Chapter One Ezra, 9:08 a.m.

I wake up in an unfamiliar room. It doesn't look to be a room in my house. I am sitting on a bed and there is an alarm clock on the side that is buzzing. I reach over to turn it off when I notice another hand reaching for it.

   "Who are you?"

I notice that they are tinted white, so they are probably a ghost, but why can I see them?

   "How can you see me? Nobody is supposed to see me, unless…" He trails off. He is a cute kid.

   "Are you the one who brought me here?" I ask. He shakes his head.

   "No… He is." The kid points to a boy the same age as me, 16, who is sitting in a chair at a desk, sleeping.

I walk over to him and tap him on the shoulder. He wakes up.

   "Why did you bring me here?"

He yawns as he rubs his eyes and turns toward me. "What…?" It takes him a few "blinks" to see me. "Oh… I don't know." He looks as if he doesn't know who I am.

   "Well, do you know how I got here?"

He blinks. "Well, I brought you here, duh. I just don't know why."

   "OK. So you know how I got here, you just don't know why?" I sit back on the bed.

   "Exactly."

I can't believe this. What kind of idiot would bring someone to their house but not know why? Something isn't right here. He's either not telling me the truth, or he has a bad memory.

As if he is reading my mind he says, "I am telling you the truth. I just don't know."

   "OK."

We sit in silence while he works on something on his laptop. I take a closer look and I realize that it is the work that my class was assigned to do over the winter break. I guess that he is in my class, I just never realized. After he is done with the work, he jumps onto the bed.

   "I just realized why you are here."

I look over at him, because I was still looking at his laptop, and say, "Why?"

He gestures over to the laptop, unplugs it, and puts it on his lap. He types something into his laptop, then turns it to me and says, "See? It says here that you were supposed to be my partner for this project."

   "I don't remember being paired up with someone I don't know. I know everyone in the class and you are the only face I haven't recognized."

He takes his laptop back to his desk and sits back on the bed. "Huh. Interesting. I have been in your class all semester. Maybe you don't remember me because…" 

He trails off, just like the ghost kid did not too long ago. Speaking of which, where did he go? I could've sworn I saw him a few seconds ago, when me and him were talking.

I look over to my "partner". "I don't think I ever got your name?"

He looks back over to me. "It's Noah."

   "Okay, Noah, you finished the project, right?" He nods and I smile. "So, what do you want to do?" Right now I am fidgeting with my hands. I always do that when I am nervous.

He gets off the bed and paces around the room a couple of times, then goes to his desk and opens his laptop. "I don't know. It's getting pretty late, so you should go back home so your parents don't get too worried about you." He turns a little towards me and tries to produce a small smile. It actually made me feel a little better, not that I'm sad or anything.

   "Okay." I reflect the smile back to him.

I get off the bed and walk through the hall towards the door. I open the door, waving to Noah as I make my way through the door and start walking down the street. It's a little cold tonight and I'm suddenly glad that I am wearing a jacket. The jacket isn't even mine. It's probably Noah's.

   "Wait!"