The following morning, I walked through the halls like a ghost. Everything was at a distance, nearly a haze to my perceptions. The noise, the light, the other students making their way the class none the wiser about the events playing out around them. All of it was the least of my concerns. I was focused on the identity of my contact.
I knew they’d be watching me. Had I inducted someone I would have kept an eye on them myself. But the strangest thing had happened. Thus far they’d left me alone. I couldn’t feel their presence. I never saw peering eyes watching me. Not so much as an odd sensation made my spine shiver and hair stand on end. For the first time since I’d been awoken to this extraordinary world hidden within the mundane, everything felt mundane.
I wasn’t sure what that meant. Was it the calm before the storm? Was it something new, something more powerful than I knew existed, something beyond my ability to sense? Or had the world fallen stagnant over night? I didn’t know the answers but I knew it had me jumping at shadows. I’d become so accustomed to watching my back all the time that when there was seemingly nothing there, I felt somehow unnerved.
The bell rang and the flood of students began filtering into their various classrooms. Journalism was my next class and I wasn’t looking forward to it. It wasn’t so much the class itself I didn’t like. The content was okay. It was more project based, writing articles for the school news or early design of the yearbook. Most of the class had been spilt into two groups, writers and photographers. There were a few of us, like myself who didn’t fit into either role. We were the ones who got stuck editing and doing the real work behind the scenes. It wasn’t overly hard I simply didn’t care about it. It was a class, not a hobby. That probably had much to do with my disinterest.
I suffered through the two hour session listening mindlessly to report after report of current events people had chosen to write about. Apparently, the newest issue of the school paper was going out soon and everyone, the teacher included, felt that should be the topic of discussion for the day.
I glanced at the clock, counting the seconds before the bell would ring again. I was desperate to be literally anywhere else. I didn’t care about these people or the events they took interest in. There was so much of this world than they would never glimpse, let alone be a part of. It made their interest of little importance to me.
Something brushed my leg, drawing my overstretched senses to a sudden focus on a single piece of paper drifting to the floor at my feet. It took only a moment to realize it had fallen from Alan’s backpack. He didn’t seem to have noticed.
Instinctively, I snatched up the paper and stole a glance. I had no idea what I was looking at but somehow the content of the page captivated my interest. I studied the multiple numbers and tiny wording and lines. It was packed full of detail yet completely beyond my understand. For all I knew it some kind of mystical writing granting its reader world ending power, yet it was lost upon me.
“Do you play?” Alan’s voice broke my concentration.
“Play what?”
“D&D.”
“I don’t know what that is.”
“It’s a role playing game. That’s my character sheet you have there, Torgoth the Unyielding.” He pointed at the tiny name scribbled in pencil between two compact lines. “The name’s a bit much I’ll grant you, but I didn’t get to choose it.”
“Sorry. I just saw you’d dropped it. Didn’t mean to look at it. Curiosity got the better of me.” I handed the sheet over watching him tuck it carefully inside a folder.
“It’s all good. I thought you might play by the way you were studying it.”
“I’m not opposed, though I have no clue.”
Alan gave a smile. “I’d invite you to my group but our table is full at the moment. Though most of us meet at the park behind the art museum on Sundays. If you’d like to meet the guys, or even find a group of your own, that’s a good place to start.”
“Sounds good. If I have some time I’ll see if I can check it out. What time do you meet?”
“We usually start at 5 p.m. It last until everyone lease. Sometimes that’s 5 p.m. but I’ve seen it go until after midnight.”
“After midnight at a park? Must be some event to keep people that long.”
“It can be.”
The bell rang and the shuffling of chairs echoed as people made for the door.