Junior year was finally coming to a close, adjusting my hoodie as I walked onto school grounds. In a few days, school will finally be over and I’ll officially be a senior.

My confident stride was immediately shut down as I passed by the seniors, who were laughing as they headed to the cafeteria for senior breakfast.

It sucked how they were allowed to leave school early just to graduate and whatever, but honestly? I couldn’t blame them for whatever they did, senior year seemed easy.

As the school air hit me walking into the first building, a cough immediately escaped my lungs, covering my mouth as I continued to move.

It smelled a bit…foul, almost like when you go to a restaurant and you can tell there's a newbie in the kitchen that day.

Unfortunately, the rush of the hallway doesn’t let anyone loiter unless you’re an asshole, so I had to keep walking.

With every rushed step I weaved through the crowd until I made it to the stairwell, which felt eerily empty, but works better for me since it meant I wouldn’t have to worry about being surprised by a couple kissing under it.

I began to climb up the stairs, sticking near the wall so as to not let anyone bump into me if they were heading down.

As I made it to the platform, my gaze instinctively shifted to peer into the second floor to see barely anyone there. The most I saw were a few seniors and whatever remained of their senior prank.

They were so lucky to leave this hellhole early, clutching my bag strap I continued to head upwards.

Then with one final step, the floor felt a bit strange, as if it was more liquid than solid.

My foot went flying forward, which in turn swung the rest of my body backwards on the stairs.

A scream erupted from my throat as I reached out to grab the stair rail just for my hand to also slide off as the smell finally hit me.

It was cooking oil.

The seniors oiled the fucking stairs.

And as my head neared the bottom, a single thought shot through my mind,

You have got to be kidding me.

-

I felt a faint throb spread through several parts of my head.

First one I felt was the back of my head, then blood trickling from my nose, and then that familiar stinging and burning sensation as if something had hit me in the face rather than the back of my head.

A voice pierced the ringing as I groaned, forcing my eyes open just to be blinded by a light above me.

“Xayan!” A voice called out, followed by shouting made my ears ring like never before, and paired with the throbbing in my head? It felt exactly like how my online friends described a bad hangover.

Lifting my hand I shielded my face, wincing as I propped myself up with my elbow. Hesitantly I touched the blood with my fingers, only noticing how badly I was shaking when I focused.

The voice from earlier piped up again, this time closer as I looked over. I felt dizzy from the noise, and my vision felt a bit blurry, yet that didn’t excuse the few factors I saw clearly.

For one, this guy had an undoubtedly attractive face, not that I like guys, I’ve never even found myself crushing on a real person, only fictional.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

But he also had, well…ball joints?

His hair was a deep blue with the bangs having a frosted tip, yet his roots were growing out to reveal the original brown color. I was a bit jealous with how perfectly sculpted his face seemed from this close, internally cursing my own genetics.

I squinted, unable to tell if it was tattoos or real, but the shadows definitely gave off the illusion that they were real.

My lips fell open to speak but the feeling of blood dribbling down past the curve of my lip silenced me, cringing as I held my hand beneath my chin to catch the falling blood.

Tears instinctively welled in my eyes as I looked around in desperation to try and find out what was happening, just to be met with an even stranger setting.

Most of the people around me didn’t look remotely human, at all. Someone had horns, another had antennae, another looked to be…what, slime?

Panic overwhelmed me as I continued to look around, eyes wide as I realized this wasn’t even my school.

Well it was a school alright, but not mine.

It was a wooden gymnasium, there was a net set up, a basket full of volleyballs, and a scoreboard that read 03-14.

“Hey, hey!” A hand snapped in front of my face, drawing my attention back to the boy from earlier, “Xayan, are you alright?”

Xayan? Who was he talking to?

I hesitantly pointed to myself, brows furrowing with my mouth slightly agape in shock.

Before the doll guy, or whatever, could speak, a man came bursting in with what I could only assume was a nurse.

Without a word I was helped to my feet and taken to the nurses office whilst they grilled me on what happened, to which I could only respond with ‘I don’t know’ and ‘I don’t remember.’

Needless to say, they thought I needed to go to the hospital but the other man pushed that I would be fine and that I’m just a little shaken.

-

I sat in the bed, holding my head in confusion with some specks of dried blood beneath my nose.

My mind was reeling as I tried to understand what was going on.

First of all, my name was now Xayan Gotzlang (which even I couldn’t pronounce until the coach told me,) and I attended a high school called “Cinnabar High School,” based on a cinnabar moth.

Secondly, this place was some sort of fantasy world with bird folk and demons and slime people. I got the gist of it after the nurse asked me if I was alright after I gaped at her due to her having gemstone horns.

And last of all? I (mostly) recognized all of this.

The guy from earlier was named Marian Sprance, a wooden doll-like person who was the main character of an old show I watched that I can’t quite recall the name of.

It was about a rundown high school trying to get together a ragtag team of misfits into a volleyball club to try and get the school to prove its worth.

Marian was the classic optimistic guy with average grades and a heart of gold, I never got to his backstory so I can’t tell you more than that.

And why did I never get to the backstory? Simple.

The show went on hiatus.

It didn’t have a large following, but the ratings were good enough for it to continue until roughly episode seven where the whole team finally begins to get some development after Marian encourages them to go on a training arc of some sort.

And where does Xayan come into play? He was handicapped in episode three as a way to get Marian to develop character and build a rivalry with the spiker from Red Herring High.

I dragged my hand down my face with a groan, making sure my fingers lingered slightly under my eyes to enhance how awful I felt.

I should’ve just read the damn comics they had for it instead of waiting for the show to continue, cause now I’m not even sure if the timeline I’m in follows the show, or comic! A ton of reviewers that left low ratings were all about how after episode five, it strays from the comic canon, so which am I?!

Most importantly…what do I do about being in the volleyball team?

In the show, Xayan has to quit volleyball due to getting a concussion since after getting hit with the ball he passed out. Now since it’s me instead of Xayan, it didn’t play out like this, since I obviously lack a concussion.

The problem is I’ve never even touched a sport! Let alone volleyball! I was more of a spectator than a player.

Maybe I should just quit anyways? If I stay I’ll end up a burden on the team, and if I leave it’ll stick to canon.

I clenched my fist as I let out a sigh, looking down at my spotting skin.

“Hah…” My head hung down before I flopped backwards on the bed, “...this fucking stinks.”