Chapter 2: Glassdale

I woke up in a hospital bed. I couldn’t remember what I was dreaming about, I just remembered it being dark. The walls were clean and white and the place smelled like disinfectant and old cheese. I was right beside a window and the sun was peering through the blinds, almost as if it was trying to check up on me. I looked around the room and Daniel was on his phone watching a funny cat video or something. I rested backwards and stared at the ceiling fan spinning above me. It was mesmerizing, but my mind drifted back to that dream I had. It seemed so vivid, almost uncannily so and I still didn’t know what to make of it.

“Hey Danny?” I said without looking over at him. “What day is it?”

“It’s Sunday,” He responded casually. “You’ve been out for a whole day dude.”

I sighed, “I’m blaming you for ruining my weekend.”

“That’s fair.” He continued watching the video. “But at least we touched a meteorite. How many people can say they’ve touched a meteorite?”

“I don’t know who’d want to touch that glorified space rock anyways Dan,” A voice said from outside the room.

My heart started pounding as Samantha came around the door with a fistful of chocolates. Samantha Jewel had crazy long, blonde hair and really liked chocolate.

“Oh hey Sam,” Danny said, only looking up from his phone for a moment.

She looked at me directly, ”I’m assuming Wendy ate the last one I gave you, so here ya go.”

I nodded as she took a seat in front of my bed and tossed both of us a chocolate each. I flinched and grabbed it, still unable to regain composure from her sudden appearance contrary to Danny, who grabbed it from the air with no effort, while still paying close attention to the furry felines doing dumb stuff on camera. Impressive, I thought to myself. Usually Danny’s a little slow to move when it comes to physical activities. He always blames it on his chronic laziness.

“You good?” Samantha said with her mouth full of chocolate.

My tensions dissipated. This was Sam, my best friend since kindergarten, and there was no reason for me to act like a lost puppy in front of her.

“Yeah Sam,” I took the wrapper off. “I’m good.”

The day went by quickly and, at around 6pm, Samantha had to leave because of hospital regulations. She gave me a “good luck chocolate” and told Danny she didn't have any left, but we saw her eating one when she drove away with her parents. Danny told me he didn’t even ask for one anyways and stormed off to the doctor’s office. I used my phone to call Danny’s parents to ask if Wendy was with them and they said she was safe and even let me talk to her.

“Hey sis,” I sat down on the side of the hospital bed. “You alright?”

“Ya,” she said. “Are you coming home soon Will?”

“Yeah,” I let out a breath. “I just need to get a check-up from the doctor and I’ll be there in no time.”

“Remember you promised to watch the red dino show with me tonight!” She yelled for no reason.

“Remember you promised not to eat my chocolate?” I chuckled.

“B-but it was yummy!” She responded.

I saw Daniel leave the doctor’s office and motioned for me to go in.

“Well next time you want it just ask alright?”

“Alright, alright.”

“Good, now I gotta go to the doctor. I’ll be home soon and then we can watch Rojo the Dino.”

“Yay!”

I hung up and went into the doctor’s office where he ran a number of tests on me to see if I was in good condition. After he was finished testing my reflexes he seemed a little concerned.

“Is there a problem Doc?” I said, becoming a little worried myself.

“No, no problem at all,” He rubbed his chin. “Just a little conflicted about your friend there….”

“Danny?” I looked through the window to where he was sitting. “Why?”

“Well... his reflexes were near instant,” The doctor replied. “It felt like I was testing an athlete or a robot.”

I raised my eyebrow and recalled the way he caught that chocolate bar earlier.

“Oh don’t mind me William,” He patted me on the back. “Maybe I’m just going senile y’know. You’re good to go.”

I nodded and left with Daniel to go back to the apartment complex. After that, it only took a few days before our teachers decided that we could start coming back to school again.

Ah, Glassdale Middle School, my personal torture chamber. Both Sam and myself have been going to Glassdale since kindergarten and Danny transferred here when he moved to Chudence, my city, a few years ago.

Danny and I walked onto school grounds and I got the same feeling of dread I usually do when I come to this place. The paint stripping off the walls with graffiti to take its place? The musky smell coming from the school canteen? The low murmur of all the students conversing among themselves slowly seeping into my subconscious? Yeah, this was school.

“I wish we could’ve stayed home a few more days,” Danny took his earphones out of his ears.

I sighed and we went into the hallway. Samantha and Vanessa were talking by their lockers when they noticed us. Vanessa and Daniel were in an on-and-off relationship, which Sam and I found hilarious. She had straight hair with red ends and was the inter-schools champion for both kick-boxing and gymnastics. Even though they had barely anything in common, Samantha and Vanessa hit it off really well when they first met. Currently, I noticed a bandaid on Vanessa’s nose that got me really curious.

“Hey Will,” Sam slammed her locker.

“Hey Sam,” I pointed at Vanessa’s nose. “How’d that happen?”

Vanessa started to speak but Sam cut her off, “Well, she was teaching me to high-kick yesterday and…”

She looked at Vanessa and shrugged, “...I got a little carried away.”

Vanessa sighed and looked over at Daniel, who wasn’t paying very much attention to anyone. He had his earphones in and was taking books from his lockers.

“Will?” Samantha poked me. “You going to the school play next week?”

In all honesty, I wasn’t planning on going at all. The members of the drama club freaked me out, especially their club president, Jake Heizenberg. Yes, that was his actual name don’t ask me why. Glassdale wasn’t a very big school. We had a few buildings for the different classes and science labs and the auditorium was multi-purposed for most of the clubs to use at different times on different days. I was never interested in joining any because I wanted to be done with school as soon as possible. Though I was starting to get interested in judo. I didn’t think I had a knack for it, even though I knew it would come in handy if Scott McLeon, one of my personal tormentors, tried to mess with me again.