When Kenny walked into her sixth-period classroom, there was an unfamiliar woman sitting at Mrs. Page's desk. The young girl nearly jumped when she saw her, as she had not realized how comfortable she'd gotten with her therapist until someone else took her place. She stood by the door, fidgeting with her ID card until the woman finally noticed Kendall had arrived.

The woman owned fair hair and light eyes that reminded Kenny of Gene's in their color. However, while Gene's calculating expression made him always seem cold and unfeeling, the woman's own facial details caused her to appear gentle and tired. She was similar to Miss Kaylee in this way.

"Hello!" the woman called from her desk. "I'm sorry, but Mrs. Page has fallen ill. I would have you stay here with me for the time being, but I have to go to the Main Office. You usually meet with her during my planning and prep period, which is why I'm not here when you two are together."

Kenny stood silently in the doorway, thinking. She pulled out her cards and found one that read, I'm going to the library. She showed it to the woman, who nodded and smiled at the young girl.

"Alrighty then! I'm sure you've been there before if you know where it is. Most students don't acknowledge our library, so Miss Gavin will be pleased to have you. In fact, I'll walk you there so you don't manage to get yourself into any trouble."

The woman laughed, and Kenny tried not to flinch as she thought about all of the trouble she had gotten into already.

The woman (whose name the young girl still did not know) fetched a file similar to the ones that sat like rocks in Kenny's backpack and closed the door to her room. Kenny then led her to the library, for it seemed that the teacher did not know where she was going. Like the students she spoke of earlier, she knew the library was there, but she didn't acknowledge it. Not even the librarian herself fully appreciated the room, as when Kenny stepped into the media center, Miss Gavin was gone. The young girl turned back around to find that the woman who had walked her there was gone as well.

Which meant Kenny would be alone for the next fifty minutes.

Kenny was used to being by herself; she had always preferred it to being flocked by people like she constantly was at AGC. However, being alone gave the young girl time to do the one thing she didn't want to do: think. She set her backpack down and wandered aimlessly around the library, thinking.

First, her thoughts fell on her family members. She remembered how they would always spend time with her and tried to push away the grief that came with these memories. In order to keep herself from becoming too miserable, she quickly began to think about Fins and Tellie. She had watched the other F groupers throughout the day and noted that their serene demeanors fell and they began to act normal again approximately two hours after waking up. She had also noticed that today, both the F groupers and the E groupers were acting oddly.

That worried her. Was there an illness that was spreading? Was that why Mrs. Page was absent? Had she gotten sick? Had she infected Kenny? Could Kenny unknowingly have the illness?

The young girl decided it was time to stop thinking and turn her attention to something else.

Kenny walked back to the place she had set her backpack. She knew she could return the files now, and no one would notice that she had gone. However, a feeling overtook Kenny, the worst of all feelings that brings nothing but more trouble than needed— curiosity.

And because Kenny was feeling so curious, she opened her backpack and brought out the files.

Anxiously, the young girl sat down and pushed the sides of the folders until the files were aligned in one stack. She took a nervous breath, telling herself that she would only take a quick peek at the contents of the manila folders before returning them. When she finally felt she was ready enough (for she could never be fully prepared), she opened the file on top of the stack.

Kenny was shocked to find that the words were absolute gibberish.

Symbols, letters, and numbers were strewn across the page in crude combinations. None of the phrases made any sense. Kenny looked through all of the other files and found the exact same thing. The only items that weren't written in this balderdash were several electroencephalography or EEG scan results, but the titles of the graphs were indecipherable. Frowning, the young girl closed the folders and dropped them back into her backpack. One of the files fell on something inside of the bag, almost causing it to fall out of the pouch. Kenny caught it just in time and reached into her backpack to pull out the hidden obstacle.

Kenny produced a dark, leather journal from her backpack. She set the book down in front of her, observing it cautiously. The diary wasn't hers, which meant it had been in Miss Kaylee's backpack. She remembered briefly glancing at the book while she was putting the contents of the stolen bag into her own, but she hadn't known it was a diary. Kenny opened it to assess the handwriting, and the young girl immediately knew the book was not Miss Kaylee's. The letters and spacing were too large, and the words leaned too far to the left.

Kenny closed the journal, her curiosity wavering. She didn't want to end up reading about one of her friend's romantic attractions and daily events. After contemplating whether she should put the book back, she decided she would look at nothing more than the very first page. She opened the book and began to read:

Day 1

What am I doing? This is stupid, writing in a journal. I'm only doing this for my mom because my mom said that keeping a diary (a diary! Not even a journal) helps. But when I asked her what it helps with, she just told me to go and have fun at my Gifted Party.

My Gifted Party sucked. When my future self looks back on that party, I'm sure he'll cringe as hard (if not harder) as I do now. It was just to celebrate the fact that Connor's dad finally found my 0.01-millimeter long Z-area after sixteen years of my family thinking that I was never going to be Gifted like my sister. And my mom. And my dad. The list goes on.

Anyways, all people did at my Gifted Party was congratulate me. They said things like, "Oh wow, Jacob, you can finally go to the Academy for Gifted Children," and, "Look at you! We didn't know you were Gifted this whole time." It felt a little odd, though, because most Gifted Parties are for two-year-olds who have displayed Gifts like levitation or telepathy. Not sixteen-year-old boys who only now figured out that their ability to never get hurt despite being clumsy enough to almost fall off of a skyscraper might actually be a Gift.

But now I'm here at the esteemed Academy for Gifted Children. This place is pretty cool so far.

Kenny turned the page and continued reading, her promise to read the first page only already forgotten. As she read farther, she picked up the writer's AGC nickname (Crash) and a possible love interest whose name came up quite often (a girl named Reader). The young girl began to notice similarities in her and Crash's observations:

Day 11-ish

I met some nice people. You know that; I already told you that. But they act weird sometimes. They get all giggly and confused when I ask them questions about what they were doing the night before. They seem like they're pretending to be ignorant of their actions. It kinda freaks me out. I don't know if I should tell a teacher or something, but.... Maybe I'm just overreacting. Maybe nothing's wrong with them. On the other hand, maybe they're mass murderers and are coming for me while I sleep. I don't know. I'm tired. I shouldn't be awake right now, but I can't sleep. I keep thinking about Reader instead.

Day 12

Reader's acting weird, too. She called me Crash earlier today instead of Clumsy McFallsalot. That's not like her. I think she's done something. Or maybe something's been done to her. Perhaps she's been cloned. Or maybe I just need to stop writing entries when I'm tired.

Then, a few entries later, a short, confusing passage came up:

Day 16

I've seen it. I've seen the Nursery.

After reading Day 16's jotting, Kenny paused to look up at the clock. She still had almost twenty minutes before she had to get to Mr. Kingsworth's class. The young girl looked back down to the journal when she realized there was a black speck on the page she was reading. At first, she thought it was a pen mark. However, once it grew bigger, Kenny understood that the Darkness had come for her again. She stood from her chair in protest, her body freezing as her vision darkened. The last thought she had before the Darkness took away her ability to think was that she should probably go to the Clinic.

The Darkness washed over Kenny like waves. She would feel calm one moment, as if the black despair was finally receding, and then the panic would come back worse than before. She wanted to scream for help, but every time she opened her mouth, the inky black would fill her mouth and prevent her from speaking. She felt as though she had been Blacked Out for an eternity, that she would never see light again, when the Darkness finally fled.

Once the dizziness too had stopped, Kenny realized she was shaking uncontrollably. She also noticed that she was in her social studies class, and Clay was speaking to her as though nothing had happened. The young girl looked down at her desk to see a half-colored cut out of the American flag. She set the red crayon in her hand down and sat on her trembling hands.

Clay turned to face Kenny. "—And then Color told me that we'd won the game! And I hadn't realized it! Isn't that funny?" The boy noticed his friend was sitting on her hands and frowned. "Are you alright, Hawking?"

Kenny didn't want to reply, but she realized that Mr. Kingsworth was looking at her, too. She nodded and averted her gaze away from Clay and back down to (what she presumed was) her paper.

Several minutes later, after the young girl's shaking had calmed down enough for her to finish coloring the cutout, the bell rang. Kenny quickly packed up her things and checked her backpack for the journal. The dark book was still there, but she didn't want to look at it. Its black cover reminded her of the Darkness.

Kenny decided she would spend the rest of her Friday looking up blackouts and the Darkness at the library. She made her way back into the quiet room, where she found Miss Gavin reading by her desk. The young girl took out her cards and asked the woman if there were any medical journals and books in the library. If she couldn't find anything on the internet, she would check the few textbooks the librarian said they owned.

Even if it took her until her curfew, Kenny was going to figure out what was wrong with her.

****

It didn't take until her curfew. It took all night.

Kenny was still at the library, researching the Darkness, by the time midnight came around. She had found nothing on the internet that matched her symptoms and went through at least half of the medical section in the library, searching for even the shortest passage about erratic blackouts. She didn't realize how late it was until she looked up from the medical journal in her hand and checked the clock. The young girl stared at the hour hand in disbelief. It couldn't possibly be twelve o'clock!

The minute hand jerked sideways. Now it was 12:01.

Kenny practically threw the books back onto the shelves. She kept the few ones she had checked out before Miss Gavin left the library (when was that? During dinner? Had she left without informing Kenny?) and grabbed her backpack before leaving the room. The young girl speed walked down the hallway and began to make her way to the west corridor which was the closest part of the school building to the Girls' Dorms.

Kenny was almost at the door when she noticed that there was a pencil on the floor. She quickly went to pick the writing utensil up, as she didn't mind another pencil, when she heard voices coming from the room next to her. She froze and looked around nervously, unconscious of the fact that the Curfew Patrol only worked in the Dorm rooms. The young girl wanted to sprint to her dorm room, but the dangerous feelings of curiosity were back. Instead, she scooted towards the room to figure out who was speaking.

Perhaps this is where Fins went last night, Kenny surmised. But why would he be in the school building at midnight? She tried to catch some of the words being spoken in the room beside her.

"...I don't like Fridays for that reason," a voice said. "I love the nursery."

"Well we do have to take breaks," someone else responded. "We can't stay there every night. And the children need breaks, too."

Kenny's brows furrowed. The nursery? Was that where her friends were going at nighttime?

"That new child you brought— what was her name? Kayla? I can't remember, but you managed to bring her just after she could enter the nursery. Barely a few hours, in fact."

The other person sighed. "Yes, I know. We'll have to wait a whole week before she can come in and start the tests."

The conversation began to stray to other topics, and after a few more minutes of listening, Kenny rose from her spot on the floor. She pivoted on her heels in order to sneak quietly back to her dorm. Unfortunately, the pencil she had stopped to retrieve slipped from her back pocket. The young girl watched it clatter to the ground, echoing through the empty halls. The voices in the room beside her went silent, and Kenny froze.

"Did you hear that?" one asked. The young girl scrambled to swipe the pencil up from the floor, but as she bent down, the contents of her backpack spilled out. The files and diary she had stolen (among Kenny's personal belongings) were sprawled out in front of the door.

"Yes, I believe I did," the other voice replied, nearing the doorway.

Kenny could tell that whoever was inside would be outside in a few seconds, ultimately catching her. In an instant, the young girl shoved everything into her backpack as quickly as it had fallen out. She pivoted for the second time, this time running as fast as her small legs could go. Kenny didn't care if her shoes squeaked against the tile; she just needed to escape.

As she hurried to her dorm room, Kenny realized that the 'Nursery' Crash had mentioned in his book, and the nursery the two voices were talking about could be the same entity. She would have to read the journal to find out.