[Thursday, September 10]

Zachary jerked awake as pain rocked his body from the location of his left leg. Then it vanished as if it were just some phantom pain from a bad dream. He stared at his leg in bewilderment, contemplating the new information.

‘Why did I feel pain in the nightmare dungeon but not anywhere else on Vera? No, scratch that, why is this happening to me at all?’

He spun off of his bed and checked the time. It was 7:02 am. Just for kicks, he also confirmed that it was still Thursday. No time had elapsed while he was asleep and went on a day’s worth of adventure.

Although, he was late for school again.

He let out a nervous laugh and probably would’ve looked like a maniac. If he kept switching back and forth between Vera and Earth every night, he might go insane. He clutched his head with body hands and ruffled his hair.

His body went through the typical motions of getting ready for school, though, he spent extra time in the fridge and digging through the pantry. The wheels in his mind turned.

He recalled what he told Snowy in the dungeon. He had done something that was taboo for any world hopper. You simply don’t tell anyone about your origins, not even in video games. But on top of telling the girl from the nightmare dungeon, he had also told the head knight, Deltris, about his origins as well. That was the equivalent of telling the government.

Although this was different from a video game. This was real life. HIS life. Perhaps he should be telling everyone so that maybe they could help him. Snowy and Sir Deltris had both reacted quite well considering that his story was quite unbelievable.

Although, maybe they hadn’t believed him.

But how would people from Earth react to his otherworldly travels?

Deltris had locked him up. But that might have been also because he was covered in blood and gore, not because he thought he was crazy or actually believed he was from Earth. It was a reasonable course of action. But maybe the authorities of Earth would lock him up too, or worse, start performing experiments...

‘No. Wait.’

He stopped that train of thought in its tracks. This wasn’t some cheesy science fiction movie. He was a legal citizen of the United States of America. He had rights, protections, and freedoms that no one could get around.

Zachary finished consuming a container of steak-and-eggs he had found in the fridge. As an afterthought, he grabbed a can of orange soda for lunch. Then he returned to his room to shove all the papers he would need today into his bag, only to find, he never even unpacked in the first place. He shoved the soda into his already stuffed bag. A small hum turned his attention to his pitch black television set. The game console was running.

Funny. He didn’t remember turning it on since the night of the street wide blackout.

The clock beckoned his attention. 7:19. Now he would really be late for school.

Although, wasn’t this a unique situation? He should just stay home with a sore throat or something, then use his mom’s computer to do some research. The problem was, his mom’s computer was guarded by a password. But even if he could access it, he wouldn’t know where to begin.

Go to school. That was his plan for now. There were teachers there who cared about him, computers free to use in the lab, the health office, and a whole host of knowledgeable people who could give him advice.

He slung his backpack over his shoulder and mounted his new best friend, Mr. Bicycle.

Zachary took off in the direction of school with an unfamiliar speed. His bike groaned and creaked even though it was brand new. Only when he passed a few cars did he realize just how fast he was going. And how he wasn’t even tired.

That was weird. He wasn’t in that great of shape, was he? Realization popped into his head, giving him a headache.

‘It’s affecting my real body?’

Maybe he should go straight to the nurses office and have them check him out. They could look for anything abnormal. And he could also tell them about his “nightly adventures” and they would legally have to believe him.

Ok. Actually that thought sounded wrong, even in his head.

Distracted, he didn’t see the girl suddenly stepping out from behind a tall bush. He rammed right into her back, knocking her cleanly off of her feet.

Next followed a series of unfortunate events that happened to the girl.

She had been fiddling with a cherry red stick of lip gloss. When she had been knocked, the gloss drew a clear line from her lip, all the way up her cheek and into her ear. When she grunted in a very, un-ladylike fashion, a bug flew into her mouth and stuck in her throat. Then the orange soda which Zachary had hastily put in his bag was suddenly thrown and exploded on the ground next to the girl, showering her with sugary liquid. Finally, she landed in a puddle of mud.

Conversely, Zachary tumbled off of his bike into some tall grass, somehow not even gaining a scratch.

Someone coughed desperately. Then the two sat up and looked at each other. The girl looked down at her soiled appearance then back at Zachary, who just stared dumbly.

After a moment, the girl teared up and began to cry. Zachary fumbled with his words, trying to say something. The girl scrambled to her feet and took off in the direction she had come, crying her eyes out and further ruining her makeup.

Zachary scratched his head in complete embarrassment and sat where he was for another moment.

‘Well that went horribly.’

If he ever saw her again (and recognized her), he would give the girl his sincerest of apologies.

Zachary was a first year high school student in terms of age, but his classes were that of a second year, meaning he was one year ahead of his peers and followed a different schedule. So his classes were mostly with students one year older than him.

His first class of the day was always English, followed next by Biology, then Geometry, and then PE. Right after PE was his lunch period. His fifth class alternated between study hall and computer science. Today was Thursday, so that meant he had to study hall. And then finally, his last period of the day was History.

Zachary had suffered through an annoying first period with Jacob’s gang once again messing around in the back of the classroom the entire time. This time, Frank had brought a baseball, which they rolled back and forth along the isles when Mrs. Flick wasn’t looking.

Zachary didn’t like Frank that much. He was annoying and rude to those around him. Sometimes he saw irritated looks from Jacob too. But Jacob never said anything, and continued to laugh along with the rest.

Zachary finished up his homework in class instead of paying attention to the lesson once again. Then when class finally got over, he stopped Frank from leaving. Saya, a slow packer, watched the conversation.

“Hey, wait.” he said to Frank as the other students filed out of the classroom. “I want to talk to you.”

Zachary was acting very uncharacteristically today. But he didn’t even notice. Facing a three hundred pound werewolf AND a three ton spider could change one’s confidences.

“What do you want, squirt?”

Zachary looked him right in the eyes. “I want you to cut your crap,” he said plainly.

He smiled, but Zachary could see a touch of outrage in his eyes.

“Sure.” Frank said carefully. “By the way, we have dodgeball today, you know.”

Zachary raised an incredulous eyebrow. “Yeah, I don’t care. English isn’t dodgeball… or basketball.”

Frank's expression crumpled slightly and he stepped closer to Zachary. “Do you want to die, Za-char-y? Why don’t you mind your own business.”

Zachary didn’t back down though. “Do you even realize how you affect those around you. Even Jacob looks at you like…”

“Like what?” he growled.

“With pity,” Zachary finished.

Frank gave him a shove and started walking out of the classroom. “There is no face-safe rule in our dodgeball games, Zachary. I sure don’t hope you get hurt,” he said, his voice oozing with sarcasm.

Zachary let out a sigh of relief. Then turned when he felt someone tug at his sleeve. It was Saya.

“Hey, are you alright?” she asked.

“O-oh. Y-yeah,” he said, a little surprised. “I was just trying to tell him to pay attention in class.”

Saya gave him a curious look, then smiled. “Even when you don’t pay attention either?” she giggled.

He scratched the back of his head. “This is different. I already know the material. He doesn’t know it at all.”

“By the way, how are you so smart?”

“My mom puts me in summer school every year, even though I don’t need it.” he grinned. “I don’t mean to brag, but… I have a foundation for pretty much everything except cooking.”

Saya’s expression brightened. “Oh! Then the after school culinary class would be a good fit for you.”

“Huh? After school culinary class?”

“Yeah, I’m taking it. It’s quite fun. You are provided materials and can cook one thing every day. It's completely free and they even let you take your creations home to eat!”

Zachary planted his fist in his palm. “Actually, that sounds perfect for me!” he said enthusiastically.

He had been running low on food at home and he seriously didn’t know how to cook or prepare meals. It was a win-win situation as far as he was concerned.

“What’s the catch?” he asked.

“There isn’t a catch. At least I’m pretty sure.” She tilted her head in thought. “I guess it gets in the way of sports and other clubs. Are you in football or some other fall activity?”

Zachary shook his head. “Nope. I like to leave time for more useful things like video games.”

She gave him an exasperated look but nodded “Then we meet in the kitchen after school every day. See you there.”

She swept past Zachary, her hair floating behind her.

Zachary said goodbye to Mrs. Flick and left the room.

In between English and Math, Zachary found himself in the Nurse’s office. He was currently seated on the nurse’s bed, with the nurse looking over him.

Mrs. Cherrymore, a sweet old lady with a pen in her graying hair, examined his eyes, ears, and finally, his heart rate while he explained the sudden change in his stamina.

“Two days ago--- I mean, yesterday, I rode my bike to school for the first time in decades.” He started. “I was completely out of breath when I got to school and a little bit sore. But today… today I made it here in record time and I wasn’t out of breath. Nor do I feel fatigued at all. Only a little hungrier than usual.” Actually, that last bit was an understatement.

“I see.” She said thoughtfully. “Well, perhaps you are just going through puberty.”

He blinked.

She continued. “You’re right around that age. You are experiencing things happening to your body that you haven’t felt before.” Yeah. But he was already 15 and THIS was definitely not puberty. This was a little more extreme. “During puberty, you put on muscle, which requires energy, which is why you also have to eat more. My own two boys could clean out a fridge in ten seconds flat.” She said matter-of-factly. “Have you been eating more as well?”

“Well, yes.” He admitted. “I cleaned out my fridge for the second time this week. But don’t you think that it's a little extreme. And I should feel sore from that workout right?”

“I was a personal trainer before I came to work here at this school. The soreness you feel after a workout is caused by a build of lactic acid in your muscles. Sometimes it takes a few days for said acid to build up. You might feel sore tomorrow morning, but you don’t necessarily have to feel it today.” She shifted in her seat. “By the way, you look worried about something.”

Zachary rubbed his face with his hands. It had been an eventful couple of days (and nights). “Well it’s nothing much.” Should he tell her? “I’ve just been having some weird dreams that’s all.”

“I see. Well, I’m no therapist. But you can tell me anything you want, and I will listen.”

Zachary played with his thumbs, deliberating on how much to reveal. He decided to settle with a safer, if not paranoid, plan. He would reveal as much as possible without sounding completely psychotic.

“I’ll just tell you about the ‘dreams’ I’ve been having.” He began cautiously. “These last two nights I’ve had incredibly vivid dreams. The dreams are always a day long, and I gain solid, useful memories from them, just like reality. They’re so vivid, in fact, that it feels like I’ve traveled to another world, lived a second life, then returned back.” He didn’t release the fact that he thought it would happen to him again. He was only feeding her the watered-down version for now, to see what she thought.

“My, my. That is quite extraordinary. And what do you think of these dreams?”

An idea popped into Zachary’s head, an idea so good that it made him go silent and wide eyed as he stitched it into a plan. The nurse started the word for a silent ‘what’ before Zachary cut her off. “Mrs. Cherrymore, please take my vertical.”

The nurse looked taken aback. “Ah. Okay then. Why, might I ask?”

Zachary fiddled with his thumbs in embarrassment. “In my dreams, I can strengthen my own body. Then when I wake up in real life, I feel stronger. I think you should measure my vertical, then test my limits again tomorrow, to see if I have improved.”

Mrs. Cherrymore gave him a questioning look, but obliged after some earnest pleading and begging on his part. She measured his vertical against a bare wall in the room. Zachary jumped as high as he could straight up. Then the nurse stuck a piece of tape to the wall where his height should be.

“An impressive jump,” she said. “But why did you have me do this with you?”

“Thank you Mrs. Cherrymore. It’s hard to explain now, but it certainly has to do with why I came today. Also please leave that tape there and we’ll do it again after I dream again. So I promise to explain everything tomorrow, and this will help me explain much easier.”

Zachary hurried out of the room, speed-walking to his next class. The nurse looked at the piece of tape stuck to the wall. She pulled out a tape measure. About 58 inches. A new school record. Almost a world record.

Zachary changed into his PE uniform and exited the locker room through the second door, walking into the gymnasium. Coach Jornager was busy hauling a bin of dodgeballs out of storage. Students were forming on the basketball court, picking team members as they came out of the locker rooms.

Coach didn’t see a problem with this. He continued unloading the rack of dodgeballs. If the teams were too unbalanced, he would step in. But thankfully, most of the boys were football and baseball players and were quite honest. They liked competing against each other just as much as they liked crushing the non-athletic types, so they would split themselves evenly between sides.

Zachary saw Frank gathering with Michael, and Jacob on the right side of the court. It seemed that Jacob, the quarterback for Burlington High, was now the team leader for one side of the court.

‘How unexpected,’ he thought sarcastically.

Frank was busy whispering in Jacob’s ear and shooting glances at Zachary.

A tongue click escaped his lips but Zachary didn’t say anything and just walked to the opposite court and joined the other team. Although... he thought he saw a sympathetic look from Jacob.

A group of girls, all of them with makeup, came out of the locker room and divided themselves accordingly into the teams that had formed. With that, Coach Jornager pushed the empty rack off to the side. A line of dodgeballs lay across the half-court line.

“Alright kids!” Coach’s voice resounded across the whole gym. “I’ll take attendance. Then we continue to the casual game of high intensity dodgeball! Anderson!”

“Here!” a girl named Judy said loudly and clearly.

“Allen!”

“H-here!” another girl said.

“Beyemer!”

“I’m here,” a boy with blond hair said casually.

Coach Jornager has a good physic and a military cut. Nobody dared interrupt him and his authority was perfect for governing the lawless wasteland of PE. His voice filled up any room, no matter how large. In the gym, he was louder than a stereo at max volume.

“Gamino!” the coach’s voice boomed.

“Here!” responded Frank confidently.

He even had a whistle. Zachary eyed the little black tool around Coach’s neck. He had never seen the guy use it.

“King!”

“Here,” said Michael.

“Langer!”

“Here Coach!” yelled Jacob enthusiastically.

Zachary rolled his eyes, as the coach continued to list students. Then he got through all the ‘S’ names and came to the T’s.

“Trenner!”

“-Is a shrimp.” Someone whispered only loud enough so that the students could hear, but quietly enough so that the coach couldn’t. A few students hid in their childish giggles.

Zachary made a flat face and responded to the coach. “I’m here.”

He knew it was Frank. Only he would stoop to an immature joke like that one. Zachary shot him a dirty look accordingly.

Besides that one incident, the attendance finished up smoothly, a total of twenty four students were in attendance, with only one absence, a girl.

Twelve students went to each side of the court and lined up inside of each basketball key. At the start of a dodgeball match, the goal was to get to the middle as fast as possible and obtain a dodgeball or two, then make it back far enough to shield yourself and charge up a throw. The two teams couldn’t cross the half-court line and had to throw from behind it.

“Getting hit anywhere on your body counts as a knockout, even if you get hit in the face,” Coach reiterated the rules of the game. “If you get out, come to this side of the court and wait in line. If somebody catches a dodgeball, the opponent who threw it is out and the next person in line is back in the game. Don’t forget, you can block an opponent’s shot with a ball of your own.”

A few complained about the no face-safe rule, but they hushed up immediately when they saw Coach Jornager’s glare. He really was an intimidating person.

Zachary pushed his way to the edge of the basketball key. With twelve people inside, it was rather crowded. Thankfully, the girls tended to stay at the back, while only the football players lined up at the top. They were most eager to get to the mid-court line and steal some dodgeballs. Compared to literally butting heads after school every day, dodgeball was like an easy board game, but more interesting.

Zachary had his sights for the farthest dodgeball on the line. While the football players were competing over the ammunition in the center, Zachary would try to snag his own on the side.

He caught sight of Frank lining up in a position mirroring Zachary’s. He had a cold but confident glare in his eyes. He was going for the same area that he was.

For a moment, in Zachary’s mind, it was just him and Frank on that court. Frank made a breaking motion with his hands and pointed at Zachary. His eyes narrowed to a slit. He hadn’t forgotten the threat Frank had implied earlier.

Coach Jornager gave the signal, and players lept out of the box in every direction.

Frank sprinted toward the dodgeballs on the far side of the court, hoping to beat Zachary to the dodgeballs laying there. He was especially confident in his speed. He was a starting running back on the football team and a baseball player in the spring. Even the linemen were probably faster than the little shrimp, who didn’t even work out. But when he looked to the side, his eyes bulged.

Zachary was just as fast, if not faster!

They reached the line of dodgeballs at about the same time. Frank reached out with two of his hands and plucked two of the dodgeballs laying there before hastily retreating. The only person he wanted to knock out was Zachary, but the football players on Zachary’s team might not be so considerate. Friends liked beating friends just as much as beating rivals, after all.

However, Zachary’s hands moved like darts. Rather than picking up any dodgeball, he instead rolled three of them backward and picked up a fourth. Because he wasn’t on the football team, he wasn’t being targeted as much.

‘Football players really are meatheads,’ he thought to himself.

Zachary backpedaled towards the rest of his dodgeballs. Frank blocked a few shots from Zachary’s team, and then wound up a shot of his own. All of his attention was on Zachary.

A blue dodgeball flew through the air toward Zachary, who blocked it with his own just before it hit his face. Since he was holding the ball in his non-dominant hand, it was rather clumsy and the dodgeball popped out of his grip, leaving him defenseless.

Frank saw the opportunity, and threw his second ball at Zachary. The only thing he could do was dodge it or catch it.

Zachary saw it coming the millisecond his dodgeball had loosened in his grip. And since he doubted his ability to catch such a fast moving object, he opted to dodge it.

Frank’s dodgeball curved through the air like a baseball from a pitcher, which actually wasn’t that far off the mark, but Zachary seemed to dematerialize. He appeared a couple feet to the side and continued to backpedal towards safety. He had five dodgeballs on his side now.

Frank couldn’t believe his eyes, chalking it all up to a trick of the light.

Rather than wasting all of his shots by himself, Zack rolled three of his five dodgeballs to his other teammates in the back, keeping two of them for himself. He wasn’t the one with a personal vendetta after all. But he still wanted to teach Frank a lesson.

The football players hammered away at each other on the front lines, while the rest of the students watched and waited carefully. Some of the girls, the ones with lots of makeup and perfume even in their PE uniforms, strictly played support roles. They restocked the football players at the front with dodgeballs that rolled to the back, rather than throw anything themselves.

Michael walked over to Frank with a handful of dodgeballs. Together, they smirked and looked at Zack.

For the next several minutes, they threw shot after shot at him while other people kept them supplied with dodgeballs. For Zachary’s team, it was a huge boon. He never threw anything, and rolled the balls he blocked to his teammates.

Frank’s team started to whittle down. A bunch of people had been knocked out.

Frank was getting more and more irritated as his arm got more and more tired. He threw his hands up in the air. Dodgeballs were piling up on the opposite wall behind the basketball court. He decided to get some more ammunition.

“Finally,” Zachary whispered to himself.

He wound up, remembering the feeling of [Stones Throw] from the nightmare dungeon. The ball made a ripping noise as it hurled through the air from the sheer force of the wind going around it. The dodgeball flew in a straight line the entire length of the basketball court, nailing Frank in the back.

Frank spun around in shock, keeling slightly from the sting of the hit. As a baseball player, he knew how hard it was to throw something as lightweight as a dodgeball with such accuracy.

‘The wind resistance alone should have taken the power out of it, at least,’ he thought as he massaged his back.

“Frank, you’re out,” said Coach Jornager to the stunned Frank when he didn’t move.

“R-right,” Frank mumbled. “Sorry, Coach.”

Frank walked over to the line and stood next to Jacob, who had gotten out a long time ago. The match ended quickly after that with Zachary’s team as the winner. Humiliated, all Frank could do was wait for the next round.

The Coach started the next game after a slight reshuffle to make the game last longer. Unfortunately, much to everyone’s surprise, Zachary was the dark horse that assured victory for his team. Whenever he threw a dodgeball, it would always get someone out. And no matter how hard Frank or anyone tried, they couldn’t break his defenses. He always managed to dodge whenever he couldn’t block. Out of three rounds, Zachary’s team had won every time.

In the last round, it was Frank that got hit in the face, not Zachary. It wasn’t him that threw it, it was another one of the meathead football players, but to Frank, it didn’t matter. He felt humiliated, and shot dirty looks at Zachary whenever Coach Jornager wasn’t looking.

Zachary noticed, but didn’t care. After class got out, he hurried to the locker room, changed, and quickly left for lunch, but not because he was scared. He was just insanely hungry.

Zachary jumped into the lunch line. Yesterday’s menu was pizza, but today’s was fried chicken. Zachary got one meal and walked to the salad bar. After taking serving of salad and a generous amount of dressing, both for his chicken and the salad, he walked to an empty table.

It was far enough out of the way that few people would walk that far to sit next to him. It was also nearest to the classrooms and the vending machines, both bonus points as far as he was concerned. The classrooms were carpeted, so the noise coming from the cafeteria would be dampened for anyone sitting there. So on top of finding a quiet table, he also had easy access to snacks.

Unbeknownst to him, Saya Park was sitting at another table, derely wishing to sit at Zachary’s table with him. But just as she was working up the courage to leave her group of girls, a pair of boys neither of them knew sat at Zachary’s table and began talking to each other.

Since they didn’t know each other, Zachary ignored them and continued eating. He was almost done anyway. And sure enough, a moment later when he was done, he was still slightly hungry.

‘This is annoying,’ he thought then cleared his lunch tray.

When he came around, there was a muffled conversation coming from the vending machine area. Zachary found Frank talking on the telephone, the cord dangled from the object in his hands to the wall where it was plugged into the school’s system. He was pacing and seemed to be agitated.

“-Marci, just calm down for a second. Everything is going to be alright. You can tell me anything you want. You are the most beautiful person I know,” after he said that he frowned. Apparently he was talking to his girlfriend.

Zachary was disappointed. He didn’t want to intrude, so he ignored his stomach and went back to his table. But not before catching a snippet of conversation on the way.

“-What do you mean a kid on a bike hit you?”

Zachary frowned but kept walking.

‘There’s no way,’ he thought. ‘If that girl I hit this morning was really Marci Doyle, Frank’s girlfriend…’ He shook his head. ‘There’s no way. I don’t have that bad of luck. Do I?’

It was Thursday, so he had a study hall in the computer lab. Zachary walked to class, excited to get a whole hour of free time. But he wasn’t going to be using it for homework. He had some much needed research to do and a single very important question to ask: how does one break out of a medieval prison?

He sat at the desk with the white box and booted up the console at his feet. The machine whirred to life and he stretched his fingers and began typing and clicking.

Saya walked into the room and briefly considered talking to him again. But when she saw he was already hard at work, she went to another seat in the room to work on her own things as well.

Zachary’s last class of the day was History. He couldn’t care less about the subject. They were studying United States History. He couldn’t care less, because Vera was probably more comparable to European history. But even so, he talked to the history teacher, Mr. Warren, and found out he was very studied in those topics.

“Ah yes,” he said to Zachary. “Back when I thought I was going into architecture, I enjoyed studying medieval castles and picked up a thing or two about that time period. However, my passion really lay in the history behind those structures,” he smiled while gesturing at his classroom, “as you could probably guess.”

“So can you tell me anything about their social structure or their governing system?” Zachary asked, choosing his words carefully. “Like they didn’t really have dungeons dedicated to holding prisoners, did they?” He figured he could lead the teacher in the right direction.

“Have you done any research on the topic?”

He nodded. “Yes. Well, I browsed the internet this morning very lightly for general knowledge.”

Mr. Warren nodded his head in approval. “Ah, part of the SMET program I see. That’s very good. Computers are the tools of the future. I didn’t have access to the internet back when I was in school. They weren’t that popular yet.

“As for your question, the treatment of criminals in medieval times was quite harsh. They had dungeons, certainly, and they practiced torture as a valid means of confession before sending them to trials rigged against them.”

Zachary gulped, but Mr. Warren didn’t notice.

“They didn’t have any laws or protections for their criminal population,” he continued. “Law enforcement wasn’t very structured either. In towns or cities, sure, they had sheriffs or some equivalent, but in small villagers, everyone knew each other anyway, so there was no need.”

“So, hypothetically speaking, if one got in trouble with the law, even if it was just an accusation without any proof, what would happen to that person?”

He scratched his hair in thought. “Well depends on who is doing the accusing. If it is an influential person, like a noble, then that poor soul doesn’t stand much chance. Same if it is a bunch of common villagers. But if it's just one villager, then the accussee could probably file a defense. It all comes down to who has more support and influence on their side.”

Zachary frowned. He didn’t have any support on his side. The only people he knew on Vera was the head knight and his company, the ones doing the accusing and suspecting.

“I see,” Zachary said eventually. “Then one more question. If someone breaks out of jail, or the equivalent, what would the law enforcement equivalent do on their part?”

“Well, it would be about what you would expect. A general alert would go out to everyone in the country. But since the fastest form of communication back then was by horseback, it would be relatively slow. If the criminal grabbed a horse, he could escape to another country, but that presents another host of problems.”

“What about just inside the country, immediately after breaking out of the jail?”

Mr. Warren was quite surprised at this. “T-that’s mighty specific, mister Trenner. You aren’t planning on breaking out of jail, are you?”

He was joking of course. Zachary could see it in his eyes. But even so he began to sweat.

“N-no,” he racked his brain for a plausible explanation. “I’m just playing a realistic video game and wanted to compare notes.”

He sighed. “Of course it’s a video game. Well, if it gets you interested in history, then I suppose it’s not complete brain mush.”

Zachary exhaled but didn’t relax.

Mr. Warren continued. “It takes a little while for the artist to draw up a description of the culprit from the memory of the guards. But then that artist has to redraw that picture several times for distribution. If you are running from the police, I’d say you have half a day before the pictures start being distributed, after which the guards at least would know what you look like with some accuracy.”

“I see,” said Zachary with as casual a smile as he could muster. “Thanks for the advice. The video game I’m playing probably follows the same principles. I’ll be sure to get my avatar out of town before the day is over.”

Zachary waved his history teacher goodbye and left the room.

He didn’t want to go to the after school culinary class until Monday. It was rather disappointing that he wouldn’t get the extra meal, but he wanted to discuss it with his mother who would be returning on Sunday from her trip. Putting it off until then would give him time to hash out all the details. So instead, he went home to make an overdue phone call.

“Hey, Mom,” said Zachary into the house telephone. “I just got back from school. Sorry I didn’t call you yesterday.”

“That’s okay,” the voice of his mother responded in between short splotches of static. “You know how grandma’s house is. She doesn’t even have the internet. Only the landline. One of the reasons I came out here was to set her up with an email.”

Zachary nodded, then realized he was talking on the phone. “That’s right. I remember you said something about that.”

He also remembered that he exchanged email addresses with Saya the day before. But he didn’t want to be teased relentlessly, so he kept his mouth shut.

“So how are your classes going?” his mom asked.

Thankfully she couldn’t see his face.

“Um. I’m doing okay, I guess. My English class is super easy. It’s all stuff that you taught me over the summer.”

His mother also taught his summer school. Because of this, no matter how far ahead he got from his fellow classmates, his mother always took the liberty to place him in a variety of summer classes. Thus he had an edge in pretty much every subject, especially math and English.

His mother seemed to sense the reluctance in his voice. “Zachary… You have been doing your homework, right?”

“Well…” even through a telephone with a grainy connection, his mother could pick out his half-truths and lies, even if they were by omission. It was uncanny.

“I won’t give you the password to my computer until you do,” she threatened.

“F-fine!” he said nervously.

His mother was guarding him against the console games he liked to play from time to time. He understood that, but right now he desperately needed access to the wealth of knowledge that was supplied on the internet. The time he got to research in his study hall was hardly sufficient. The medieval period spanned a large area of time, and who was to say it even applied to another world like Vera.

“I’ll finish my homework and call you back when I’m done. California is like two hours behind, so you should be good to wait for me, right?”

“Hmm, yes, I suppose that would be fine. Get your homework done tonight. No video games.”

“Okay!”

He hung up the call and looked at his bag with disgust. There was a large difference in the things he “needed” to do, and the things he “wanted” to do. Homework fell into the former, videogames the latter, and fortunately for him, research and preparation for his next trip to Vera constituted both.

He finished up all of his homework, save for English which he could just do in class, then dialed his mother again. Once he had obtained the computer password and promised to do his weekend homework, he logged on to the computer.

‘What should I look up?’ he wondered for a moment.

Then an idea popped into his head. He typed “how to cast spells” into the search engine. A lot of interesting results popped up, but none were helpful for his purposes. The main characters in stories always had an innate “feel” for magic and could always just start casting spells. Sure they had to learn new spells by building upon simpler ones, but Zachary couldn’t find anything that described how to start with those simpler spells.

How did one feel magic? What were the exact words that he needed in order to cast magic? Were words even useful for casting magic on Vera? These were all questions he asked himself.

But eventually, he didn’t find any answers to his questions on the magic of Vera. He went back to researching useful things.

But when the time struck ten o'clock, he fell asleep at his computer and woke up on the dirty floor of a jail cell.

[End Chapter 10]