The next few weeks pass with little to write about. The leaves turn from green to red and gold and brown and eventually drop from the trees, the first frost comes, and the school is noticeably colder. Ayla settles into Crossroads Academy quickly, and soon is an irreplaceable part of our small friend group (which is Cole and I, and Lily when she's around) and I find myself nearly unable to imagine how it was before she came. Luther and I avoid each other as much as possible, but oddly enough I don't feel any guilt or anger when I look at him-just the cold nothingness I've used to cover up memories of my mom and dad.

The only reason I'm writing about what happens today is because it in time changes my whole life.

******

Ayla is sitting on my shoulders, as she's started to do a lot lately, as I walk to my next class. She hardly weighs anything at all-it's like she's made of feathers, so I really don't mind.

"Your head is fluffy," She comments, petting my head like I'm a dog. I've gotten over my dislike of her being in my personal space (finally) and now have become her apparent vehicle of choice. "... Thanks?" I say, confused. Cole, who is walking next to me, snorts. Ayla gives him a look. "What?" She asks, swinging around to face him so quickly she nearly topples off my shoulders. She tends to do that, for some reason, whenever Cole snorts at a comment she or I makes. Cole blinks stupidly, unprepared for the question.

"I dunno," He says. "I just thought it was kind of funny because his personality is the exact opposite of fluffy." I roll my eyes. "And you're the most charming person on the planet, I'm sure," I say sarcastically, and Ayla laughs. A leaf drifts from her hair, and I suddenly wonder if they change with the seasons like normal leaves on normal trees do.

I don't get the chance to ask her because I'm suddenly at my class and it's time for us to split up. I crouch down and Ayla hops gracefully to the ground, thanking me for letting her ride on my shoulders. She reaches into her pocket and pulls out miniature versions of my books and pencil case, then restores them to their original size and hands them to me. I take them, jealous of how good she is at magic, but deciding it's a fair trade for me to carry her around if she magicks my books to make them tiny and weigh virtually nothing. She hardly weighs more than my books do, and is much more fun to carry around seeing as she actually talks to me and constantly tries to make me laugh.

Books generally don't talk, which I personally think is a shame.

I salute goofily to my friends (for some reason) and enter the classroom. I have Interdimensional History, which is either the most boring or interesting class, depending on what we do in a day. Some dimensions are incredibly boring to learn about, whereas others are really cool, and some we even get to visit, which is awesome (but rare). I walk to my seat (in the back of the room because I'm so tall and because I can't see too well up close) and sit uncomfortably in it. The desks in Crossroads Academy are roomier than usual because of how many different kinds of species have to be able to sit comfortably in them, but my knees still cram against the bottom of the desk unless I stretch them way forward and into the space of the person in front of me.

It's not a good setup.

Why?

I have mild claustrophobia.

A slow trickle of students fills the heavily decorated room. Posters depicting places in other dimensions take up half the room, and maps of the dimensions they belong to take up the other half. Some even cover the windows, making the room darker than the other classrooms in the school and making it feel extra claustrophobic to me. The feeling gets worse as the last few students come in and take their seats, and I scoot my desk back a bit to give myself more room.

Our teacher, a giant centipede with a human face, walks in with a horrible skittering noise just as the bell rings. She stands with half of her legs on the floor and her trunk upright, and wears tiny glasses on her crooked nose. All one hundred of her shiny, glistening legs go ticker-tack on the white tiled floor, sending shivers up my spine-and not for the first time. I've had her for a few years now, and I never get used to the sound her legs make. I don't know why, but I hate that noise above any other.

She skitters her way to the front of the classroom and takes attendance, her hissing voice grating on my nerves almost as much as the noise of her legs.

"Kelsssie Adamsss?" Mrs. Ochivan hisses. "Here," Kelsie, a girl with four arms, says blandly from two desks in front and one over from me.

"Boek Fyrsshvenssson?" She continues. Boek takes a minute unlacing the stitches that usually keep his mouth closed. "Here," He croaks from the desk in front of mine.

"Griffin Hanssssson?" I raise my hand, busy doodling in my notebook, and Mrs. Ochivan gives me a look of death over the top of her glasses. "Griffin, what do we do during attendance when our namessss are called?" There are little bits of food stuck in her crooked teeth and I try not to look at them as I respond. "Here," I grump. "And it's Griff, not Griffin, ma'am." She never calls me Griff. Not even after I've had her for years and remind her every single time I enter the classroom.

She continues with attendance, and starts what I fear is going to be a boring class about the flora and fauna of some stupid dimension that nobody cares about. Already, I'm feeling like I might need to leave the classroom to get a breath of fresh air to be rid of the claustrophobic feeling, and on top of that Kelsie keeps turning around to look at me. She keeps smiling at me (I only talked to her like one time, maybe two, so I don't know where she suddenly got the idea that we're friends from), which is making me even more confused and flustered and uncomfortable with this whole situation. I pretend she's smiling at someone else, but I'm the only one back here and there's no one else she could be smiling at.

I start to tune Mrs. Ochivan out, wishing class would just be over already so I could get out of here. I sneakily hide my notebook behind a stack of my books and start to draw random people in the classroom, only half-listening as Mrs. Ochivan starts talking about some important news or other. I have to squint to see my notebook so close up, and even then it's hard to tell what I'm drawing. I'll have to look at it later I guess.

"... Ssstudentsss, I am afraid that I mussst be the one to deliver sssuch bad newsss," She says, sounding unhappy. I tune in at the mention of bad news and glance up. "But it musssst be done to enssssure your sssafety and encourage you to have caution." Her black eyes pause to look at everyone in the classroom, eventually landing on me and staying there. My feathers raise slightly from the uncomfortable force of her gaze.

"We are at war with an enemy we do not know how to fight, and the ssschool could be targeted." She hisses, finally breaking eye contact with me. I breathe a sigh or relief, then realise what she said and my feathers fluff up in surprise. "War?!" I squawk, my voice drowned out by the exclamations of everyone else. Mrs. Ochivan raises two of her legs in a gesture that means silence, but we're too busy shouting things to notice.

"We're at war?! How come nobody told us this?!" Kelsie shouts, turning to face me. "I don't know!" I shout back, straining to be heard over the rest of the students screaming around us, the fact that I hardly know Kelsie lost in the moment. "And what does she mean, we don't know how to fight the enemy? What enemy?!" Kelsie looks nearly frantic, and as I look around I realise some people are even close to tears. I'm shocked, sure, but I'm not overly worried because I don't know the facts yet.

That's what I tell myself, at least, but I'm not sure. I have the strangest feeling that some part of me already knew about this, but that would be impossible. Still, the fear of everybody else is rubbing off on me as well and my feathers start to itch and spread up my neck, rising in a worried crest above my head.

"SSSILENCE!" Mrs. Ochivan yells at last, and the room goes dead quiet. My feathers slick back from the shock of her yelling at us, and we all stare with huge eyes. "It isss my job to teach you about thisss, and I would appreciate your sssilence and cooperation." She says quietly, and a worried murmur spreads through the classroom. She hold up one of her legs again and this time we all fall silent.

She skitters over to the board at the front of the class (the one place the posters don't completely cover) and picks up a piece of chalk with one of her disgusting little legs somehow (I'll never know how she can manage to pick things up with her centipede legs, because I'll never ever ask). She writes on the board for a few excruciating minutes, standing right in front of it so we can't see, and at last turns around and moves aside. Mrs. Ochivan's incredibly neat handwriting fills the board:

THE NOTHING

Independent dimension, class X

Inhabitants-The Everything

History: The Nothing was discovered in 1859 by a group of inhuman scientists. It was first thought to be uninhabited because of how barren and empty it was, but was proved otherwise when a small exploration and discovery group went on an expedition there in 1901. They were met by the inhabitants, who called themselves 'The Everything' and the dimension they lived in 'The Nothing,' and seemed friendly enough until they kidnapped one of the cartographers and left her bones at the entrance of the portal. The exploration group fled and the portal was sealed, but the seal didn't hold and The Everything gained permanent access to the Gateway. Since then, they have been waging war against smaller, weaker dimensions and gaining strength. Their intentions are unknown.

Description of inhabitants: Incredibly varied, but all share the traits of having pupiless red eyes, spines up their back, and skin that drips ink. They are humanoid in shape and have powers of which the full extent or purpose is unknown. The Everything are violent and dangerous. Do not approach.

Below the column of writing is a bad sketch of the creatures, but I can draw enough from it for a sick feeling to worm its way into my gut where it settles with a cold feeling of twisting dread. My fingers go numb and my feathers itch and spread, and I completely tune out what Mrs. Ochivan is saying.

No, I think to myself. That can't be possible. It has to be a coincidence-it just has to. I force myself to take a deep breath and push down the horrible thoughts screaming in my head. I realise I'm gripping the metal bars on the desk with white knuckles and force myself to calm down and let go.

There is no way my mom was one of The Everything. She couldn't have been, because that would mean I'm one of them too.

I'm not one of them.

... Am I?

I snap myself out of it and force myself to listen to what my teacher is saying. She's telling us about how the war was kept hidden from most people in the Earth dimension because there was little to no chance we would be targeted, seeing as our portal has spells on it to make it impossible for anyone wishing to invade it to find. She tells us she's teaching us this now because the spells have failed and we're no longer safe. Apparently, all of monsterkind in our dimension is being warned.

The Everything definitely want to attack us for coming to their dimension, but we don't know why. It seems to me like we don't know some of the things that we should definitely know, which is bad. Mrs. Ochivan keeps talking, but I tune out for the third time and let my worried brain go over the new information in my mind.

Was she one of them? I wonder. Am I? Does that make me like her? Will I go crazy too? My heartbeat thuds in my ears and I touch the scars on my arm nervously. I hope if I ever find out that it's in my favor, otherwise I'll be in serious trouble.

Class ends and I leave in a horrible, confused mood.

I haven't taken more than twenty steps from the classroom before Kelsie is suddenly right next to me, close enough to make me immediately uncomfortable and snapping me out of my horrified thoughts. I jump a little and stare down at her, too flustered about what I just learned to say anything.

"... Some lesson today, huh?" She says, sighing, and I turn my gaze to the floor in front of me. "Yeah," I say, swallowing. My heartbeat is loud in my ears from my horrified thoughts about my mom, and I really don't want to talk to Kelsie right now. I sneakily manage to put a few more inches of space between us; enough that her elbows at least aren't touching mine.

"You okay? You seemed really distracted in class," She says, and I turn my head to face her with a scowl. I'm already freaked out enough as it is, and I really don't want to talk. "What do you care? You hardly know me." I say a bit too harshly, and immediately feel bad. "I'm sorry, that wasn't nice of me," I say, cringing and trying to lower my ruffled feathers. Kelsie shrugs. "It's fine. If you're freaked out about the war, you're not the only one. Anyway, I want to be your friend, is all, and decided the best way to become friends with someone is to talk to them. I'm sorry if I was rude in asking, for whatever reason," I sigh, frustrated about this whole thing, and we're separated for a few seconds as a trio of chattering nymphs pass between us.

"Why do you suddenly want to be my friend?" I ask as we meet up again, perplexed. Really, I'm trying to change the topic and get my mind off of my mom. Kelsie smiles nervously, brushing her hair from her face with her eyes cast down at the floor.

"'Cos you're really cute." She says, then before I can respond she turns down a side hallway to leave me standing flabbergasted with feathers spreading up my neck and staring after her.

What-?