Chapter 2

"BEEP BEEP BEEP BEE-" Myra groans and smacks her alarm clock, shutting it up. She sits up and pulls out the wires from her head, cursing school for starting so early. "It's 7:00 in the damn morning, who needs to be awake this early? Even training never started before 8:00." Myra grumbles. She got up and went over to her closet, choosing the first outfit from yesterday. She sprays some curl definer in her hair, brushes her teeth, and puts on some makeup. She glances at the clock, 7:30. "Half an hour to get to school, no biggie, the bus should be pulling up outside any minute." Myra thinks, as she laces up her last boot. She leaves and locks her door, opting for the long stairwell over the death box. She's halfway down when she hears the bus honk. Myra books it down the last two levels and runs out to the sidewalk, barely making it. 

"Student ID?" The bus driver asks. Myra fishes it out of her bag and flashes it to the bus driver before dropping down into the first open seat.  For the most part, the bus ride was fine. Loud at first, but Myra grabbed her headphones, closed her eyes, and listened to music the whole ride. She felt a tap on her shoulder, which startled her and she instinctively grabbed her bag and held her knife through the fabric. 

"Woah, chill dude, I was just waking you up because we're here." The girl who spoke holds her hands up defensively. "Hey, are you new here?" I don't think I've seen you around before." The girl has striking blue eyes and long curly blonde hair, and she towers over Myra by almost a foot.

"Yeah, I just moved here, I'm Myra." She says, getting up and walking off the bus. The girl catches up to her outside and falls into step with her.

"Well, I'm Raven. If you need someone to show you around school I'd be willing." She offers.

"Thanks, might just take you up on that." Myra says. She walks up the steps and catches the door from the person in front of her. The school was big; bright red lockers, long tiled hallways, and trophy cases lining the walls. It looked just like the schools in the movies, but were the people the same? She catches sight of Lily among a group of people, talking in front of the lockers. The girl from the bus; Raven, walks up and kisses Lily on the cheek.  She tilts her head towards Myra and Lily looks over. 

"Oh, Myra! Hey guys, this is the girl from the store I was telling you about!" The group waves at her. "And Myra, this is Raven, Kendall, Spencer, Jayden, and Juan." Lily says, pointing at each person in quick succession. "You've already met my girlfriend Raven, but I'll let the other three losers introduce themselves." Lily laughs

Myra waves awkwardly. "Hey, it's nice to meet you guys."

"Whassup girl, I'm Juan, and lemme just say it is definitely a pleasure to meet you." Juan says, winking at Myra.

A purple-haired person in black rolls their eyes. "Don't pay attention to him, he's a huge flirt, if it's alive and got boobs, Juan's all up on it. Sup, I'm Kendall. Nice outfit, loving the jeans." They nod in approval. "About time we got someone new in here, the testosterone was starting to get to me." They chuckle.

"There's only three of us! Over sell much?" A guy with locs play- pushes them into the lockers. 

"Hey, I'm Jayden, it's nice to meet you, Lily wouldn't shut up about you." He laughs, offering her his fist. Myra looks at it in confusion for a second before remembering a fistbump is a more casual version of a handshake, so she bumps his fist lightly and smiles at him.

A short, mousy looking boy with glasses pipes up next. "And I'm Spencer, the token genius of the group, it's cool to meet you." He holds his hand for a handshake, then looks at it and changes it into a fistbump, then a high five, then back to a handshake. Myra laughs and shakes his hand. 

"He clearly means the token dork." Jayden comes up and rests his arm on top of Spencer's head, laughing. Spencer glares and ducks away, sticking out his tongue at Jayden.

"So, can one of you show me where the main office is? I need to go get my schedule." Myra asks

"I can do it!" Juan walks over and bows. "Allow me to be your personal guide to Westwood Academy." Myra waves at the group as she's led away by Juan. "So over here is the English class, and over there is the math class.  And down that hallway are the Science and History classes, plus the gym and art classes and all that." He winks at a girl walking by. "And finally, right here is the main office." Juan stops in front of a wooden door labeled 'Main Office'.

"What can I do for you?" A lady at a computer speaks up.

"I'm Myra Allen, I'm new here, I was told to come to the office for my schedule?" She asks. 

"Oh, yeah, just wait there a minute." The lady goes back to her computer and types in a few things. The printer whirrs and spits out a piece of paper. Juan leans over the counter and starts flirting with the secretary

Myra thanks her and they leave the office. "So, what's your first class?" Juan asks. Myra looks at the paper. 

"Uh, English with Mr. Delmont." She says. 

"Oh, I have gym, gotta work on these muscles ya know." He flexes. Myra laughs and rolls her eyes. "But Kendall has that class, so at least you'll have someone to talk to." 

"Thanks, I wouldn't wanna be completely alone. Bye Juan." Myra waves and heads off. She finds the room Juan pointed to earlier and knocks. The door swings open and a well dressed man appears in front of her. 

"Do you have a pass?" The man asks. 

"No, I'm new here, I'm Myra Allen." She said.

"Oh yeah, I heard I was getting a new student. Alright, just take a seat wherever there's room." He goes back to his desk.

Myra looks around for a minute until she spots Kendall. They wave and gesture to an open seat next to them.

Myra sits down and smiles. "So Juan says this class sucks, but what do you think?"

"Eh, it's not that bad, there's a lot of writing, but I don't mind, I like writing." Kendall says.

Mr. Delmont walks to the front of the classroom. "So, we have a new assignment. Write a creative piece about outer space. It can be about life on other planets, or alternate universes, whatever you want. It has to be at least 2 pages, and it's due Friday. You can work with a partner, I'll let you choose. Any questions?" He looks around for a moment, no one says anything. "Great, get to work."

Myra turns to Kendall. "Wanna work together on this? Unless you already have a friend in this class." She says

Kendall laughs. "The only friends I have you've already met. No one else wants to be friends with me."

"Why not? You seem really cool." Myra asks

"Because of my pronouns. It's a pretty gay friendly school, but gender confuses people." They say.

"Damn, that sucks, I'm sorry." Myra says. "But on the bright side, I know a lot about space, and we're gonna ace this thing." Myra laughs in her head, "Oh if only they knew."

Kendall grins and high fives her. They start working on the assignment and next thing you know, the bell rings for second period. At lunch, Myra sits with Lily, Kendall, Raven, Juan, Spencer, and Jayden. 

"So, how was your first day?" Lily asks Myra.

"It was good, everyone here is really nice." Myra says. "The classes aren't as hard as the movies made it seem." she laughs. 

"So, Myra, where did you transfer from?" Jayden asks. 

"I was actually homeschooled by my dad. He never really liked the idea of school." Myra says, repeating her backstory she made up for herself.

"So he changed his mind? That's cool." Raven says

"Actually, he died." Myra says, picking at her food.

The table gets quiet. Kendall is the first to speak. "I'm sorry, I get it, my mom died a couple years ago. I'm here if you want to talk."

Myra offers a small smile. "Thanks Kendall."

"So you live with your mom then?" Jayden asks

Myra shakes her head, her dark curly hair swinging in front of her eyes. "She left when I was a baby, I don't know what happened to her. I live alone."

"That's gotta be lonely." Jayden says quietly.

Lily perks up. "I have an idea! We can come over and hang out, that way it wouldn't seem so lonely!"

Myra panics thinking of all the obvious other world crap just scattered around her apartment. "Ummm, I mean, I guess, but come over after a couple hours, I have something to do right after school." Myra says.

"Okay, we'll see you at 5 then. What's your address? Oh this is gonna be so much fun! We're gonna watch so many movies!" Lily rambles excitedly.

Myra's strained smile is glued to her face. "Okay, well, my address is 1592 Derton Blvd. Level 4 Apt 11B. Utica, NY.  And you may want to bring your own movies, I don't really have that many."  Truthfully, when she was out shopping for "Human essentials" movies hadn't been on the list. But she suspected it would be odd if a teenage girl didn't own movies. She looked up and the others were looking at her strangely. "What?" she asked.

"Nothing, just the way you said your address, sounded like a robot or something." Juan laughs. 

Myra scoffs. "Oh please, robots are clunky and ridiculous. Plus, I'm much smarter than some dumb rob-" She pops her eyes open and realizes what she's saying. "I meant, that robots are just, yknow, machines, and could never pass as a human or anything like that." 

"We weren't accusing you of being a robot Myra." Raven laughs. "We just meant the way you said your address was robotic." 

"Oh, right." Myra laughs stiffly. 

"Just to clarify though, you're NOT a robot right." Kendall asks. 

"Of course not, don't be ridiculous. I'm a human, I just say things robotically sometimes, it's a form of humor." Myra says. "It's technically not a lie, I'm not a robot, I'm an android, there's a big difference." She thinks to herself. 

"Okay then." Jayden laughs. "I'll see you guys at 5. Are we staying over?" 

"I don't exactly have a lot of furniture yet, I just moved a few days ago, so probably not, sorry." Myra says.

"Yeah guys y'all can't stay over me and Myra got plans." Juan winks at Myra.

Myra rolls her eyes and shoves him lightly. "That includes you Romeo. I'm Aroace so you can take your flirting elsewhere." 

Juan pouts and laughs. He starts to object but the bell rings, signaling the end of lunch. 

Myra gets up to head to her next class. "Want me to walk you to class? It's probably hard to remember where it is, with Westwood being such a large school and all." Lily offers. 

"Thanks, but I'm good, I remember." Myra says, tapping her head.

"You must have a photographic memory or something, it took me a month to remember where everything was." Lily laughs. 

Myra freezes for a moment before relaxing and remembering that having a photographic memory was something that some Humans had as well. "Yeah I guess ha, see you guys later." Myra waves and heads off. She pauses before changing her mind and heading to the library. If she was going to find anything about Human life and history, it would be at a library. She finds the historical section after only a few seconds of searching. She sits on the floor and begins flipping through books. She hears someone clear their throat and she looks up. There's a short woman standing next to her glaring at her. 

"You have to have a pass to be in here during class hours, do you have a pass?" The woman asks.

"No? I'm sorry I didn't know I needed a pass, I'm new here." 

"Then I'll let you off with a warning. Get to class and come back later with a pass." The librarian sighs. 

Myra rolls her eyes and leaves. "I'm sure there's a city library, I'll just have to check it out later." She thinks.