"Wake up, Nate! We have to get to school, or else you'll be late.
Rubbing his groggy eyes, Nate forced himself upright to see his sister, Nallie, in the doorway with her hands on her hips.
"Looks like you are more responsive this time, unlike the weekend before. And try to wake up yourself next time."
He still didn't reply anything at all, causing Nallie to glare at him and went to the bathroom.
Nate walked to the kitchen and pulled away the crust on the buttermilk bread, and then he walked with his backpack and went out early outside to go to school already.
* * *
Today was early morning Monday, three days after Friday's attack on the high school from Pallnem's shadow monster attack.
Nate gazed upon the front of the school, greeting the students arriving, gates opened and chatter increasing as time passed.
It was as if there had never been an attack at this school to begin with.
Nate entered the courtyard and went inside the main building, where he looked ahead in the endless-looking hallway.
Then suddenly a loud noise popped next to him as he jumped his body along with soul.
"Ah! What..."
He tried to turn towards the source of the noise, and he saw that it was Brandin Fiborr, the popular party dude, who was using party poppers while other classmates from first period, Kylee Herb and Paula Griffin, watched his party moves.
"Hey there, birthday girl," Brandin called out. "Check it out, this is for you, Kylee. Happy Birthday to you; this special day will be the greatest for you, for yours truly, the party master himself."
"Hey, Fiborr!" Paula yelled, standing between him and Kylee. "Give her some space; having a birthday does not make you go all intrusive on people."
Brandin took note and stepped back.
"Okay, okay, moving away right now."
Kylee cheerfully smiled at him. "Before I leave, I just wanna say thank you, Brandin, for saying happy birthday to me. Out of everyone I met today, you're probably the one who greeted me on this special day with the most energy... besides Aliana; she was jumping around with how excited she was about me."
Upon hearing the name "Aliana", Brandin immediately turned around and struck a pose, his head facing upwards as he pointed his finger above his face.
"Seriously? Aliana? Her way of partying lacks in comparison to my skills. I mean, the senior party president, Felix Mendez, is planning to make me the next party president. That obviously makes me better than her in every way!"
Not wanting to listen to unnecessary stuff that would make him late, Nate proceeded to go to Mr. Mouch's class.
As Nate finally arrived in front of the door of the homeroom class, he spotted the other members of Quad Four also arriving shortly after.
Sam, Cloey, Manson, and Sheila seemed to not notice him as they conversed with one another and looking at each other then to other things around them.
Not wanting to get their attention, Nate slipped away into the classroom right to his seat before they could get a chance to interact with him.
Now in his first period class, he went over to his seat and saw on the whiteboard that today was going to be Mr. Mouch covering mathematical formulas from the last chapter and how they could be applied to the current chapter right now.
Great... Now that's great, more hard things to do.
Nate couldn't wait to get out of school so that he could stay in the room, go outside, be damn, now that he finally understood a little bit of why Manson was insistent on staying inside his trailer. All he wanted to do in Mr. Mouch's class was to look away from any familiar faces around the desks.
At last, the teacher of the room finally entered, and he had a stack of scary-looking papers in his hands, which Nate could only assume were probably super long assignments that could very well take much longer than a standard class period to actually complete, let alone actually understand the concept it was trying to teach.
"Alright class, settle down," Mr. Mouch said over the chatter bouncing around the room. "We've got a long day ahead of us, so I don't want any trouble that would make us feel inadequate compared to the other classes."
"Ah, man, this totally sucks..." Nate heard Brandin Fiborr whisper nearby. "I was so focused on what kind of fountain dip for Kylee's party that I forgot that we had to remember the hard math stuff from before. I definitely would rather be "
"Hey, not everything is about partying and doing stupid things that would get you in trouble, you know. Other people are trying to focus on studying freely," said Paula Griffin.
"I wonder if I could mix ranch and cheese for the fountain...?"
"Stop daydreaming, Brandin!"
Cloey Taffel inched her seat close to Nate. "You know, Nate, some people in class really groan at the idea of the teacher doing his job to teach, but in my opinion, I feel like Mr. Mouch genuinely does care about the scores from the results of their studies, just in a stern and pouty way."
Another classmate, Randall Evans, raised his hand.
"Excuse me, Mr. Mouch, but there is something off I should announce."
"Yes, what is it?" the teacher asked.
"Forgive me if it sounds crazy... but I feel like we've forgotten something that might have affected everyone here."
Nate's eyes lit up at Randall's words. From the way he was speaking, it was like he knew something that the rest of the class didn't know. Maybe he was also someone who didn't get their memories wiped out whenever something weird happened in Standart City, like a Faden attack.
Randall continued with his questions. "Don't we have to go over the last homework assignment so we understand better for the upcoming math equations?"
Mr. Mouch rubbed his balding head. "Oh, right, I almost forgot about that. Just to be clear, I expect you all to have worked on your homework from yesterday, but remember, this day is just an ordinary day like yesterday. Without any external distractions, it would be beneficial for you to learn the concepts."
"Oh..." Nate lightly whispered to himself. He thought that Randall was probably saying something big about the attack at the high school a few days back, but his hopes got up for no reason. Now, it was clear that there wasn't anything that the whole school knew from before. The class as a whole didn't know about the danger that presented itself.
Sighing heavily from uncertainty, he picked up a pencil from one of his backpack's pockets and lightly prepared for the written work ahead of him.
* * *
It was after school; the last period had finally concluded, causing boatloads of students to swarm to the school's gates to exit.
Nate went on alone in the hallways, making his way to the exit doors of the main building and intending to go straight back home without any interference.
However, the fact that his powerlessness and fear of how the Fadens might attack anyone here in this school and possibly everywhere else was overwhelming, causing Nate to only think about the event at Standart High with Pallnem's Faden attack. He thought it was bad if he became numb to the standard attacks if these monsters just keep coming.
What was the point of being a hero when everyone's going to forget about the threats in the first place?
Those monstrous Fadens... It was too much to handle, and he couldn't even handle the ones in Standart High's library, where they eventually tore apart the body of Pallnem.
The person on the intercom, the actual true controller of the Fadens that were spread around the city, was still out there, probably constantly spewing out Fadens to munch on innocent people.
"Standart High... Yet another day at school finished. Whatever, the studies won't make me focused enough; being afraid of the things here would be so distracting."
Nate didn't know whether or not he should have skipped school. Maybe he would be like Sam.
Speaking of which, the Quad Four, his friends, were probably wanting to know his whereabouts since he just left early from his house to go to school.
He didn't feel like having to interact with anyone at all on the route.
* * *
Cloey skipped to the main hangout spots in school that Quad Four usually stays at to converse, meeting Sheila, Sam, and Manson to talk about the things that happened today.
Manson was the first to spot her drawing near.
"Looks like school's out?" he mentioned. "The work was difficult, but manageable if you put in the time."
Sam groaned. "Jeez, math class today was totally exhausting. I didn't really understand most of the things that were taught there."
"More like you didn't understand all of the things there."
"Sam's plight is understandable, though," Sheila told the group. "Even I felt a bit unsettled with the complexity of the work in Mr. Mouch's class."
"Atta girl, Sheila, thanks for having my back over this!" Sam thanked her with a grin.
Cloey looked over at the one spot that was usually occupied by the fifth person in their little group called Quad Four, and that was Nate Elfirm, who was noticeably a bit distant from them specifically, like he was really avoiding them.
"Guys..." she said. "Have you all talked to Nate yet?"
"Nope. Not yet," Manson replied.
Sam shrugged his shoulders. "Nah, haven't got the chance to ask him to go with us to Honoway Mall."
"Looks like everyone here did not interact with Nate at all, also understandable with how he is the only one in Quad Four that might not have been aware of the attacks that
Manson held his arms with a worried look.
"Oh yeah, I forgot that he didn't come to school that day. Along with everyone else who forgot about the whole thing, too, with the shadow monsters, too."
"This is just like how it was with Sam..."
"Cloey?" Manson asked her.
Cloey's pupils shakily shifted. "Nate's probably gonna do that thing, like how Sam just left us alone before. It has to be."
Sam put his hand on Cloey's shoulder. "Wait, Cloey, listen, I know what you're thinking, but I'm sure he's just in some sort of funk that's normal and not involved in something crazy like having powers, unlike me."
"Even so, I have to make sure. Besides Sheila, Nate is also someone without some sort of power," Cloey mentioned to Quad Four. "C'mon, you three, what're you all standing around for? Let's try to go find Nate and to tell him ourselves about what we experienced before and our powers. I won't let any more of my precious friends break away; it's just too hard a feeling to completely ignore. We'll all stand by Nate to show him that he's not alone!"