A/N: Before we begin, I must thank my friend Angie for proofreading this chapter for me. On the plus side, this shouldn't have typoes. On the negative side, this won't have funny typoes. Well, since this story will eventually be serious, I guess that's probably a good thing.
Chapter 2: Last Chances
The last day of school always seems to be one of the strangest days in history, or at least that's how most of the students seem to see it. As Sora left his physics class for the last time ever, he felt a strange bit of nostalgia. Then he remembered that he hated the class, so jumped for joy just a little bit. Well, not so much that he attracted too much unwanted attention, he was already pretty good at attracting that without trying.
Right as Sora landed, he saw her out of the corner of his eye. He did a double take, seeing her walk around a corner, and he felt his heart skip a beat. He looked at his watch, and hoped that maybe he'd have enough time to talk to her before they went on to their next class. So he rushed after her. It seemed strange that he'd have these feelings for her considering the only time they really spent much time together was during that school play, he somehow volunteered for, when he thought he signed up for that supernatural studies club. But it all worked out, he really get along with Mallory during that time. And with this being the last day of school, he thought it would be good to talk to her one last time, so that maybe he could make plans with her to hang out over the summer.
He really couldn't believe he was thinking these types of things. Sure, high school was the time for love to be in the air. Or what people claimed was love until mistakes were made, too many drinks were had, and very uncomfortable conversations had to be had. Sora didn't really care about all the drama or the buzz of school dances.
But for some reason, he found himself caring about Mallory.
He rounded the corner after her, and much to his relief they made eye contact. Waving to her, he started walking to her, but right as he got close to say something, his phone started to buzz. He looked down at it, and saw it was a message from Jade.
Of course, she just had to kill the moment. Evil sisters...
'Can't go into school today, three more of the monsters showed up since you left.'
Sora shook his head, knowing that really wasn't something he could blame her for, but while he was looking down at his phone, Mallory had walked away. Thinking about the text, he wondered how long they'd be coming this time. Normally there were only a couple monsters that showed up a week, and this was at least 4 of them today. Well, at least it seemed like they were all in his house, which made it easy to keep things secret, unless someone wondered why there were all those explosions coming from his living room.
'What do you want to be infected today?'
'Last time it was my liver, time before that was ear...how about big toe?'
'One of these days they're going to start asking for doctor's notes, you know that?'
Still, they hadn't been too suspicious so far. Jade was normally a good student, got good grades, and was popular from what he'd heard. She just had these random unexplained sicknesses that forced her to stay home. Sora stepped out of one of the side doors of his high school and dialed Jade's middle school to tell them she wouldn't be coming in today.
...
"Who were you talking to out there?" Phyia asked annoying Sora just a little bit. "Your love interest who had been captured by foreign spies and is now being held for ransom in the volcano below Antarctica?"
"No, just Jade's school. She came down with a bug so I told them she wasn't coming in."
"Oh, that's boring," Phyia said a bit disappointed. "I still think it's strange that they let you be her guardian even though you're just 4 years older than her."
"It works out I guess," Sora said. It took a while getting used to, but in a way, Sora was grateful that he was the one who had to take care of Jade now. Well, in a way it was taking care of each other, but it gave him something to focus on, to be responsible for, instead of just letting himself get lost in his own world like he always did when he was younger.
"So, any big plans for this summer?"
"Not really," Sora said. He looked out the window, really wishing he could be like the main character in some shows and be right next to the window, but still, he could see it fine from several rows over.
"What, no plans with friends, or maybe even a girl you might like?" Phyia said with a grin that made Sora think he was planning something.
"I guess I'll just see if something happens," Sora said, with a shrug of his shoulders, not really interested in any strange ideas Phyia might have.
"Something tells me something will happen," Phyia said, getting up from his seat and heading to the door, despite the fact that it was the middle of the class. Well, they weren't really doing anything in class, so the teacher didn't mind. Plus, Sora was pretty sure the teachers were as excited as the students to be able to get out of here for the summer, and didn't want any undue stress.
He looked up at the clock and saw there were still about 10 minutes left of class, so he reached into his backpack to pull out a magazine, wondering if he'd actually get to finish up this article on Stonehenge before something else distracted him. Luckily he didn't really know anyone else in this class, so he was pretty sure he could concentrate on the story of the person who went missing after heading to Stonehenge.
Sure, he knew that these articles were probably just someone trying to earn a quick buck so they'd hype up anything that they heard in rumors. Anything to take money from those who believed in the supernatural or those who had a healthy dose of love for conspiracy theories. But Sora knew that there were things in this world that normal people didn't know about, so he wondered what else was out there, what other things were just barely hidden from sight. And with all the unexplained mysteries in the world, he didn't find it much of a stretch to believe that that magic could be behind some of those strange happenings.
As he turned the page, he felt a sharp stabbing pain in his head. It came out of nowhere. He held his head in his hand, trying to message his temples so it would go away. He'd felt like this before, but only because he was really sick, but other than feeling like his head was about to explode, he felt fine now.
The bell rang telling him the class was over, which to everyone else seemed like a dull tone, but to him it felt like someone was playing the cymbals right next to his eardrums. He covered his ears, but that only made the piercing sound worse. Finally after a couple seconds it ended, but it still felt like his head was spinning.
"Sora, are you okay?" the teacher asked, noticing how strange he was acting.
"I don't know," he said, "My head is killing me."
"You should probably go to the nurse. Here, I'll write you a pass."
That seemed like the best idea, maybe they could give him something to make the pain go away. Sora then slowly tried to get up from his desk, placing his hand on the desk for balance as he tried standing up. As he was getting up, the world felt like it was spinning around him, and he almost felt like he was going to throw up.
But then it all went away.
He felt perfectly fine. There wasn't any dizziness, no pain, and no nausea.
"It's gone," he said, mostly to himself, though the teacher also heard it.
"The headache?" she asked, to which Sora nodded.
"That was really weird, but I'm fine now I guess," he said, not entirely sure that he was okay, but he left the classroom anyway and went off to his next class.
As he went through the halls of his school, he tried to take it slow, especially as he went up the stairs. Whatever had caused that pain might hit him again, and he really didn't want to end the school year by falling down a flight of stairs. He weaved through the many people trying to go up and down the stairs, inadvertently being shoved a couple times by oversized backpacks. However, as he climbed the stairs, he saw something that didn't look right.
He blinked a few times, not exactly sure what he was seeing, but then it came into view.
Phyia was laying unconscious on the landing.
"Hey Phi, wake up," Sora said running over to him.
Phyia began stirring slowly. "What happened?" he asked.
"I don't know, you were sleeping here or something," Sora said, and by this point a crowd at started to form. Sora found it weird that no one had tried to wake Phyia up before this.
"I was," Phyia said, the situation now coming to him. "Sleeping here?"
Phyia seemed to be looking around trying to make sense of where he was, and more importantly, why he was down here. It really seemed to be freaking him out, he was shaking, jittering, but then tried to stand up, though started to fall over, and would have if Sora hadn't caught him.
"Now I'm really dizzy," Phyia said as he leaned against Sora.
"Let's take you to the nurse," Sora said, that being the only thing that seemed to be a good idea. The crowds parted as Sora led Phyia down the stairs, holding onto him to make sure he didn't fall.
"I'm sorry," Phyia said.
"For what?" Sora asked.
"I was going to go get Mallory's phone number for you. Tell her that you didn't have any plans in the summer."
"Wait, what?" Sora said, almost dropping Phyia out of shock.
"Come on, you know she likes you. You two were both too shy to do anything about it, so that's where I come in, the great Phyia to ignite the flames of love," Phyia said making some weird jesters, made weirder by the fact that his state of balance was completely gone. Sora did have to laugh at that comment. For a long time, people made fun of the fact that Phyia's name was pronounced like fire, but then Phyia started to come up with his own puns based off it.
"You were really going to do that?"
"Of course, that's what friends are for. The plan was foolproof, I'd get her number, invite both of you to hang out, mysteriously vanish, leaving the two of you alone, and then it would just be like a fairy tale. Well, that was my plan, and then I heard the bell, and the next thing I knew you were waking me up."
As Sora rounded one of the corners of the school, fighting his way through the crowds as everyone went to their next class, he thought about the timing of that. How his massive headache happened the same time Phyia passed out. Maybe there were others at the school who had the same thing happen to them. He'd have to ask once he got Phyia to the nurse.
"Well, thanks for the help," Sora said trying to keep the conversation going. He remembered something about it being good to keep someone mentally engaged to keep them from sleeping if they had a concussion or something, and while he wasn't sure that Phyia had a concussion, he figured it wouldn't be a bad precaution to take.
He reached the cafeteria, which meant they were almost there. As he started crossing it, the bell rang, indicating the next class had started, which Sora was afraid might affect him and Phyia again, but it didn't. Well, it meant he'd be late, but he was pretty sure that this was a good enough reason to be late if the teacher's actually bothered to care today. But the good news was that with the next class starting, the rest of the students had mostly left the hallways making it easier to get through them. However, right as he was about reach the nurse's office, he spotted Allyson sprinting right in front of him, nearly crashing into the two of them.
"Whoa sorry," she said before starting to run past them.
However, before she got more than two feet, she turned around. "Did something happen to you two?"
"When the bell rang, I got a massive headache that went away in a couple minutes, and Phyia passed out and is really dizzy."
"Something happened to you too?" Phyia asked.
"I was taking him to the nurse's office, there he can lay down or get medicine or something," Sora said, ignoring Phyia's comment.
"Yeah, you do that," Allyson said looking at Phyia really strangely, before pointing at him for a brief second. "I need to go," she said taking off again.
"What was that all about?" Phyia said.
"No clue."
Talking to Allyson confirmed Sora's suspicions that there was in fact something else going on. Similar to Jade, Allyson had magic powers that she used to fight monsters and other strange creatures that popped up out of sight. Normally they were dealt with before anyone could notice or any adverse effects could be felt, but there were times when a monster fully emerged and started causing havoc. He'd never known them to cause people to faint, or inflict massive headaches, but Sora wouldn't dismiss that as being a possibility.
Still, Sora knew that wasn't his problem to deal with, so he brought Phyia to the nurse, and would let Allyson deal with any supernatural happenings at the school.