First period was Math Analysis and the empty desks were more distracting than the lesson Mrs Fox was trying to present. 25 seats and 9 kids were missing. One of them was a junior overachieving in a senior level class, but still that was, uh, a lot percent of seniors missing. I was in math class, but not motivated enough to do the actual calculations.
Still, did they get powers and ditch school? Looking down at my maimed hand I couldn't help but consider a darker possibility. How many people died during the trials?
I couldn't help covertly checking out each of my classmates that were present, trying to decide if they were like me. A trial taker clinging to normalcy and the routine of school, or did they think it was a dream and opt out of the trials at the very beginning when the voice gave us a choice?
In the end all I managed to accomplish during the entire class was to set up a Google Research Assistant on my phone and thoroughly piss off Mrs. Fox by being absolutely lost each time she called on me for answers. Not my best work, and as soon as the bell rang I skittered out of there before she tried to ask me questions about my home life. She was one of those teachers.
Even in the halls during passing period you could tell there was something off. Some of the faces that should be there weren't, and a lot of the ones that had guarded expressions. It was still loud, with the controlled chaos of hundreds of teenagers in a confined space but for some reason it just sounded, off. People were clumping into small groups and dozens of separate conversations competed to put off some kind of vibe that had me looking over my shoulder as I hustled to my next class.
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Bio II was up, and I had high hopes of picking up spoor from the elusive nerdicus rex in this one. I spent the first ten minutes of class trying to come up with some kind of star wars misquote I could drop in class discussion to lure him out, but my plans were derailed when a chubby goth chick pretty much took over the class.
Laura, or maybe Loren, never really talked in class. I'd seen her around of course, our school wasn't that big and the neon highlights in black hair and Morticia Adams wardrobe made her stand out. She was quiet as hell, spent most classes with her nose stuck in a book, and was absolutely monosyllabic when someone tried to draw her out. Until today.
Today her hand couldn't stay out of the air and she asked question after question to Mr. Baumgartner. All off topic and apparently random. Could he explain kirillian photography? Why did early scientists associate the pineal gland with the soul? Could nonvascualar plants produce fruit if you grafted a woody plant to their root system? What was the link between cell senescence and the number of telomeres?
The teacher hung in there, digression after digression. You could tell he was just thrilled to finally have a student show any interest in science, no matter how baroque. I started jotting down notes partway through, because I had the feeling the goth chick had definitely picked up some ķind of powers in the trials. I was still trying to reverse engineer and figure out what they were based on the questions she was asking when the bell rang and I realized I'd actually paid attention to Mr Baumgartner's lecture for an entire class hour.
It really must be the apocalypse.