We wandered our bruised and beaten selves to the nurses' office where a robotic nurse stood, clad in a uniform that was outdated back a few centuries with a red cross symbolizing the healing many needed and deserved.

  And yes, they had a robotic nurse too. Are you truly that surprised?

  It patched Fron up as he looked like he had passed through a cheese grater. In the meantime, Robert and Steve were talking and laughing about those two freshmen that they had beaten up previously.

  Angel stood all alone near the entrance, her arms crossed over one another. She didn't have any major injuries on her body other than a small bruise on her elbow. She was waiting for us to get out of the nurses' office. I walked out first and saw her.

  "Hey, Angel. How are you feeling?" I asked.

  "I should be asking you that question." I chuckled a little, looking behind me to the empty front desk. I soon realized I hadn’t asked her to come to Jack's house, and because this seemed like the perfect time…

  "Angel uh, would you like to go out?"

  I seriously don't know how my words came out like that from my previous thinking. Angel’s confusion was apparent in her face as I immediately reverted back what I stupidly asked,

  "I-I mean uh, do you want to go to Jack's house? Steve wants us to uhm, show us something. Isn't that right Steve!?! STEVE?!" I yelled his name and he gave back a thumbs up from a bed he laid on. Angel nodded and carefully picked her words out unlike myself,

  "I would like to go with you. To Jack's home. My parents would probably allow me anyway." She whispered. Her parents never cared for where she was, who she was, anything about her soul.

  "Alright, then it's settled! Now, let's go to the B building before it burns down because of Emily." Robert joked, getting up from his seat.

  Steve followed him as Fron came back, his crutches clicking and clacking like the keys on a keyboard. We all turned our attention to him and Fron said in a suddenly translucent voice,

  "I'm fine. I have these crutches only temporarily to keep myself up. Thank you all, I mean it." Robert stepped up to him, embracing him with his scratched arms. Fron hugged him back with only one arm; the other clinging onto the crutches keeping him up.

  Now, I'm not one for revenge, but I would seriously go for some 'punching that one freshman' with a side of 'getting him expelled'. He deserved that and not those stupid pens.

  Speaking of those pens…

  I opened the box to see the water gun, two pens, the CD, the book, and the knife from that freshman were still in there. I sighed in relief as we then carefully walked out of the nurses' office, thanking the robot there even if it couldn’t understand our gratitude.

  However, we soon asked ourselves a question. How were we going to get to the B building if it was two miles away and we had a person in crutches that we had to be careful with?!

  “Wait, how am I going to travel with you guys?" He asked us all the same question that was in our minds.

  "Good question. Maybe two people can use a hoverboard at a time? So he could get on behind me while I move the hoverboard around?" Robert asked.

  "You guys would probably move slower than us accounting for the added mass. Though, that could work." Steve—the genius in physics but not in common sense—stated.

  "It doesn't hurt to try," Angel said, shrugging back at him.

  We all nodded while Robert walked up to his hoverboard, turning it on with a simple push of a button. Fron carefully pressed a button on his crutches, contracting it into a small metallic cube. He put it in his pocket and hopped onto the hoverboard behind Robert. It lowered itself an inconsequential bit, yet other than that it looked normal!

  "Phew," I said, getting on my hoverboard. Angel and Steve got onto theirs and we flew through the pathway back to the B building.

  ?????°? ☆ ?°?????

  Once we got back to the B building. We hurried into the entrance and up the stairs where we noticed that, well. None of us knew exactly where Jack, Maurice, and Emily were.

  "God damn it. I wish Emily could cause some sort of destruction by now. It would help us find them more easy." Robert said. I don't know how, but that reminded me that I hadn’t told Fron about Jack's house. As Steve and Robert searched through their Scruplots to possibly find out if they were supposed to have any classes with them. I stepped over to Fron, my shoes likely having to go through seven surgeries with how smudged and torn they were. I asked him,

  "Hey, would you like to come over to Jack's house? Steve is going to show us something and you can meet some cool people there." Fron looked at me and smiled.

  "I would love to." He said, again in a clear voice.

  "You sound better when you're not stuttering like a maniac." I joked. He smirked back at me, rolling his eyes with a playful scoff.

  I decided to look through my Scruplot as Robert and Steve were taking an abhorrent amount of time. I soon noticed that it was supposed to be our third out of four periods. I searched into my classes by a search box at the very top of my tablet, seeing that it was my elective. I dug into the students in my elective, realizing that I had Emily and Jack in my class!

  "I know where Jack and Emily are supposed to be," I said.

  "I know where Maurice is supposed to be too!" Steve exclaimed a few seconds later. We looked at one another, a smirk escaping from both of our faces. We soon compared our Scruplots. It seemed like Maurice, Jack, and Emily's classrooms were next to one another, only blocked by a singular wall.

  "Alright then, let's go!" Robert stated after seeing our Scruplots.

  He went over to Fron and helped him with his crutches; we walked closely and slowly with him. Even though the cameras in the hallway were online, I would bet my left hand that the security didn't exactly care that a bunch of pre-teens were roaming the hallway.

  As we reached closer to the elective classroom on the first floor of the B building, we saw Emily and Jack arguing over something. Both of them were absolutely covered in soot and it looked like a piece of each of their hair was burnt into a crisp. Emily’s hands were balled up into snowballs as she scolded him,

  "I told you to not increase the heat, you jackass!"

  "Who are you calling jackass!? For all I know, I was following the instructions very clearly." He stated.

  "UGH! We're so lucky that when we burned our kitchen we also burned that stupid robotic teacher! Or else we would BOTH be in trouble right now!"

  "Isn't that your whole thing?"

  "Don't test me Jack Broker!"

  "Two can play the full names Emily BARLOW!" He yelled out. Emily looked rather infuriated and I just about had enough of their petty argument.

  "Can you two shut up?! Where's Maurice?" I asked them suddenly. Both of them snapped their necks to me as if they were about to punch the ever-living hell out of me. But they soon realized that it was just me.

  "Oh, hey guys," Jack said.

  "Woah, what happened to Fron? And your fists?!" Emily asked us, looking from Fron's crutches to our bandaged knuckles interlacing through the gaps in between our fingers.

  "I'll explain it all after we get the hell out of this school and to Jack's house. And you didn't answer my question either, where's Maurice?" I asked her. Robert butted in,

  "What's a Maurice?"

  "A person you mother–idiot," I said, shaking my head and pinching my glabella. I think that's the only thing I remember from middle school.

  "Oh, my bad." He stated.

  "She's uh, kind of busy making sure every student in the classroom doesn't snitch on us," Jack said. I peeked inside and saw Maurice trying to persuade a girl who looked traumatized to keep calm and not snitch on Jack or Emily.

  "Just what in the hell did you guys do in there?!" Steve asked them.

  "I think I'll let Jack explain," Emily said. Jack looked around as if he expected someone else to answer for him. Finally, he sighed and explained,

  "You guys know this is a cooking class right?" We nodded.

  "Okay. Well, we were planning on cooking something simple and easy. Eggs. Just eggs! Welp, before we even got the egg into the pan. Emily over here didn't know how to crack one!”

  “But–”

  “I tried to explain it to her multiple times and after about eight or so eggs were wasted, she finally got it right and cracked two eggs into the pan! Somehow, still with the eggshells.”

  “Well if you just let me explain–”

  “I added salt and pepper while Emily tried to tell me to turn the heat down. That didn't make any sense whatsoever since we needed to cook it faster. So naturally, I turned the heat up, and that's when Emily distracted me about how much heat the eggs should have. We didn’t pay attention to the eggs, causing it to burn the whole kitchen. And while the robotic teacher tried to help, it also got cooked by the fire." He pointed towards the robotic teacher that was actively being repaired by mechanics.

  "Holy shit," Fron said. Robert and I laughed our asses off. Angel watched in horror as three separate kids were bawling their eyes out because of the fire. And Steve walked over to Maurice.

  "Hey, do you need help?" He asked her.

  "Yeah, that would be great! Take those two students out of the classroom and into the next one over. I'll take care of this girl here." She said. Steve nodded at her and directed the two students to the classroom next door. Still, me and Robert couldn't stop laughing,

  "AHAHAHAAHAHAHAA!!" I was leaning on the locker trying not to fall on the ground dying laughing while Robert was already doing that.

  "Shut up," Emily said, embarrassed over us and herself.

  "AHHAHAAA, MAN! That's hilarious!" Robert exclaimed through gasps while the bell rang for the next class to begin. Steve and Maurice got out of the classroom with the girl in question.

  I swore I remembered that girl was in one of my classrooms. Anyways, as they walked over to us, Angel stared down at her Scruplot.

  "We better head to our classes." Even though there was no point in going to our classes by this point. We all agreed and I told Emily and Jack,

  "Clean yourselves up in the bathroom over there. Then head to your classes, you idiots." I stated. They both groaned at me and went to the bathroom while Maurice went over to me.

  "Jack already told Emily about Steve and Jack's house. She'll be coming over too."

  "Good. Let's just hope they don't cook any food." I said. We walked over to our next and last class.

  ?????°? ☆ ?°?????

  My next class was incredibly boring to say the very least. It was mathematics and because I was already at the B building it was easy to get to. There was a robotic teacher there, of course. But I didn't pay attention to the robot because…

  It's a robot. Seriously, what was so interesting about an oil-filled, mechanically programmed, life extracted machine?

  However, there was one interesting thing about the class. Remember that girl that came out of the classroom with Steve and Maurice? She was there. I didn't know if she was a freshman or not. But I didn't look at her badge so I shouldn't have assumed.

  The girl had on her eyes glasses that magnified her eyes to the size of the moon. Her hair was tied into a normal bun. She chewed on her fingernails, a testament to the boring nature of this class. I don't know why she piqued my curiosity so much, but she seemed so familiar. How did I know this girl and where did I know her from?

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  Before I could answer those two questions, the bell rang which signaled everyone to get the hell out of school. I ran down the steps to the main entrance where the phone booths were. I dialed my mom's home phone number, being the only device we had. She answered,

  "Hey, sweetie. Is something wrong?"

  "Nothing's wrong, Mom! I'm just visiting a friend's house." I said. She hummed accusingly and asked me,

  "Do I know this friend by chance?"

  "It's Steve's house." I know I lied, but if I told the truth, she would ask a thousand questions I wasn't in the mood for.

  "Ah alright. Just be back before dinner, okay? Love you!"

  "I love you too Mom," I muttered, hanging up the phone. I walked up to my bike, unlocked its automatic lock that fit snugly into my pocket, and powered past the innumerable amount of sidewalks toward Jack's house.

  Now, you may ask, "How do you know where Jack's address is? He didn't even tell you!"

  Built into my bike was a digital GPS drilled into the bar of the bike. Whenever I turned it on, it could tell me where anyone's houses were, which might sound extremely unrealistic. But at the same time, everyone's address was public information, mainly because the Redwoods would need those addresses for observation checks. My father gave me this bike and installed it himself before I was even born.

  I sped up my bike toward an avenue called 'Marks' and I eventually got onto the street where Jack's house was. However, I don't think I needed the GPS because once I got to the street, there were only three houses throughout the entire street. One of the houses had Jack sitting on his porch.

  "I should've expected these massive houses here," I muttered to myself, parking my bike on Jack's equally large driveway.

  "Hey, you made it!" Jack exclaimed.

  "Yeah, I'm surprised that your house is this big," I looked to my right where the driveway continued, seeing that the house extended so far down the driveway that it looked like a street. Where and what the hell did his dad and mom work for?

  "I know right? My mom won the lottery and got this whole property as a steal! A kid died here once." He said. Now that makes sense on how they could afford this.

  "What was the lottery's worth?"

  "Oh, it was two trillion dollars."

  Are you kidding me!? He said it so nonchalantly like anyone could throw two trillion dollars around! Though, to be fair, most people in this culdesac could probably do that.

  "Plus, my dad works for a company that specializes in construction in the capital. So we've been doing just fine!"

  "I'd say more than just fine," I said. I looked behind me, noticing that there were eight to nine cars in the driveway.

  "Is someone here already?" I asked him, pointing to the field of vehicles.

  "Hm? Oh, no one is here. That's our car collection." Again, are you kidding me?!!?

  "Oh. Alright." I said in disbelief. I mean with this literal mansion and the cars, you would expect Midas to be his grandfather!

  "Oh look, there's someone else coming!" He exclaimed.

  I glanced behind me to see a minivan turn into the driveway. The passenger door opened and out came Angel. She said thank you to the driver, probably her mom, I couldn’t tell. The windows were tinted so hard, I think a fly wouldn’t dare to come close to it. Her mom naked away from the house and drove off without a singular word for Angel’s benefit.. Angel fixed her hair into a bun, sighing in…

  Either relief or distress. I had no clue.

  "Where's—AHEM!" She stopped talking and suddenly slowed her breathing and asked, not in a whisper now,

  "Where's everybody else?" Me and Jack were stunned, but we kept our composure. Her voice was soothing and beautiful to the ear. Flowing like sap from a maple tree. Sweet to the taste and smooth to the touch. Perhaps it was just my ears that heard her voice like this.

  "Uh..? I don't know. You Jack?"

  "Nope. Oh shoot, another one's coming now!" He exclaimed. Me and Angel spun around and we saw Robert riding a hoverboard with Fron hanging on for dear life at the back. He parked the hoverboard and I immediately recognized the sticker on the board.

  "Did you steal that from school?!" I asked them.

  "Maybe..!” Robert said slyly. I sighed and took out the box from my backpack, handing them their pens which they then stashed in their pockets. I set the box back down in my backpack.

  "Thanks," Fron said silently.

  "Anytime, Fron," I said back.

  "And another one's coming," Jack said.

  "You know you don't have to keep announcing that," I said back to him. Jack shrugged back at me as a buggy drove up to the driveway. I knew this buggy all too well from visiting Steve at his house.

  "Heya!" He yelled from the car. Everyone else greeted him normally while I simply said,

  "What's up loser?"

  "The sky bozo," Emily said from the seat next to him. Steve had with himself a briefcase which I thought was odd. I pointed in confusion towards Emily.

  "Ah, she just wanted a ride." Steve's aunt said. To which I acknowledge now that I forgot her name, whoops!

  "That makes more sense. I guess." I stated.

  As soon as Steve and Emily got out of the car, his aunt said her goodbyes. Maurice came by her bike only a couple of seconds later. We waved to her and she waved back. Once she got herself settled and Steve stopped being flustered just by her presence, we were on our way up to Jack's enormous house.

  As soon as we stepped inside, we were directed by a butler to get seated in the living room at the back of the house. I kept my head low, not wanting to see the numerous paintings of ancient figures that I gave less mind than not.

  The living room itself consisted of multiple antiques and decorative vases as well as snow globes for some odd reason. Other than that, it looked cozy and once we sat down the butler even handed out a charcuterie board. Don't ask me how I knew this was a charcuterie board, though.

  "Wow, Jack. This place is nice!" Robert stated, smacking his lips on one of the cheeses on the board.

  "Thank you. My family bought this place not long ago." He said. I wasn't exactly pissed off that I was in a guy's home that just came easy to him, but I still wasn't happy about it. My mom fought tooth and nail to get a place even close to the high school with how much demand there was for housing even an hour away from the school.

  "Anyways, what were you going to show us, Steve?" Emily asked. As per usual, she wanted to get straight to the point.

  "Oh yeah. Everyone gather around real quick. This is gonna be sort of a long explanation." Steve took out his briefcase and opened it, revealing his computer. Or well, his grandfather’s computer.

  "What I'm about to show you, don't tell anyone else, alright?" He asked us all. We nodded at him as he typed in his password for the computer and logged in. He clicked a tab called 'Gooleg' and opened a tab that was already open with an article about the—

  "The war that was hidden?" Angel asked all of a sudden.

  "Since when do you not whisper?" Emily asked her.

  "Ever since we got out of that school. I feel comfortable enough around you guys."

  Did I forget to mention her voice was beautiful? Nevermind, let me not get distracted right now.

  "As the article states, the reason they want to limit the access of the internet to every citizen is because of this war. It had proven so costly to the Redwood Federation and had caused so much bloodshed that they felt like it was a must to block anyone from hearing of it. Anyone who fought in the war for the Redwoods was either killed, jailed, or forced into secrecy.”

  “Meanwhile, the forces that had won the war, people who call themselves the 'X' that broke away from the Coalition, somehow survived and well, won the war. As a result, the province of Boguy had been ceded to the X." Steve stated.

  "Hey, I've heard of that province. Wasn't it the one that had the stupid city name?" Jack asked.

  "Stupendium, yeah. They named it that because of the exact reason you would think of. But here, take a look at this." Steve said. He showed a gruesome picture which was taken by a bystander showing the Foyagers burning down a home with a child still inside of it. Their faces full of fury, their flamethrowers pointed up at the child’s scarred face.

  "Oh my god," Robert said.

  "Now you know why I was so hostile to Mr. Foyager in the first place. They're horrible people that did this for the cause of horrible people." Steve said.

  "Crap, we have to let people know about this war right!? Who else knows about this war other than just us?" Maurice asked.

  "The X, of course. But they can't just share that information with the Redwood citizens if you can even call us that. Because if they do, they'll spark another war with them." Steve replied.

  "Isn't that a good thing, though? Since another war against the Redwoods would surely result in some sort of backlash from their citizens?!" Angel asked him now.

  "Unfortunately not many people know about this secret war. So a full out invasion against the X would result in people probably supporting the Redwoods if they threw around propaganda like candy." Steve said, scrolling to the bottom of the article where only one line is shown by a supposed X citizen. Steve read the quote,

  "To anyone lucky enough to read this article in the R.F. (Redwood Federation), please heed my words carefully. Don't give in to the illusions. Give into the true spirit of freedom, the X. By Terracotta."

  Everyone in the room had goosebumps flared in full display as the butler brought the empty board out of the living room.

  "Are we already in the illusion?" Jack asked us.

  "No, we can't be. We actively hate the Redwoods!" Emily exclaimed.

  "Yet instead of going into the X’s territory, we still live here. At a place that values control over lives." Angel stated, cracking her knuckles. I patted her shoulder to calm her down and I got up.

  "Listen. We're here because our families and our lives are here. If we want to do more damage to the Redwoods as soon as possible. I suggest we stay here and revolt them from the inside. The X territory will surely support us, we just have to get support from within ourselves. I mean, there has to be someone out there who shares our ideas!" I said, whispering the word revolt.

  "And if there isn't?" Robert asked in a shaky voice. I went up to him and faced him face to face, putting a hand on his shoulder.

  "Then we keep trying. Even if we're trapped." I said. He nodded enthusiastically as the rest of us focused on different subjects like…

  Oh, of course.

  "What's your favorite genre of music?" Maurice asked us all. And as the rest of us spoke about music, we debated on a lot of philosophical things. Including what goes before what? The cereal or the milk? The plant or the seed? The chicken or the road?

  ?????°? ☆ ?°?????

  Soon enough, it was time to go. All of us quickly gathered our things and while Steve closed his briefcase, we all walked outside and exchanged home phone numbers with one another in case we wanted to call each other. I went towards my bike and right as I was about to go, Angel called my name.

  "George!"

  "What is it, Angel?" I asked her.

  "I uh, I wanted to say thanks. For everything. For saving me back there from those two girls. For being at least one of the first people to come talk to me, despite my reputation. Everything." She said. I brushed a stray hair from my face that kept tingling the tip of my nose. Keeping my composure at an all time low, I stated,

  "It's seriously no problem. I like you."

  I should seriously think before I speak. Luckily, I caught myself and corrected it by saying,

  "I like it when I'm around you!" Angel smiled at me, giving me an odd feeling in my stomach that I couldn’t distinguish just yet.

  We heard her minivan begin to profusely honk right behind me. I waved towards her mom as she waved back, still honking the horn in all of its annoyingly screeching tone. Angel walked past me, but not before whispering,

  "I like it when I'm with you too."

  I would be lying that as I rode my rickety bike all the way back to my home, I kept her words tightly wrapped around my brain.

  As soon as I got to my house—which took only a handful of minutes—I opened the door with the keys that I kept at the very bottom of my undesirable backpack. Looking past the main hallway I could see my mother preparing dinner with her slightly gray hair tied into a fisted bun atop her head. She had on a kitchen apron, a comically large wooden spoon by her hand as she asked me,

  "Hey honey, how was your first day at school?"

  "I’m not going to lie, it was pretty eventful." I replied, ignoring the fact that I just had the craziest day of my entire life up to that point. Well, maybe apart from when I almost got my arm bitten by an alligator. But I'd rather tell that story later when I'm bored.

  "That's good…”

  “Wait, what are those? Are those bruises!?" She asked me urgently, pointing at the bruises on my knuckles. I forgot that I had removed my bandages at Jack's place; it would’ve looked a little weird to have bandages on your knuckles when you come back from school on your first day, wouldn't it?

  "What? Oh, these? Pfft nah Mom, don't worry. It's just some marker marks! I was coloring today with Steve since I was bored during the morning." I responded. My mom looked suspiciously at me and I had a gut feeling that I had to prove it. So I touched my bruised knuckles and held in my absolute PAIN.

  "Well, alright. Go get your brother and sister, it's almost dinner after all. They're downstairs." She said, pointing down to the basement. Fortunately she hadn’t noticed me biting my lip from the anguish I was gradually experiencing.

  "Alright!" I responded without hesitation.

  I rushed downstairs, a muffled scream allowed itself to escape from my enclosed mouth. I shook my hand as I said hello to my 6-year-old sister and my 18-year-old brother. My sister was named Obsidia after obsidian because she’s, as we joked, “really strong!”

  My brother was named Carl. Although, we nicknamed him Coal because of his stupidly dark personality and his charcoal-like hair that was abnormally dark.

  "Heyo bro! Sis! I'm home!" I exclaimed. Immediately after I said that my sister came running to me, saying in a kiddish voice,

  "George, George! I was able to catch soooo many spiders today! And I cleaned the basement!" She looked proud of herself and I smiled.

  "Great job Obsidia! Where is Coal by the way?" I asked her back.

  "He's still in the basement if you want to see him. I'm going to go watch TV now! Bye!" She hurried off to the living room. What an energetic child.

  I said bye to her and continued to walk down the creaky, wooden stairs where I saw my brother. He was cleaning out some dust that had rudely intruded into our basement. I helped him clean out the basement in everlasting silence.

  Of course, that was until my brother asked me his daily question,

  "Hey George, how was your first day of high school?”

  “It was gr–”

  “Y’know, back when I was a 9th grader. It was rough and—"

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah I don't wanna hear it. School was great." I said. I didn't want to hear another story from him about his high school life. Because even though yeah, it sucked, I don't want to hear more of it today or better yet ever.

  "Alright, alright geez! I just wanted to tell you about my experience." Coal said. I simply sighed back at him. After we had finished, we walked up to another room in the basement, played video games on a monitored console with only a handful of supervisioned video games. We soon got bored and ran upstairs, eating dinner as if it was the last supper.

  After finishing my dinner, I proceeded upstairs for the night. I went to my bathroom, brushed my teeth, and slept soundly. Awaiting for the days and weeks that would follow.