up the rear. Arthur's talking loudly at the front, though his voice is hoarse with alarm, and Maris has her arms folded across. Castelia turns from the tide of exiting students and walks back to Ms. Shinke, the two of them nodding in a kind of understanding.

My heart twists a little, but as sad as I am to admit it, I'm not thinking about them at all. It's hard not to think of myself as something that needs to be constrained. It's hard to even feel I've been slighted when I've internalized it so far into my identity. I feel furry ears brush mine in the hall and swing around, hands out in what could almost be a battle position if it weren't so stupid, and see Olive, wide-eyed and gaping.

"I liked what you said about helping people," she says, "earlier. I don't do much over vacations. Do you think you'd want to hang out sometime? We could make cookies at my house. I have a whole bunch of cookie cutters that look like foxes."

I imagine a house full of Zoobooks and cut out pictures of wolves from the internet, and various more niche things I've just figured are Olive's by birthright. Immediately I feel myself cringe, and the stone's hot in my hand. I need to take this call. (Ha ha.)

"Think I'm good," My voice comes out as a half-strained bark.

Olive nods violently, like I've just given her a yes. "Well... see you after break, then!"
"Looking forwards to it!" I yell after her.

I look down at the stone in my hand. As if any of this matters. As if anything else could matter when I've got work to do.