The Missing Student

"Another day of not knowing anything." I complained.

"We can't worry about it right now." said Matt, "We have school."

"It's odd for you to worry about school." I responded.

"Hey," said Matt, "I can focus sometimes."

The two of us were chatting as we were on our way to our first classes. No matter how much time went by, it was really hard to take my mind off of what happened to my brother. I knew I needed to focus on school, but it was becoming a lot harder.

"What if those monsters come over while we're in class?" I said.

"We can worry about that when the time comes." answered Matt.

"Are we going to die?" asked Vera, seeming to appear out of nowhere.

"Where did you come from!?" exclaimed Matt.

"I walked from over there." said Vera, pointing behind her.

"I don't think that's what he meant." I said, "Um… why don't we just get to class?"

The beginning of class went just fine and then Mr. Smith paused when going over our names.

"Are you alive?" one of the students in the room asked.

"Oh, right." he said, "I keep skipping over Frederica since she's never here."

"There's another person in this class?" I muttered.

"So in case you were wondering why one seat's been empty," our teacher went on, "it's because someone is supposed to be sitting there."

Honestly, I had never paid that much attention to who was and wasn't here so I never really noticed that there was an empty desk. After class was finally over, Sheldon walked over to where I was sitting.

"I'm going to assume Matt told you." he said, "He did, right? ...Please tell me he did."

"He may seem unreliable," I said, "but he's not THAT unreliable."

"So he did tell you?" asked Sheldon.

"He did." I answered.

"We don't know when those monsters will attack." he said.

"That's what I'm worried about." I replied.

"Oh, am I gonna have a new story!?" asked Justin, who was suddenly standing next to Sheldon.

I could barely see his face due to all his hair, but I could tell he was drooling as he held a notebook in one hand and furiously clicked on one end of the mechanical pencil he was holding in the other.

"Gross." I commented.

Justin seemed to not hear what I said.

"You should stay back," said Sheldon, "it'll be really dangerous."

"As long as I can write my story," he said, with his tongue suddenly hanging out.

"You're really gross!" I responded.

"Ah, sorry." he said, wiping his mouth with his sleeve, "I got carried away."

"There will likely be a lot of monsters," said Sheldon, "and they'll be tough to defeat."

"Oh yeah, sounds exciting," responded Justin, starting to drool again.

"You know what?" I said, "I should just get going."

"Right." said Sheldon, "We don't want to be late for our next classes."

"Try not to die." I said.

"Oh yeah," said Justin, coming back to reality, "how do you know about the monsters?"

"I do have some magical items of my own that can detect them," answered Sheldon, "and those other people from my world also have stuff like that. Some of them can even tell when portals are going to appear and if they're going to be dangerous or not."

"If they can tell," I said, "why don't they do anything about them?"

"They like it here." said Sheldon, "They don't really want to get too involved either."

"Monsters aside," said Justin, "I completely forgot Frederica was in our class. Do you think I could get a story on her too?"

"I'm just worried you're going to turn into a total creep again." I replied.

"Well, I'm not worried about her." said Sheldon, "I doubt she'll have any connection to any of what we're worrying about."

"We really should get going before we're late." I suggested.

"Yeah, I think we're done here," said Sheldon.

After that, we split up. When school was over, everyone got together as we headed out the front door.

"That's certainly an odd pair." commented Mr. Smith, who just appeared.

"What are you talking about?" asked Matt, "All of us are together like all the time."

"Sorry, most of my attention goes to your assignments," he said, "I'm not really familiar with who hangs out with who?"

"What do you want?" I asked.

"It's about Frederica," said Mr. Smith, "She's been absent this whole time so she's got this mountain of homework…"

"Why worry about it now?" asked Sheldon, "If she hasn't been here, surely she wouldn't care to do it now…"

"That's what I said, but I was told to get this stack of papers to her house one way or another if I wanted to still have a job tomorrow." our teacher said.

"Being a teacher sounds tough." commented Justin.

"Okay," I said, "but what does Frederica have to do with us?"

"I was told that Frederica and Vera are cousins." answered Mr. Smith.

"How come you never said anything?" asked Justin.

"I-it never came up." answered Vera.

"Oh," said Justin, his mouth starting to water, "can you tell me more? I can make a great article-!"

I ended up slapping his face really hard.

"Settle down." I said.

"I can do it." she said.

"What?" responded Justin, "The article?"

"N-no." said Vera, "I can t-take the papers."

"Oh, good." said Mr. Smith, handing the papers over, "Now I can keep my job."

Once all the papers were in Vera's hands, Mr. Smith took off.

"Why don't we go drop these off?" I said, "We can worry about the monsters afterward."

"It's fine with me." said Matt.

"I really don't care." responded Sheldon.

All of us were walking together and chatting about various things as we walked in the direction of Frederica's house. However, as we got closer, Sheldon's expression made him appear… uneasy.

"Hey, what's wrong?" I said.

"The way we're going…" he said, "The portals are going to appear around there!"