——Jacob——

Today is Monday, and we're free which means...

"Alright guys, you gotta get up for school."

I groan and hide under my cocoon of blankets.

By the time I drag myself to the kitchen, everyone is already up. "Why do we have to go to school? Nobody knows we're even alive."

"Because education is important."

I look at Lily for support, but she shakes her head.

"Do you know how much homework we're gonna have to do?"

Her eyes go wide. "And tests...Oh god, I wasn't there, I'm gonna fail! I won't get the grades...I won't be able to pass the class, and I'll have to re-do it. But that means I don't get the extra college credits that I need. Yet again, I can't live up to my family's name."

I blink. "That got dark."

"My sister was in the top ten of her grade, and my other sister holds the record for everything in school. My father's a genius, and my mother is a scrapbooker. In my family, you get good grades or you let the entire planet down."

"A few bad grades aren't the end of the world," Sam says.

"Easy for you to say. The last time I got below a ninety on a math quiz, I broke down crying when I got home, ok? I was getting stressed out about college in seventh grade, grades matter."

"You'll be fine, you're smart," Jay says.

"I haven't been in school for four months. I could've missed the entire World War I and the World War II unit in that time!"

"Jeez, you're obsessed," Sam says. "You don't need to go to college to have a good life."

"Yes, you do. You can't get a good job easily if you don't have a degree."

"Then why have I had so many 'good jobs' before?"

"Pity. In the real world, nobody cares about that. In the real world, you either make it, or you don't. If you mess up once, everything could fall apart and then you'll be homeless."

"Ok, may I just point this out. Does it look like I'm going to have a tough time since I'm not going to college?"

"You're different. You don't have a hard time socializing and making friends. I can't talk my way into a job. Wait a minute...You're not going to college?"

"I can't. Your family has money, I don't."

She goes silent.

——

I expect everyone to freak out when I walk into the first period, but no one does.

"Ah, you've finally made it," Insane Teacher says.

"Finally?" I ask.

"I've been waiting for you to come back."

I look at her, confused.

"Anyway! Attendance."

"She's starting to creep me out," I say to Lily, who nods.

"Today, we're gonna be talking about the theory of portals," Insane Teacher says, making my heart stop.

I raise my hand. "As into different dimensions?"

"Yes! That's exactly it."

A vine cracks through the floor, grabbing onto someone's leg as they walk into class late.

"Oh, sorry. That was an accident," Kito says, a few kids around her giggling. The late guy glares at her, taking his seat.

"That's a warning Kito. Next time will be a detention."

"It was an accident!"

The late guy holds out his hand, a ball of light forming above it.

"You too Kevin, don't be late again."

He looks up at Insane Teacher quickly, the light disappearing. "Yes, sorry."

"Anyway, continuing our lesson. As we all know, people are dying, and the bodies are disappearing. The theory of portals states that a dimension can be created that is to hold these bodies."

My jaw drops open.

"Yeah, yeah, tell us something we don't know," some kid in the back calls out.

Insane Teacher ignores the comment and continues. "Now, I've done some research on this and found a myth. The myth talks about a mountain that protects the portal inside. It is said that the one who searches for the stone shall find this portal."

That's when it dawns on me. "You know the future, don't you?"

"Yes, now, as I was saying..."

Insane Teacher isn't insane at all. She just knows the future and has been trying to warn us this whole time. Knowing how you die can also make a person mad.

She's insane because she knows the future.

——Jay——

As I take my seat in first period, I silently take note of the boy pointing to me, talking to his group of friends. Flipping the worksheet on my desk to the front side, I scan through the instructions and questions, not understanding a word of it.

"Well, well, well, look who came back," the boy says, walking over. "Silent Jay."

As the boy should have expected, I ignore him, filling in the answer to number one.

"Do you know who I am?" He puts his hands on my desk, leaning forward. "I know who you really are, Alex."

I hold my pencil still, looking up at the boy.

"You see, Nico has two brothers, Rico and Pico. Pico is my father." His grin widens and I look down, knowing my eyes must've shown something. "So, you worthless thing, I could run off and tell my father where you are, or you could give the tiger to me."

"What?"

"That's right. Give the tiger to me, and I'll leave you alone to go live a free life."

My lips twitch upward and I try to fight the urge, but the thought of this guy ripped to shreds by Ty is too good. I dissolve into laughter for the first time in years.

He crosses his arms over his chest. "What's so funny?"

"I would give you the tiger, but she'd rip your face off and come right back to me. Trust me, I've tried to get her to leave me alone, but she always comes back."

"No, she wouldn't. I want to kill her."

This just makes me laugh more.

"Everyone to their seats," the teacher says, and the boy obeys, retreating to his seat. I try to wipe the smile off my face, but a clip of that boy trying to kill Ty keeps playing, making it impossible.

I know I shouldn't smile because the punishment is bad enough without emotion, but at the same time, I don't want to stop. That's certainly a bad sign because then I will definitely get punished.

——Lily——

Eighth-period math finally comes. I walk into class slowly, taking a seat in the back corner. My hair doesn't make it easy to blend in.

"Lily?" Mr. Morris says, almost dropping an armful of papers.

"How many tests did I miss? How bad is my average going to be?"

"It's really you? Oh my gosh, are you ok? What happened to you?"

"That doesn't matter. What do I have to make up?"

"Nothing, it's all on Google classroom. You of all people would've checked there, right?"

"There's no wi-fi when people randomly disappear."

"Oh...Well, you can have all the time you need to catch up."

"Finally...This is the first class where I have more than one day to catch up."

"One day? For four months? Teachers here are ruthless."

—————

The second I get back to Sam's house, I bolt to the second bedroom, shut the door, and get started on my stack of homework.

Two hours go by, and I've finished my Chem and Spanish homework, but stare at the ELA, US history, and physics left. I get started on my ELA, but quickly find it's no use.

None of it makes sense. I have no clue who on earth Fritz is, or why some guy dancing on a platform is important. I'm never going to pass, I won't get into a college. I'm going to let my family down again.

Just as I throw my pencil down in frustration, the door opens. I jump, a picture of Lavender flashes across my mind. Instead of Lavender, I find Simon at the door.

"Do you want some help?" He asks softly, my heartbeat finding it's normal tempo again.

"You're not in my grade."

"No, but I do Sam's homework. He's at work, he can't do homework."

"It's useless to cheat on homework if you're not in class. You won't understand it, make the teacher think you know it, then fail tests."

"I can explain it."

I look at my pencil.

"Why don't you want help?"

"I hate helping people with homework. That's all anyone wants from me, a free one hundred. It's not fair for me to do it when I won't help anyone else."

"But this is different," he says, smirking. "This isn't for a free one hundred, it's because you actually don't understand it."

His smirk spreads to me and I can't help but smile. "True..."

"Come on, you get to spend some time with me at the same time. Who doesn't want that?"

I roll my eyes as he grabs the ELA paper I was working on.

"Ok, so this is the Berlin Wall unit..."

"Oh, I thought it was some random wall."

He laughs. "Oh yeah, because that makes sense."

"Shut up, all it said was 'wall', how was I supposed to know?"

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SO!  This is a grammarly report of this text:

We've found 38 writing issues in your text and have also detected plagiarism.

Grammar 3 -

1 Incorrect Phrasing

1 Faulty Tense Sequence

1 Determiner Use (a/an/the/this, etc.)

Punctuation 13 -

3 Misuse of Semicolons, Quotation Marks, etc.

10 Punctuation in Compound/Complex Sentences

Spelling 1 -

1 Confused Words

Enhancement 10 -

10 Word Choice

Style 11 -

2 Unclear Reference

4 Wordy Sentences

3 Inappropriate Colloquialisms

2 Passive Voice Misuse

Sentence Structure 0

Plagiarism was detected !

I'M SOORRRRYY GRAMMARLY! I CAN'T FIX IT! *Breaks down crying* I'm not good enough, I'm sorry! I don't know what an 'Inappropriate Colloquialism' is! I'm sorry! What do you mean 'unclear reference'?!

I have to deal with this every time I publish a chapter because I like to fix my mistakes before they're public. I give up. How did I plagiarize? I wrote this from my imagination...

Vote, comment, share, fix my passive voice for me, etc.

-Mc out