“The world stopped.” 

That’s what everyone at school was yelling about. Apparently, just as the last period was ending, a girl saw a friend post about it and rumor hell opened up. 

Judging from what Ocean had heard, supposedly only a portion of the world had stopped, a portion of downtown Portland to be exact.

“Seriously,” Ocean said. He moved his chair so that he sat on the opposite side of Celeste’s desk in the back corner of the classroom. He knew she didn’t like it when he did it, but he pretended not to notice. “Everyone's saying that all these people just stopped moving.”

“No way,” Celeste sat at her desk, wearing her usual annoyed expression. “Sounds like garbage to me.”

He leaned back in his chair, which he had turned around to face her. He didn’t even attempt to mask his disappointment. “I knew I should have told Ruby instead. I can never get a good reaction out of you.”

“You don’t really believe this, do you?”

“Of course I do,” Ocean smiled, looking at Celeste intently. From the moment he met her, he had always enjoyed making her angry. Now, he was looking for some small sign of success. A twitch of her eye, a slight frown, or a fluctuation in the color of her skin. If something changed, he would notice it.

“Stop that, will you? April Fools is so stupid,” Celeste turned her head, looking over at the mass of students who were gossiping about it at the center of the room.

“They say even cars stopped!” one student said.

“I saw a picture of birds stuck in midair!” said another.

“Idiots,” Celeste turned back to Ocean, staring at him blankly. “Everything stops when you take a picture of it.”

“Probably a flash mob,” Ocean laughed bitterly. By diverting the topic of conversation to what others were saying, she could flat out ignore his attempts at getting a rise out of her. “They must have freaked out everyone by stopping at the same time.”

“Ocean! Celeste!” Ruby yelled as she ran through the classroom door. “Did you hear the news? Everyone just stopped moving!”

Ocean perked back up. “I know! So weird, right?” Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Celeste narrow her eyes. There was more than one way to play around with her.

“I heard that people that walked near them stopped moving too! It lasted for a whole 8 minutes!” Ruby spoke quickly, her face flushed red to where it matched the color of the hair band she wore.

Ruby always seemed to have red on her. She must have been destined for her name or something. Or maybe he just noticed red on her because of her name. He supposed a lot of people turned red in the face and wore red hair bands, and their names probably had nothing to do with the color red.

“8 whole minutes?” Ocean said, feigning concern. “I wonder what kind of aftereffects there might be. Maybe those affected will never experience time like we do again, or maybe they’ll develop some kind of disease.”

Ruby gasped. “Aftereffects?”

“Yeah, I heard it was a secret government test gone wrong.”

“A government test?” Ruby looked like a deer in the headlights, her skin turning from red to pale.

“He’s lying, Ruby,” Celeste said dismissively. "You know how Ocean is."

“No, I'm serious,” Ocean said. Now the battle with Celeste would begin anew.

“Don’t pick on her,” Celeste crossed her arms. “Let’s stop talking about this already.”

“I’m serious though,” Ocean said.

Celeste’s glare didn’t break. “Enough.”

Damn, she totally shut him down. He knew he teased her a lot, but he had hoped she would have gone along with it a little this time.

“Okay,” Ruby said. She gave up on it much faster than he had expected her to. A complete failure on his side.

His mistake most likely lied within the government comment. Ever since it had come to light that the government collected data on people through their computers and cell phones, a distrust of them had taken hold of the nation. Even after the ‘Right to Internet Privacy Act’ passed, those attitudes hadn’t changed. Things got even worse after the disaster in California. “Alright,” he said.

“Whoa, listen to this,” a girl from the middle of the room suddenly yelled. “News stations are saying that a ton of money disappeared from a bank after everything stopped.”

“Now things are getting interesting,” Ocean laughed.

“Someone got murdered, too! It says it was a high school student!” the girl announced.

“Seriously? What school?” a boy yelled.

“No idea,” she said. “The article doesn’t say anything,” With this, the group erupted into a cacophony, everyone pulling out their phones in unison. “Send everyone you know a message to make sure they’re okay!”

“What a morbid sense of humor,” Ocean turned to Celeste and Ruby. “And who robs a bank in this day and age anyway?”

Ruby and Celeste exchanged a worried look.

Ocean knew they were worried about Cory. After all, he hadn’t been at school that day. He took his phone from his pocket, touching his thumb to the screen. A myriad of icons materialized, one of which featured a face of a clock with red hands. He pressed it, and the display turned blue, displaying a message.

CLOCK LINK

Time for Friends

Somehow, Cory had roped him into joining. He wanted to resist, but with virtually everyone in the school using it, he didn’t really have a choice anymore. The screen changed to a calendar, covered with messages. From here, he selected “friends” at the bottom of the screen.

He was still fairly new, but strangers were already trying to add him to their contact list. Half of the requests were from people using strange names. What kind of guy names himself ‘HistoryGirls99’?

Unsurprisingly, the friend request he had sent to his brother remained unanswered. If North were here, he would probably be genuinely excited about the news like his classmates were.

When North talked about something crazy like this, a smile would paint itself on his face, and brightness would emerge in his eyes. To this day, Ocean had never met someone who dreamed as big as his brother did. Somehow, it had already been three years since his disappearance.

Ocean snapped back to his senses. Now wasn’t the time or place for him to be thinking about this. He clicked on Cory’s name, and typed out a message.

Ocean Shields: “Hey, are you okay?”

Cory Moretti: “Yeah.”

Ocean looked up from his phone. “He’s alright.”

They breathed a sigh of relief, but the heavy atmosphere around them didn’t get any lighter. Ocean turned back to his phone.

Ocean Shields:  “Good. Not sure if it’s a joke or not, but everyone here at school is saying a student was killed today. No idea what school, though.”

Cory Moretti: “Ruby and Celeste are okay?”

Ocean Shields: “Yeah, they’re right here with me.”

Cory Moretti: “Thank god.”

“Do you really think someone was… killed?” Ruby asked.

Ocean found himself looking across the desk. It felt like his mind had been put through a wash cycle. For some reason, he was looking for Celeste to respond. Celeste sat with both her arms and legs crossed, her brow wrinkled. He realized that she was expecting the same from him. He wondered what kind of expression he had on his face.

He turned back to Ruby and tried to smile. “I doubt it,” he said. “As sick as it is, it is  April Fools Day, remember?”

Ruby seemed to brighten up a little. “That’s true.”

Ocean glanced back over to Celeste. Her glare grew in intensity. It seemed that what he had said had angered her. On any other day, he would feel satisfaction in that. Right now, he felt empty.

Ruby and Celeste would be picked up, so he didn’t have to worry about them walking home. He parted ways with them and made his way out of the classroom to the hallway. Glancing out the window, the overcast sky was in full view. It was almost already 3:30, a full half an hour since school had ended, but the majority of students were still on campus.

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Ahead, he could see a girl coming toward him on the opposite side of the hallway. She wore glasses, and her shoulder length hair swayed back along with her skirt as she walked.

“Hi Fae,” Ocean choked out. He had intended to sound much cooler.

Fae’s shoulders jolted when he said her name, and her eyes seemed to convey that she had been in deep thought. “Oh, hello.”

Ocean entertained the idea that she had actually noticed him from far away, but had been too embarrassed to say anything. With the weather the way it was, it might rain on his way home. If he asked her to walk with him, they would have to share an umbrella. It was like something out of a high school romance. Well, it would be if he had been carrying an umbrella, anyway. It was almost Oregon pride not to.

Suddenly, Ocean realized that had been standing in front of Fae silently the entire time he had been playing out the fantasy in his mind. He had to say something or he was going to come across like a total freak.

“Are you leaving?” he asked. “You heard about what happened right? It’s probably a good idea not to walk home alone.”

“I’m actually not feeling very well,” Fae said, placing her hand on her stomach. “I’m on my way to see the school nurse.”

“Oh, okay,” Ocean said. “Hope you feel better.” Really? Was that the best he could come up with at a time like this? That’s about the lamest thing he could think of to say.

“Thanks,” Fae passed him by, continuing down the hallway.

Stupid. Fae was never going to notice him like this. He would never be able to tell her how he felt. As he left, he purposely avoided other groups of students. It felt like people would see his embarrassment like it was written on his face. He left the school grounds and made his way toward home.

Looking up at the clouds, his mind drifted back to what he had heard at school. He doubted that an April Fools joke would go as far as to pretend that someone was killed, so he had to wonder if something strange really had happened downtown. Had the student been a part of the flash mob? Had there even been a flash mob in the first place? Why had someone killed them? Had the police already caught the murderer? He wanted to look on the Internet, but he felt uneasy. The fact that this might not be a joke made his knees weak. It was one thing for an adult to be killed, but someone his age?

His phone buzzing snapped him back to attention.

Cory Moretti: “Can you come over?”

Ocean Shields: “Yeah, sure. What’s up?”

Cory Moretti: “I’m just kind of freaking out right now. I have to tell someone.”

Ocean Shields: "What are you talking about?”

Cory Moretti: “It’s probably better if I just show you.”

Ocean Shields: “Alright, I’ll be there is a few minutes.”

He changed his direction and made his way toward Cory’s house. Cory probably skipped school to conquer the spider dungeon in they game they were playing together. If that were the case, he would have some super rare item to show off.

Ocean opened his phone again and got back onto Clock Link. As expected, today’s place on the calendar was filled with fellow classmates talking about the ‘world stopping’. People were posting articles depicting theories on how it might have happened. Mass hypnosis, a weapons test, aliens, it was obvious no one had any idea. Likely, this was worldwide news right now. Somehow, it felt like he was in a dream.

After a few minutes of looking, Ocean was relieved to see that although people mentioned the murdered student, no one had posted any official news story on it. This fact helped him to hold onto the chance that it hadn’t really happened.

He arrived at the house. From outside, it was completely silent. He knocked on the door, and was greeted by Cory’s younger sister Liliana.

“Salt Water!” She smiled. “What are you doing here?”

“Salt Water?” Ocean said. “Pretty sure you’ve used that one before.”

“Who do you take me for?” she put her hand on her hip. “I would never use the same name twice.”

“Very funny,” Ocean acted annoyed, but secretly he felt proud that he might have influenced her. Perhaps his version of having fun had rubbed off on her over the years.

“Cory invited me over.”

“You should have told me. We could have walked home together,” Liliana pouted. “You avoiding me because I’m a freshman?”

“Yes, that’s it exactly,” he smirked. “I can’t be seen walking home with a filthy freshman.”

"I see,” Liliana nodded. “People will think you’re a pervert, huh?”

“Will you just let me in already?”

Liliana stepped aside and beckoned him in. “Come in, come in.”

“Cory up in his room?”

“Yep,” Liliana closed the door and turned on her heel to face him. “He’s been up there all day.”

“Is he sick or something?”

“Probably not,” she crossed her arms. “Probably just playing some game or something.”

“Is it okay for me to be here if he’s supposed to be sick?” Ocean asked.

“Dad’s at work. Mom’s out shopping. They don’t even have to know you were here,” Liliana stuck out her tongue. “Don’t get any dirty ideas though, Sea Bass.”

“Oh, don’t worry about that,” Ocean started up the stairs. “I hear fish die after they spawn.”

He wondered if Liliana knew about what had happened. If she did, then she might have been avoiding the subject. It was also possible that she had left the school before word of the news had spread around. If that was the case, then she was genuinely in her usual cheery mood.

He reached the second floor and approached Cory’s door. He thought maybe he’d be able to hear the sound of clanging swords from the game, but it was completely silent. Before he could knock, the door creaked open.

Cory stood there still in his pajamas. His eyes always had bags underneath them, but they seemed especially dark today. To put it honestly, he looked like he had seen a ghost.

“What’s up?” Ocean asked. “You beat the dungeon?”

“No, I didn’t play today,” Cory moved from the door and sat down in his computer chair, letting out a sigh.

Ocean walked into his room. “You alright?”

“Can you close the door?” Cory turned the chair toward his computer.

Ocean closed the door behind him. “You look absolutely terrible.”

Cory started typing something. He didn’t bother turning around to answer. “I stayed up all night.”

“Are you sick?” Ocean covered his mouth and nose with the collar of his shirt.

Cory stopped typing abruptly. “I’m scared.”

“I’m the one that’s scared,” Ocean laughed. “What the hell is going on with you?”

“I heard about everything on the news,” Cory said. “They said it was a girl that was killed.”

“So it isn’t a joke then,” Ocean said. “I really doubt it’s someone we know, though. There are tons of people here. Thousands of high school students.” He knew what he was saying sounded terrible, but he wanted to convince himself that he shouldn’t be worrying about it.

“Well I know what happened.”

“What do you mean?”

“I don’t know who killed her, but I know what did.”

Ocean sighed. “They’re releasing that information on the news now too?”

“No,” Cory said as he turned around in his chair. His eyes were hauntingly serious. “It’s not something they’re talking about on the news. I don’t think they have any idea that it even exists.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Ocean tried to force a laugh. “I think you need to get some sleep, man.”

“I’ll show you,” Cory reached into his pocket and pulled out a black wristwatch. “Someone murdered her with this.”

Ocean stared at Cory, waiting for him to crack a smile. This all had to be one big April Fools joke, right?

Right?