Chapter 3

Second period, numbers, formulas, and rules stacked on top of each other like bricks. 

To my right, someone scrolled through their phone, the screen glowing faintly under the desk. Their face was expressionless, detached from everything happening in the classroom. Thumb after thumb swiped in slow, practiced movements, the motions automatic, like they had done this a thousand times before. Their eyes flickered occasionally to the teacher, but only out of habit, only enough to make it seem like they were paying attention.

At the center, Ms. Jewels was standing at the front, her voice a constant buzz as she rattled off another set of numbers. I wasn't paying much attention—I never really did. Instead, I let my mind wander, focusing on the faint murmur of conversations happening around me.

To my left, a kid tapped his pencil against his desk, his fingers moving with a frantic energy, creating a staccato beat that only he seemed to follow. His pencil bounced against the surface, a quick, almost compulsive rhythm, as if the sound somehow kept him anchored in a world that felt completely unrelated to the one I was in. His eyes never left the page, but his body swayed slightly, the tapping of his pencil matching the erratic pulse of his thoughts. It was the kind of sound that might have annoyed anyone else, but to me, it became a background hum, a noise I didn't even need to acknowledge. I was too lost in my own thoughts to notice if he even realized what he was doing.

"Did you guys hear about the thing in the sky last night?" a voice asked, leaning across the desk to the kid sitting in front of him.

"The UFO?" came the response, eager and wide-eyed.

"Yeah. Totally weird, right? Like, a bunch of people saw it. It moved in ways no plane or drone could." There was a pause, a sense of mystery building up around the idea. "I swear, it wasn't just some military test or weather balloon. It was... too strange."

"Probably some kind of government cover-up," a girl to my right added without looking up from her phone. "They always say it's something harmless, but I don't buy it."

The room seemed to fall into a kind of collective curiosity. People stopped fiddling with their phones, leaned in, and exchanged thoughts. The tension, the excitement about something so bizarre, felt electric, almost like everyone was waiting for the next big revelation.

As the conversation unfolded, I found myself listening—despite my usual indifference to such things. The absurdity of it all seemed strangely compelling. I didn't care about the numbers on the board, but this... this felt like something real. Or maybe it wasn't, maybe it was just one of those weird stories that everyone latched onto for a bit before moving on. Still, it was a welcome distraction.

To my right, the girl scrolled through her phone, but her eyes flickered up for a moment, meeting the gaze of the guy talking. "You know, they say the government's hiding a lot more than just UFOs," she mused, as if she had some inside scoop on what was really going on.

"Yeah, like, what about the whole 'massive power outage' thing that happened in the next town over last week?" another classmate chimed in, eager to add their own conspiracy theory to the mix.

"What do you mean? Like, the whole town just shut down?"

"Yeah, power's out for hours, no explanation. Some people are saying it's connected to that UFO thing. Who knows?"

I couldn't help but raise an eyebrow. The theories were wild, each one spinning out into its own version of the truth. But none of them had any real evidence, nothing solid to back up the stories. Still, it was a topic that seemed to captivate everyone.

"Think about it," one of them said, leaning forward, "if aliens are real, then everything we've been taught about the world is a lie."

Another kid, shaking his head with a grin, added, "Nah, it's just some government experiment gone wrong. You know, the kind they don't want us to know about."

The conversation spiraled from one strange topic to another—aliens, power outages, government secrets—all of it just another piece of the puzzle they were piecing together. And I found myself caught up in it. Maybe I didn't believe in any of it, but the stories were too far out there not to pay attention to. They made the world feel a little bigger, a little more mysterious.

It wasn't long before Ms. Jewels snapped us back to reality. "Alright, enough of the distractions. Let's get back to the lesson," she said sharply, but her voice didn't have the same bite it usually did. She knew we weren't really listening.

Her eyes swept across the room, and just for a second, I felt her gaze land on me. It wasn't the same as before—no anger, no frustration. Just a quiet acknowledgement that she knew we were all somewhere else. But she didn't say anything more. She just let the silence settle before continuing with her lesson.

I turned my attention back to the board, but my mind was still swirling with the things I had heard. UFOs, government cover-ups, power outages—it felt like the world was full of things happening just out of sight, things no one could explain.

But for now, Ms. Jewels was still talking, the numbers on the board still meaningless to me, and the clock on the wall ticking slowly, relentlessly, forward.