Phew, dodged a bullet there.

Jessica easily moved through the halls, her light-blue eyes nonchalantly scanning for that familiar classroom 112 sign. The halls, although they were bustling with students going about their day and chit-chatting about this and that, were unusually empty. Most days, it would be hard to move against the current, but today, Jessica could easily weave through her fellow teens.

This was undoubtedly because of the events of yesterday. Some may have seen the supernatural occurrence to be a great reason to take a day off and get an earlier weekend, while others may have simply barricaded themselves out of fear. Either way, fewer students made it easier for Jessica to do her thing, so, altogether, it was good for her.

But, being as caught up in her staring at signs as appreciation for half-empty halls as she was, she completely failed to notice the small, trembling form practically speeding at her, at least, until she body-slammed into her. The small mousey girl, being as tiny as she was, clattered to the floor, while Jessica was left standing, dazed and amused. The little girl made a squeaking noise as she fell, her black-and-white uniform fluttering in the wind as she plopped down on the similarly coloured tiled floor. She was a small girl, with brown braids and big, blue eyes hidden behind thick, round glasses.

She was definitely cute.

“Hey, you need some help there?” Jessica asked, reaching out a hand for the little mousey girl. She looked a bit hesitant, probably because of how tall and delinquent-looking Jessica was. In other words, for the second time that morning, she was very intimidated. Really, she ordinarily wouldn’t be able to handle two scary encounters in one day, but… actually, yeah, not “but”. She couldn’t handle this.

“Uh, you alright dude?” Jessica asked as she squatted down and waved her hand in front of the little girl’s face. The girl did not react.

“Okay look girly I don’t,” Jessica said, grabbing the girl’s hand, but, the second she did...

“Ramona, it is you I feel in this darkness,” a powerful warrior’s voice stated with absolute certainty into the empty void. The recipient of this wasn’t quite as certain. She had been floating around inside that endless darkness for about a day, and, strangely enough… she didn’t feel any weird. One would imagine that spending any time floating around in pure darkness, unable to see or feel or taste or hear anything would be traumatic, to say the least, but, somehow, it wasn’t. She didn’t feel alone, and that’s what mattered. There wasn’t a second when she didn’t feel like there was someone with her, and although this should have felt unnerving, it really wasn’t. There was also the fact that she would, at times, hear someone speaking to her in that darkness. A soft, uncertain little voice speaking a strange language she had never heard before. She would try to answer it, but… There was clearly a language barrier.

So, hearing the familiar voice of Kratos was, well, odd, to say the least.

“Kratos? Is… is that you?” she called out to the darkness, trying to turn to wherever the voice was the strongest. There. A little light shone, growing nearer, until, finally, it was close by. And, from that light, the impressive, fully armoured form of Kratos formed.

“Kratos, it is you! Gods be praised, do you-, do you know where we are?” Ramona asked desperately, her eyes sweeping over the barren “landscape” and back to Kratos, who seemed to be in deep thought.

“Yes. I am sharing the body of a young teenager. I know this because yesterday, we shared one mind. We are not in our original world, that I could see. I and this girl attacked the Evil God Antenora, who followed us here, or perhaps took us here, but we were pathetically defeated. After that, I was in darkness,” Kratos explained bluntly, clearly quite bitter over his overwhelming defeat.

“Then, you don’t know where I am?...” Ramona asked. Kratos shook his head.

“You are not sharing the same mind as me and the teenager,” Kratos answered, indicating that she may be sharing the mind of someone else. It was a scary idea, that she may no longer even be in possession of her own facilities, but… It was nice to know she wasn’t dead, right? The whole “other world” thing was up for debate, and the fact that Antenora was still around certainly didn’t make her feel any better. Regardless, things could have been worse.

“So, um… how are we speaking right now?” Ramona sensibly asked. Kratos, not knowing the answer but unwilling to admit his ignorance, chose not to answer at all. Ramona sighed but accepted his silence as an answer.

“I-,” and then he was gone, his light along with him, leaving her in darkness once more. But along with the darkness came a murring humdrum of sound and words, none of which she recognized. This must be the person whose mind she inhabited, right? Then, why did they sound so… panicked?

“Oh, I, um, I literally have no idea what that was,” Jessica said, quickly retracting her hand from the mousey girl. Jessica recognized the feeling though. It was like yesterday when she had touched that warm new thing inside her, except… it was more intricate than that. She had sent out something, and that something had met something this mousey little girl had sent out. Their minds had been connected, and in that temporary space they had created together, the thing within her met the thing within her, and they conversed.

...Somehow. And now, they were staring at each other, the only thing they knew was that they were now closer than lovers. A faint, barely noticeable blush spread across the cheeks of the mousey girl, and she slowly, making sure not to grab Jessica’s hand, got herself back on her feet. For a moment, they simply stared at each other, somewhat awkwardly. They could just walk away, pretending this all hadn’t happened. But… that wouldn’t have felt quite right. That would have been like walking away from your crush confessing to you, it just wasn’t feasible. If Jessica had learnt anything about this mousey little girl from this short but intense interaction, it was that she would not be the first to talk.

“Um, we both have things to do, but… meet me by the hoops at four sharp, alright? That cool with you?” Jessica asked, totally just going out on a limb, hoping it would work. The girl seemed to consider the offer for a few seconds before nodding and hastily running off to wherever she was headed earlier. Jessica sighed internally, already starting to question whether or not the girl would actually show up. And the thought of what would happen after school got her thinking about how Adam was doing. Nothing good could come out of this, but it was a Friday, so at least she could isolate herself during the weekend if things got that bad.

Looking up, Jessica took a glance at the time, and at seeing just how close the bell was to ringing, she, much like the shy girl, ran off in a hurry down the hall. Once she found her classroom, she slammed open the door (already having forgotten the trauma of slamming open the door to the interrogation room so hard it fell off its hinges) and rushed inside.

In the classroom, she found the usual array of characters. In the very front, a row of fucking nerds could be found in their natural habitat, checking through notes in preparation for future tests or doing homework or reading books or whatever it is nerds do. In the back, lazily leaning over and snickering amongst each other, were the cool kids. Well, she was pretty sure the kids in the first row called the back-rowers “the delinquents”, but they were also silly asshats and she didn’t trust them. Everybody in between these was normal, except that one guy who was surrounded by girls who wanted to fuck him on all sides(except one where the journalist-kid was sitting who maybe still wanted to fuck him God knows), but nobody talked about him. Maybe if they ignored him enough he’d eventually transfer someplace else, but nobody had their hopes up.

Jessica’s eyes swept through the crown of background characters, not really taking notice or caring about any of them, not anyo-, no, wait. Who’s that? Sitting a bit to the left in the very middle, an extraordinarily ordinary girl sat, chatting about nothing in particular with her girlfriends, who were equally uninteresting. She had long, straight and brown hair, and her eyes were a standard blue-greyish, like the roiling clouds on a grey day. There was absolutely nothing interesting about her, and yet… Jessica, upon staring into her eyes, was met with a strange feeling, that very same feeling she had felt when touching that mousey girl. Except, it was much more intuitive this time. Just a look and Jessica could tell this girl was the same as her. Jessica was about to open her mouth and try to talk to her, when…

“Alright class, settle down!” a youthful, vigorous-looking man said as he stepped into the classroom with a wide grin on his face. Mr Chalmers. Or, as Jessica and her pals called him, Hottie Nr. 3. So, in that hurried, somewhat defiant gait that defined someone who yearned for the gaze of another, Jessica made her way to sit at the back of the classroom. Still mulling over losing her opportunity to talk to yet another one like her, she barely noticed how Sabrina leaned over, grinning already.

“Really making those hips sway aren’t you?” she whispered, snickering.

“Still pretending like you’re not wearing a push-up bra at all times?” Jessica retorted slyly.

“Bitch.”

“Slut.” Followed by intense giggling that Hottie Nr. 3 thankfully ignored.

The rest of the lesson went by as it usually did, with the front row scribbling down everything the teacher said and then some, the delinquents in the back only being in school to gossip amongst themselves, and the people in the middle getting squished in between. The only highlight was that time Jessica successfully passed a note to unnamed female classmate Nr.7 telling her to go to the hoops at 16:00. There was also a vague threat on her life, but as long as she showed up, that could all be explained and forgiven. So it’d be alright, right? Right.

Eventually, the bell did ring, and lunch was initiated. Jessica could vaguely see Adam doing weird stuff out of the corner of her eye, but she ignored it. He’d survive. Probably.

“So, Jessica. What do you think, ass or bulge?” Cassandra, the democratically elected leader of the group asked, a knowing smirk adorning her tanned face. Jessica snapped her head around and quickly came to notice that everybody else had been chit-chattering without her.

“Sure, they’re both nice and all, but… what about abs?” Jessica proposed in all her sagely wisdom. “Why are we talking about this tho? Isn’t that, like, a guy thing?” Jessica inquired further.

“Gee Jessie, haven’t you been listening? LOL, the real question here is actually, umm, who’s the hottest: Hottie Nr.2 or Nr.3? Cuz, like, Nr.2 totally got the ass of a, y’know, ass, but Nr.3? He’s hung like a damn-,”

“You can stop there Cassie, we really don’t need to hear more, we all know you’ve got the hots for Nr.3,” Cassandra interjected. Jessica sighed. It was strange, how they could act so normal when everything was so weird. Pietra and Holly were both “sick”, so it all had definitely affected the group, but…

“Hey, Jessie, you in love or something?” Cassie asked casually, waving a hand in front of Jessica’s face.

“H-, huh!?” Jessica exclaimed, her cheeks turning rosy. “No-, I, what?” she continued.

“Hey, hey, hey! Cool it, I was just wonderin’ cuz you seem so out of it, or are you really in love or something? LOL,” Cassie asked, that lazy ever-present grin of hers beaming like a spotlight.

“Um, no, I was just thinking about what happened yesterday,” Jessica explained briefly. A shadow was instantly cast over Cassie’s face.

“Yeah, that was… I’m still kinda spooked TBH, heh,” she said wryly, her grin faltering. Cassandra and Sabrina observed this sudden change in atmosphere with sympathetic eyes. Elsewhere, two girls in different locations pondered whether they should show up at the hoops at four sharp or not. For one, it would be a gamble, for the other, it would be a pain, simply because she’d have to talk to people.

Yet elsewhere, an hour or so before the scene at the cafeteria took place, an unconscious Adam was brought to the infirmary because he was, well, unconscious.