“I’m worried about some of the competitions,” said one of the brown-haired boys. Arthur had already forgotten his name but was almost certain he remembered him transforming into a seagull during class.

The boy continued saying, “My brother is two years ahead of us and said the early competitions can matter a lot for class rank. They’re called ‘The Games’.

Another student joined in, “My sister graduated last year and said a lot of the challenges come down to luck. If you get put up against someone who counters you well, there’s almost nothing you can do.”

“What kind of competitions are these? Are we competing against each other?” Arthur asked.

The seagull boy answered, “They can include almost anything. Usually agility and strength challenges show up like timed race courses or weight lifting…”

Another student interrupted saying, “Those challenges are the most basic part though. The exiting events are the one-on-one combat simulations. That’s where you can get the most points. It’s double elimination and goes until one student remains.”

Tom swallowed heavily, “You mean like real fighting? Are we supposed to use our abilities? I can only transform into a small bird.”

One boy answered saying, “You don’t have to transform if you don’t want to, but most students reinforce their bodies or use some kind of weapon at the very least. That’s the unfair part. If you don’t have a strong transformation, you can be stuck as yourself fighting something really big. I heard last year, the winner just transformed into a moose and ran at people until they gave up.”

Arthur thought through his own options against larger animals, and realized he wouldn’t have a chance against something like a moose. His dog form may be helpful for the agility sections, but combat was something he had almost no experience with at all.

Seagull boy spoke up again, “That’s just the school specific tournament too. Apparently it gets really crazy for the International Games. You can be up against people with abilities you’ve never even heard of before. Much less understand. They do those at the end of each year in June from what I’ve heard and it’s mainly for the third and fourth years to show off…”

Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation.

The rest of the table continued discussing The Games and other school related competitions at a feverish pace. Different students jumping in almost on top of each other to share whatever kernel of information they’d heard second hand.

Sitting at the table listening to everyone left Arthur feeling nostalgic to what school had been like before he’d switched to a self-paced online system while moving around. It was fun to be around other students again.

He grabbed a chicken leg and tentatively took a bite careful not to cover his chin in grease. Looking over he saw Tom was completely engrossed in the table conversation with an excited glimmer in his eye.

Arthur was glad his friend was enjoying talking to the other students too. It felt a bit strange after so long on their own, but he could see this kind of set up growing on him. Just eating food with friends and chatting about whatever new thing everyone was worried about or excited to try. It was fun.

“You think you’re nervous about classes starting? You should have seen Arthur when he first came here. I remember one morning I woke up and checked on him to see he was clutching a geometry book and muttering equations in his sleep.”

And so quickly, his peace was ruined as Arthur rushed to rejoin the conversation and defend himself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Ez sat in the office chair that went with his desk. He found himself spinning the chair around to face his bed so he could put his feet up.

Some part of him couldn’t get comfortable with his feet on the floor in a study position so here he sat with his legs up and computer in his lap.

He usually kept this position for around ten minutes before swapping his feet back to the floor.

Ez sighed and slouched further into the chair.

“Maybe I should have gone.”

“It might have been fun to meet everyone from the start.”

“But it’s not like I’ve been doing nothing. I think Tom and Arthur like me so far. And their friend Shona has seen me a time or two.”

“That’s progress,” He said, nodding to himself, as he sat back up in the chain and spun around to face his desk once more

“And I’ll be meeting more people as the semester goes on.”

“I’ll get to make some friends at my own pace and not risk anything going wrong this time. It’ll be perfect.”

Ez slouched deeper into the chair once more until his eyes came level with the edge of the desk

“If they came back right now, they’d hear me talking to myself and think I’m crazy.”

He used his legs to swivel the chair back and forth.

“Or maybe not. Tom seems to like goofy stuff anyway. Dad might have been right when he said I should try to be myself.”

He used his arms to push himself back into a seated position in the chair and reached for a brown notebook by his desk lamp.

“Until I know for sure though, I guess I should stick with keeping those thoughts journaled away.”

He grabbed a nearby pen and turned to a blank page which quickly filled with text before he flipped to the next.