MLB: Leave Me Be

Chapter 3 : Hallucinations

~~Recap~~

Plagg remained disappointed but hid his expressions and went back to his usual hiding spot: the inside pocket of Adrien's jacket. 'God I swear if this kid even had a single brain cell, things would have been so different right now.' he thought to himself.

~~Recap Over~~

The next day, School had already started. And as usual, Marinette hadn't arrived yet. Normally Alya wouldn't think about it much but noticing her bff's recent behavior got her worried. She hadn't been herself lately. Everyone knew that by now. She has been skipping classes... Mentally that is. She hasn't been paying attention at all. Her mind was always wandering around or sometimes even asleep.

It was the usual bright sunny day. All the students had already arrived and discussed their plans for the day. Everyone was locked in an interesting conversation with their lab partners except for Alya whose lab partner hadn't shown up yet. She sighed at her loneliness. However, Nino quickly took notice of her and didn't hesitate to start a conversation.

"So, did you do the homework?" He asked.

She nodded yes.

"You alright, Alya? You seem a bit down today. What's eating you up?" Adrien changed the topic at once.

"Marinette. She's been acting weird lately. And I mean weirder than usual. It's like she's ignoring me, y'know? I've left her so many messages but she hasn't even seen any of them yet." She complained.

"Did you try calling her?" Nino asked.

"A dozen times!"

"Well did you try seeing her?" Adrien interfered again.

"Of course I did. I stopped by her house yesterday. Thought maybe we'd wanna do the assignment together. Her parents told me she was upstairs in her room but guess what- she wasn't! To think, I walked all over to her house, during an akuma attack but she wasn't even there." She ranted.

Adrien was about to comfort her but the teacher entered the class and demanded everyone to answer the roll call. That boring procedure of calling the student's name and then hearing a 'here miss' began. This lasted for sometime.

"Marinette."
No answer came.
"Marinette Dupain Cheng!" The teacher cried in a louder voice. Her tone was demanding. Still no answer though. She looked up from her attendance register to meet the class. Her eyes scanned for the pigtails that weren't visible in sight.

"She'll be here." Alya tried to calm her down. To be honest though, she actually didn't know if she was gonna show up or not. She only said that for the sake of her friend. No other reason was there.

"Well I don't see her. Which means she's not here-" the teacher began.

"I'm here! I'm here!" The class heard cries coming from the corridor. The voice of the caller definitely peaked everyone's interest. As they turned their attention to the opened door, they saw a young girl passing through. She suddenly forced her heels to the ground to stop herself from going any further. As she stood up straight again, she apologized for not being punctual, as usual.

But something was off about her. And I'm not talking just about her hair or her face. One look at her and it was clear that her pigtails weren't even there. Instead, her messy hair remained unbrushed and without any accessories to keep it on place. Rather, her hair remained untied. As for her face, dark circles formed under her red puffy eyes. Her skin seemed a bit paler too. But other than that, even her clothes seemed a little different. They weren't her usual appealing look, rather looked like she came in a hurry and put on anything she could find... Which resulted in her grey coat over her pajamas. (Yup. She came to school in her pajamas).