Good news: not all the class gossip is about me. The stir of conversation on Friday morning evidences that much.

When I open the door to Class 63, I'm greeted to a rush of noise and Ms. Shinke writing in the corner, her head ducked. She holds a substantial pile of paperwork and has a phone presses against her head, which she's been muttering into ever since I got here.

"What's up?" I ask, trying to push my way into a cluster of people far from their seats, talking to Arthur and Brittany.

Arthur has a list of names on the table, several of which are crossed out. There are scribbles all across the sides, with such incoherent tidbits as cosmic battle for justice? and dreams? I heard dream-class. He holds the paper slightly away from me, his gaze strict as any teacher's, and says coolly, "Someone was taken last night. They haven't ruled anything yet, but... there's no way it wasn't an official abduction."

"That certain? Seems a little hard to call after one night. Don't people go outside in this town? Ever? At all?"

A dark-haired, short girl with huge rain-blue eyes folds her hands over each other. I remember her vaguely from the earlier 'introduction' as Marie, but I'm drawing a blank on what she showed us. (I'm not entirely sure of her name either, now that I mention it.) "I live in his neighborhood. I don't know how I knew, but I was up at 2 A.M. last night."

"That sounds like a coincidence to me. All of our quests are separate from each other. Even if something did happen, you'd be oblivious as anyone else in the area." Brittany says.

"Seats," croaks Ms. Shinke. "Although you'll be leaving them shortly."

Several pairs of bewildered eyes turn her way.

"I'm not receiving tax dollars for you to loiter around all morning." I take my seat between Finn and Mikayla. Ms. Shinke continues, once everyone has been seated, "Divide into groups by class, please. I'd like Portal-class on the left, Ground on the right, and if the Dream-classes want to remain where they are, that should be fine."

Mikayla sags further into her seat, giving the teacher a weary thumbs-up. Sarah spins in her desk, eyes and smile both so wide that she looks like a Cheshire Cat, and I move over to the right. The Ground-class seems about even with the Portal-class, and all save for one are girls. They're clustered around a single desk, talking beneath their breath.

"So," I say, nudging my way into the circle with an irregularly oriented smile I've been working on that doesn't show off my awful fangs. "We're going to try, right?"

"Sure." says one of the two blonde girls in the corner, looking at me dully before her eyes dart back into the circle. "So."

"Do people get taken often?" asks a girl with raven hair and two magnifying glasses disguised as prescription lens attached to her face. She has a distinct accent, which is in turn compounded in a way that falls outside any regional dialect. She smiles, then kind of stares me down, as if trying to remember something, and eventually holds out a hand. "That's the guy, right? Hoshi."

"Hoshi's the abductee?" I ask.

"No, no. I'm Hoshi." she explains. "Were you paying any attention during the orientation?"

"Not in the slightest." I laugh.

Alya, who I definitely remember, from appearance alone, dryly laughs back, like I've disappointed her. She is wearing no less than five glowsticks. She looks like she just exited a rave. Strike that-- she looks like a rave threw up on her. It contrasts with her current expression so much that it's almost comical. (Hey, it would be funny if none of this was happening to me. Please stop looking at me.) "Should've." she says. "And yeah, Hoshi, not too often, but moreso than most places. This year's been weird though. I mean... last year? I am sooo tired this morning."

"Last year?" I ask.

"Look at this." Alya gestures. "There aren't supposed to be this many of us."

"The population's going up. Proportionally, we're just as much of an anomaly as ever." I say.

"Not that. There aren't supposed to be this many of us." she says, gesturing to our group. She's not wrong-- all told, there are six Ground-classers. "Dream-class and Portal-classers are off world. Totally untraceable. But us? Everything we do on our quests affects this world, and that's dangerous. If Ground-class numbers are increasing, and from the research I've been working on as a side project, I can assure you they are... world's in trouble."

"You're doing school? Outside of school?" I say.

"What do you do with your free time?" Alya murmurs.

"You have one minute to form a strategy for who will go first." Ms. Shinke croaks, both hands on her pole. Her ominous frown and unfriendly leer suggest that this may be the last time we go anywhere. "Assuming this goes smoothly, we may do it for other subjects, but I'm required to get you through all the basic Extra orientation material before we get back to algebra."

I look to the board, which is littered with terminology. A lot of it is familiar, including the names of the three respective classes, but then most of the terminology is foreign. I suck in a breath. Given my situation, I really could have stood to study more, but expecting me to 'accomplish' anything of consequence is like expecting snow days in April. It's not impossible, but I wouldn't hold my breath.

"So?"

Alya rolls her eyes. "I'm on this. Anyone else want to go?"

A pale girl raises her hand. It's not the beanie girl, rather the girl who sits next to each other, although the latter is only distinguished by her dark hair and impressively bored expression.

The beanie girl threads her arm around the dark haired girl's. "Totally fine with me!"

"Right. I'm after... who are you again?" I say. Derrick you idiot you could have just gotten in line. They're watching me again. I reach for my shoulders, defensively, and run up against the edges of my jacket. Flip the damned lapels and I swear I will kill me.

"Derrick." Alya groans.

"It's totally fine." The beanie girl grins at me. "I'm Lilith, this is Endina. We're like, girlfriends."

"With the same last name?" asks Hoshi.

"The coven didn't give her one, so she took mine. It's like we're married. Kind of. It's not actually legal." laughs Lilith. "Dee's chill like that."

Dee blinks. "I assure you we have, like, talked extensively with the government." Her voice is unnervingly calm. She's not even smiling.

Alya surveys us like a military general. "That just leaves Hoshi... and then Owen, I guess if we all went multiple times we could probably work around you?"

Owen gives her a thumbs up.

I laugh, staring Alya down. "Wait, he's not doing anything? I don't know anything. Can I not go?"

Alya grins, one of her several glowsticks bouncing on her wrist as she rubs her hands together. "I've heard rumors about Ms. Shinke's class. Let's just say what we're about to do is enough to make Owen piss himself."

"Maybe you didn't have to take it th-that far?" Owen suggests.

Ms. Shinke hits the board with a crack of her pole that sounds more like a whip. (I have no idea how she gets this much momentum out of it.) We all look up to see her standing overhead, watching us with a dull expression. Slowly, as if decreeing all of our collective fates,

she says, "Send up your first representative."

Alya steps forwards, cracking her knuckles. Sarah smiles. Arthur, stepping forth from the Portal-classes, looks almost bored. Almost.

"It's not that hard," Ms. Shinke tells us. "You hit the correct answer. Team with the most points at the end of class wins."

"Oh no." Mikayla sighs.

"Oh yes," Alya says.

Ms. Shinke nods to Alya. "First question. What year was the first officially recognized case of Extradom recorded?"

I don't even see him move across the classroom. Arthur is at the desks one second, then he has his hand on it before the other two can get close. Alya glares at him, her hand atop his. He has at least four inches on her. Sarah is standing close to the desks with that fake smile I've seen at several family reunions-- the 'oh shit, get me out of here' expression. I think my respect for Sarah just grew a little. Minimally.

"Are you sure this is safe?" asks Owen, who is watching the board the same way one might eye a crocodile.

"No one has died or broken limbs yet," Ms. Shinke offers. "Next question?"

The next set of representatives step up. Brittany and Arthur exchange a high-five as they pass each other. They're so casual. Just looking at them makes you realize how woefully inadequate you are. Lilith dryly looks at her opponent, and Finn is arguing with Mikayla, who finally pushes him forwards. He barely budges, but he steps forwards anyways, muttering under his breath.

"What is the government organization in charge of dealing with Extras for the duration of their quests, including 'rescue' missions and tracking?"

'Department of Extranatural Phenomena' is located in the top left corner of the board, next to an array of decoy answers. Brittany steps towards it and Lilith jumps and smashes it. Alya cheers from the corner.

"What the fuck." Finn says, gesturing up to the answer a good foot over his head. I'm not sure if this is funnier considering that he's biologically ten or that he's mentally thirty.

"It's cool. No one cares," Mikayla yells.

The Portal-class and Ground-class students stare each other down.

Pitting a bunch of narcissists (a good number of which have superhuman abilities) against each other sounds like the last bad decision anyone could ever make.

"Most common animal associated with Extra activities and calls to action?"

This I know-- birds-- and it's gone in seconds. Olive strikes back, ears waving, and she shoots the class a big toothy grin. Mikayla is still at her desk, looking at me like what did you think I was going to do? By comparison to you guys, I'm sane.

"Most catastrophic event later traced back to a quest on record."

Oh, yeah, like I was paying attention to that. Marie taps the board a second before Sarah.

"Nice job, 'rie." I say.

"Maris." she responds with a light smile, shrugging her shoulders so it tosses her hair.

Two strikes aaaaand you're fucked. Alya slaps me on the back when I return to what is slowly becoming a table fortress. "You can screw up people's names later, Derrick. Head in the game now."

Needless to say, there are no surprises from Owen, and Hoshi loses her round. Alya is practically dancing for her next round, the air tense with energy, and then she somehow manages to lose  "average number of Extras taken from the local metropolitan area" to the other team. Thanks, Alya.

"Okay. Not even close to fair." Alya complains. "We have to be using different websites. I know that's correct." 

"We all know you're losing, Najma. You don't have to bitch about it." calls Arthur.

Alya slams her hands on the table closest to her.

"Five-one." Ms. Shinke says. Her folded arms and slight smirk betray decades of amusement derived solely from the torture of children.

"Wait, what about us?" asks Sarah.

"Don't hold your breath." Finn mutters.

Mikayla rolls her eyes. "Don't be like that, Finn. She's free to asphyxiate if she wants to."

"What is the area code associated with--" They're barely halfway through the next question when Lilith darts for it. Arthur almost runs into her, stopping short when he realizes she's already on top of it, and then places his hand under hers, on another number. "That would be correct. Not that I'd expect anything less from a Spienwell."

Endina hits the next one, but by then, it's on. Olive waves to me as I step up, and I try to look away from her and focus on the question.

"The total number of shifters in the exceptional class of 199x amounted to..."

Olive and I both hit numbers at random.

Ms. Shinke puts her hand to her face."Derrick, Olive, that's... do either of you remember this?"

"I was at the nurse's office?" I offer. "I don't even understand how this is relevant."

"Give him another chance. There's literally no way he could have known this." Alya says.

"I also demand a recount." Arthur adds.

Ms. Shinke nods. Olive and I stare each other down. She grins. I reach for a number and we both hit another number at random. This time, I go for a slightly more educated guess in the teens. Ms. Shinke shakes her head. "Point, ground-class. All of you are disappointing. Sit down."

I walk back, Alya nods, and Hoshi gives me two awkward thumbs-up. The dream-class remains in the back as the questions devolve into increasingly more obscure trivia. Several foul plays, close calls, and wall-ending slams later, Ms. Shinke says, "We're at thirty-thirty-three. Send up your next representatives for the final question."

"Derrick, don't fuck this up." yells Alya.

My opponent is crowbar girl, who has the crowbar in hand. I have never wanted to touch that crowbar, which still holds true, but I'm afraid I'm going to get it through my stomach in a second, here. The dream-class, which has long since given up on 'the order' and 'sending people up' (save for a comeback in the thirties), sends up Mikayla.

"Get 'em, Castelia!" cheers Brittany, which is the first time I've seen her enthusiastic about anything.

"Alright." Ms. Shinke looks down at a roll of flashcards she drew out in the fourties. "Ah. Yes. Who was the founder of the Society for Otherworld Betterment?"

Ah shit, I don't know this one. However, Castelia is also eyeing the board like she doesn't know how to read, and I look back to the others. Alya is trying to spell something out with her hands, but it's actually Arthur who gives it away. I catch his expression and suddenly, like a somewhat less painful bolt of lightning, it hits me. Castelia dips and weaves around the names, at least five of which haven't come up, and I dive for the wrong answer.

"Derrick!" yells Alya. Castelia hits the answer first, and I gingerly tap Merlin Spienwell, Arthur's grandfather.

"Point, ground-class."

The classroom erupts not in cheers but in more heated arguing. Lilith hugs me and Owen, who is under a desk, waves. Alya yells, "What were you doing?"

"My superpower is being needlessly overdramatic." I tell her. At the same time, the bell rings for lunch.

I sit between the ground- and portal- classers and the dream-classers at lunch, sandwiched into a discussion that's more about me than including me, which is the worst. For once, though, I guess I don't care. It gives me more time to smile awkwardly and bite my tongue until it bleeds.  (Oh boy.) About halfway through lunch, Mikayla taps my shoulder to get my attention, and I swivel on my chair.

"We're having a dreamers-class party in the park on Monday, if you want to come."

"You talked with Sarah?" I ask through a mouthful of deli meat. (O ham, my one true ally in the face of this madness. Ham and a dead girl. You would have loved all this. I'm taking up half a chair right now, thinking of you sitting there, holding small talk with the others.)

"We didn't talk to Sarah. We will not be talking to Sarah." Finn clarifies. "It's also not a party. It's a 'let's investigate the area around the place where the kid was taken the other day' get together."

"You guys know that no one's ever gotten back, right? No one. Ever." I say. "I don't know what you're trying here."

"Trying to stay sane." Finn says. "You're free to do dumb teen things, but remember what's really going on here."

My conversation with the other Ground-classers from earlier rings through my mind, and I find myself nodding and passing Mikayla my phone. "Put in your number, and then send me the address. I'll be there."

It sticks with me through the rest of the day, past mindless chatter (I think you can already figure out that we didn't do anything else productive that day) and Ms. Shinke's long list of school supplies I can't ask my parents for, because that would require my parents to talk to me, which they'd rather face a wild bear than do anyways. I'm almost relieved when we get out, just because the classroom is getting claustrophobic (it sets in by the end of the day no matter what I do) and I get some pats on the way out. I find myself even, dare I say, smiling on the way to the car, but as I do, I catch something on the very edge of school grounds, flickering on the edge of my vision. I turn to see a deer chewing the cud, its big eyes soft and naive. It almost disguises the sinister intent of the creature itself.

Great. You're back again.

A need to get out of here claws its way through the adrenaline, ever intensifying as I hold the creature's gaze. It lifts its own head to mine, imploringly, and looks skywards.

As usual, we're thinking about the same thing--the roads we've left behind, and the roads we've failed to go down.