“JAKE!”

Jake snapped out of his daydream from the loud voice next to his ear.

“Oh. Hey Tim, didn’t see you there.”

“You feeling okay Jake? If you need to go to the infirmary, I'll let the teacher know.”

“Thanks Tim but I’m alright. Just thinking about some things, you know how it is.”

“Seriously you should talk to someone about what happened bro. It’s not good to keep it in, especially with what they found down there. That and it’s weird you know? It’s like you came back a completely-”

“Tim….”

“No Jake listen, you really should-”

“Sorry class is about to start I’ve got to go.”

“Jake….”

Jake walks towards the door and turns around the corner to leave, but not before he hears something.

“It’s like they never found you and someone else came out of there…”

He paused for a moment then continued walking. He has had enough of people trying to get him to talk about what happened. Jake knows that Tim is trying to be a good friend, but the issue isn’t him talking about it. It is a far deeper problem than words can describe.

“Jake huh…. or I’m supposed to be at least.”

“Sorry for making you do this Zero.” The voice in his head softly tells him. The voice and him have become very close to each other since the “incident”.

It’s okay you don’t need to apologize. We are basically stuck like this for the foreseeable future after all.

“…. Thanks.”

No problem Jake…. take your time until you are ready to switch.

Jake slowly walks down the hall towards his classroom. Class goes by slowly with nothing really happening while his teacher talks about algebra 2 topics. After class ends, he packs up his books into his backpack and starts to leave but is stopped at the lockers.

“Where do you think you are going?” Jake turns around, only to be shoved against his locker.

Typical. And today was going so well.

Jake looks at the huge guy before him. At 6’4” Dan was a towering hunk. Football star and decent student to boot. The ladies loved to go crazy when he so much as smiled their way. It didn’t really make “Jake” jealous per se, more annoyed really. Dan always tried to compete with him in some way or get on his nerves, but Zero didn’t really care, and honestly neither did Jake at this point after that incident. Some things in life are just so grotesque…so traumatizing…so humbling that every other kind of incident of falls to the wayside, left to be underrated and forgotten in comparison.

Hey it could always be worse. That kind of thing.

He didn’t go out of his way to provoke him or anything, but he seriously didn’t want to waste his time in some useless pissing contest.

“I said, where do you think you are going loser?” Dan scowled. He had been trying to one-up Jake for so long that he finally resorted to other than honest methods.

“Next class, same as you.” Jake replied curtly. He knew better than to get into an argument with the guy. Doing so wouldn’t only end in getting his ass kicked, but also wasting his time.

“Is there a problem Dan?”

Jake looked slightly to the side and gave Dan a look.

“….” Dan followed gaze and immediately frowned. The principal was coming. “You lucked out Jake…but not for long.” He left sauntering off into the nearby Chemistry classroom.

Jake let out a small sigh of relief. Crap like this happened almost on a daily basis. If only I had my…no I’d definitely rather be here powerless, than back there and even remotely close to that damn princess. Also slitting this idiot’s throat and leaving him in the sewers isn’t going to work well in Jake’s world…remember, they are kids…

“Please don’t kill anyone Zero. I’ve seen enough…”

Fine.

He opened his locker only to find it in ruins. Books had burn marks and pages ripped, his favorite leather jacket was missing, and his class supplies were all but gone...and of course his chemistry book was missing. “Fucking bastards….” Jake, I don’t know how’ve put up with this shit for years. “You learn to live with it after a bit but you never really get used to it.” The voice said in a solemn tone.

That’s complete bullshit. Two years and Jake would have just started to get over that trauma about people. Thankfully, Jake wasn’t the one who was heading to class right now. Zero was.

Zero opened the door to the chemistry class and looked around. A desk near the corner of the room slightly away from the others had some kind of drawings on it. “Scared-y cat”, “Mama’s Bitch”, “Coward” and such were scribbled on the top of the desk in permanent marker. Yep definitely his seat, even if he didn’t agree with anything written on it.

The chemistry teacher walks in. “Alright Class today we will be going over the chemical formula for sodium chloride, and how to read other more complex chemical formulas. Open your books to page 242.” Everyone took out their books except Jake, who was missing his.

“Jake where is your book?”

The class snickered and giggled except for two girls and one guy. That guy being Jake of course. The other girls’ names he didn’t know, because he didn’t really care to remember them. Sure, they are cute and just transferred in last week, but it hurts less if you don’t even know their names after all. They knew it was an irrational fear to be betrayed by any and every one but did Zeno or Jake care?

Nope.

Not after that hell they went through involving people. They were just fine by themselves.

“HEY! What’s so funny huh?” (One of the two girls who didn’t laugh)

“…So noisy. Just shut up and let the teacher continue the damn lesson already. I didn’t wake up this morning to have my time wasted by a bunch of idiots.” (The other of the two girls who didn’t laugh)

The class was immediately silenced by the two girls. Jake was just looking out the window without a care in the world. Believe it or not, he already read all of the books for his classes in 2 weeks. For some reason, when Zero was in control, his reading speed reached far beyond what was normally possible. Probably since Zero and Jake were both conscious, they used different parts of Jake’s brain for the same thing thus speeding it up several fold. Overall…well it was his theory anyway. So, since he pretty much knew everything in the book, losing said book wasn’t too much of an issue for him.

The class droned on about chemistry and the salt formula, which resulted in a salt joke about Jake. “You don’t need the formula for salt since you can make it on your own, right?” The class laughed only to be silenced again by the two girls, one of them clearly almost ready to kill someone with looks alone. After that was just a normal class time and ending bell.

Those two girls walked up to him after class ended. The one with long red hair with orange highlights spoke first. If he didn’t know any better, Jake would say “this-girl-is-on-fayah.” Since her hair looked like a flame.

“Hey Jake, need to copy notes since you don’t have your book?” (Red haired girl)

Jake looked at the girl. She was definitely pretty if not down-right beautiful. She was wearing skin tight jeans and a tank top shirt that probably emphasized more than it could cover with dark red heels. But “Jake” definitely didn’t want to make any moves since it wasn’t really his move to make. “No, I am good. Thanks though…um…?”

“Jessica” (Jessica)

“Seriously, the least you could do is remember our names. Just in case, I’m Christina.” (Christina)

Jake looked at the other girl. Dark blue hair, green eyes and thin lips that curved into a slight smile at the tips while her eyes narrowed a little. Almost like as if she were a cat looking at a mouse. Her dress almost made her look like a gothic Lolita doll come to life. Minus the excessive frills.

“Thanks Christina, Jessica.” Jessica smiled a heart-warming smile, while Christina nodded approvingly. After that sort conversation, Jake left to grab, or rather salvage, what he could in his poor locker.

After Jake left, Dan also left the classroom, followed by the two girls Jessica and Christina. The girls pulled Dan aside into a stair-well while one put her hand over his mouth to prevent any disturbance. They threw him to the wall with an unnatural strength that late-teen girls shouldn’t really have. Jessica had a Glock 17 with custom grip to his crotch while Christina had a Switchblade to his throat.

“” You REALLY shouldn’t have done that Dan.”” They said in an eerie perfect unison. Dan’s eyes went wide as a single small drop of blood left his skin where the blade met his flesh.

“What the fuck-” (Dan)

Jessica slammed his head against the wall and took her gun off of safety. Dan's eyes flitted up briefly before regaining clarity. “Do you wanna die dumb-fuck?” Jessica said with a cold conviction. "You wouldn't be the first one I've put six feet under for pissing me off."

“C’mon let’s just slit his throat and be done with it…we are going to miss him.” Christina said as she slightly added more pressure to the switchblade against Dan’s neck. The single drop turned into three. “You know I’m right.”

Jessica gave it some serious thought before she sighed. “Sigh. Now Christie, if we killed him, wouldn’t Jake begin to not like us? We finally tracked him down to this school after all.” Jessica reminded Christina.

“Tch, yeah. I really don't want to do all of that work again...raising our grades, hacking the board of education's servers, bribing officials...we could just cut his dick off instead?” Christina slowly moved her switchblade down to his nether-regions.

Jessica and Christina smiled at the thought in unison. Dan had done something to their Jake repeatedly, and they couldn’t…. wouldn’t tolerate it any longer.

“P-Please don’t…do-” Christina pulled the knife to his eye while Jessica put the gun to his jaw.

“” Do something to our Jake again, and you won’t need to worry about having a family anymore…or living for that matter.”” Jessica and Christina said in perfect unison with a cold low tone. They looked down and laughed at him while letting him go and walked away like nothing happened.

“Fucking crazies…” Dan looked down and saw a rancid puddle slowly forming below him. “Dammit…”

Jessica and Christina walked quickly to the entrance of the school just in time to see Jake leaving.

“There’s our boy.” Christina giggled.

“Shall we?” Jessica said as a matter of fact. Then both of them followed their daily routine and slowly followed Jake.