"I'm sorry, Mrs. Silk, but I can't seem to find the problem."

"Are you sure?" Jesse's mother glanced back and forth between him and their private doctor anxiously. She seemed not only upset, but also unsure. Was this some game her son was playing to get out of school? And for what reason? He didn't even have to go this far; whatever Jesse wanted to do, his mother stayed out of it. If he wanted to skip school, not a word would be said about it, at least not until his father returned home and found out. "You can't find a single thing wrong with him?" she asked the older man.

The doctor smiled hopelessly. "Um, Mr. Silk, what were your symptoms again?"

Jesse sighed heavily, frustrated. "I told you, headache, stomachache, nausea, and maybe a fever. I don't know." He glanced at his mother, who seemed really unsure now. "I'm not lying! It was like that other time I was sick. Remember? I felt perfectly fine after." His mother shook her head. Of course not. She couldn't even remember his birthday.

The doctor leaned forward in his swiveling chair, attempting to look serious. "So you feel completely fine now?"

"That's not the point!" Jesse signed again, then stood up, half expecting to feel lightheaded. It was true, he really did feel fine. If there was any connection to his last sickness, he surely got rid of it faster this time around. In the end, he [i]was[/i] overreacting just a little bit. Atleast there was still time to go to school. "Look doc, if you can't help me then you're only wasting my time. Mom, call Ron to bring the car around to the entrance."

-

The driver stopped in front of the school, and Jesse got out. It was strange to see how the building looked so quiet and empty from the outside, knowing that the chaotic daily lives of the students were featured inside. The sky was blue, but it looked like a whole different level of blue, one Jesse had never seen before, not in his entire life. The color was so... enhanced. As he stood on the curb and questioned as to whether that doctor had injected him with some sort of drug, Jesse began to hear voices. A ton of them. A mixture of different voices, male and female, rang within his mind, and his hazel eyes shifted around to find where they were coming from. There was no one else out here but him, and the voices sounded farther away. 

Perhaps there was a celebration going on behind the school? Some kind of pep rally he was unaware of? He went into that direction. Walking beside the school, the voices didn't fade, nor get any louder, and he wondered if he was going the right way. It didn't really matter. It was nice out today, and there was the thin scent of rain he always enjoyed. He felt alone, but it was an euphoric loneliness.

When he turned the corner to the field behind the school, surprisingly he found that there was no one. In that exact moment, the voices disappeared. Jesse could only stand there and blink as he listened intently to the silence. The distinct voices-- some girl complaining to her friends about her math teacher, some boys arguing about who was the better basketball player, and others--were gone. It was almost as if he'd never heard them at all. "Damn," Jesse swore. "I've got to be tripping on [i]something[/i]." The whole morning felt like a dream--no, a nightmare. Something was off about today.

He stood there for a couple of minutes longer, contemplating if something really was wrong with him. It was then that he spotted, within the same scene he had been staring at for so long, blond hair. "Penelope?" He peered hard to see if it was really her, and he wasn't just imagining things. She was seated farther away from the school, on a bench. Without thinking about it, he headed towards her.

"Penelope," he greeted cheerfully when he reached her. It was strange, actually trying to talk to people was becoming less difficult. He invited himself to the seat beside her, and sat down eagerly, analyzing her face. She seemed paler than before. Was she tired? Sick? He felt a bit of concern, but hid it quickly."Skipping class?"