Jakob sat in class on a regular Tuesday. Math was never his strong subject, but to him Geometry was easy. It wasn't all numbers like in every other math class he had. Soon the focus was no longer on the teacher. It was on Ben, or where Ben just was.

Surprise was on everyone's face as he was no longer there and they all of a sudden hear a "What?" coming from, the no longer visible, Ben.

Someone screamed, Jakob was too shocked to look who it was.

Then the announcement bell rang.

"Attention students," it was the principal, his voice and breathing was shaky. "Due to unexplainable circumstances we are dismissing early. We would ask everyone to stay in their classrooms until your parents or guardians sign you out. All caretakers are being notified now. Please stay calm until then and stay in your classes until your parent or guardian arrives I would also ask if you could not use your cellular devices because it blocks the signals for emergency calls if everyone calls at once. Thanks you."

It was silent for what felt like forever. Then screams were heard all through the halls. The smell of smoke was becoming prominent.

"Stay here," Mr. Bridges ordered. He exited the room in almost a sprint.

A group of girls were comforting each other in the back of the room. People all around the room didn't know what to think.

Ben was still unseeable. He was invisible, but everyone in the room knew how he was feeling. They were all feeling the same thing. Dread. Confusion. Frustration. People were terrified that something even worse would happen.

Then the fire alarm went off. Students weren't wasting time standing around, they were racing for the door, pushing others over. Teachers were yelling over everyone and telling them to exit the building in an 'orderly fashion'. This was as orderly as it was going to get.

Everyone made way for a girl who was totally engulfed in flames, screaming.

Once she finally got outside, Dylan, a senior, had a fire extinguisher in hand. He aimed it at the flaming girl. The flames vanished instantly as the white foam replaced their daunting heat.

How'd she catch fire? Jakob asked himself as he gawked at the girl covered in white. Someone quickly ran to her and offered her their jacket. The only thing that was covering her now was left over foam.

As she wiped herself off Jakob noticed her skin was perfectly fine and it didn't seem like she was in pain. Not even one burn was left on her skin.

Where was the fire department? They were only a couple miles away. Usually they'd be there in under five minutes, it's been at least ten.

"I heard Amy fell through the ceiling, I mean she literally phased right through it," said one student.

"My teacher threw her mug across the room without even touching it!" another exclaimed.

"I got shoved to the floor while everyone was running out."

Comments like that were being made all over the place.

Nothing was making sense. People were walking, no, falling through walls? Objects being thrown around the room without actual human contact? Girls being attacked with flames and not even getting the slightest scorch or burn? And where was the fire department, the police? Were they too busy to take care of them?

What if it wasn't only the school this was happening to? What if was the whole city? Country? World?

"Hey, Jakob," It was Toby, one of Jakob's only friends. Jakob didn't have too many friends. He never really got along with too many people, he preferred to be alone.

Toby was the complete opposite of Jakob. He was so social that it gave Jakob headaches. Toby had a light, blondish hair color while his hair was black. Playing sports was Toby's favorite pass time while Jakob usually sat at the sidelines and read a book or wrote poetry. Toby was always the jock, and Jakob was accused of being goth, maybe it was the hair. When it came to height, Toby towered over him. When it came to looks, however, Jakob was the more attractive one. Maybe it was his quietness that made him seem all dark and mysterious or his icy blue eyes or the symmetricalness of his features. He was also born with a hardy figure. Even though he didn't exercise too much, he still had abs. Although, not many have really seen them. He wasn't involved in sports, but he ran and lifted weights in his free time, when he wasn't writing.

Jakob nodded at Toby to acknowledge him and looked away.

"Pretty weird stuff going on," Toby said, trying to make conversation, his hands were shaking. He never quite kept his head in stressful situations.

"What's happening? Nothing is making sense. People don't just randomly defy the laws of nature for no reason," Jakob . "There has to be some sort of explanation, right?"

Toby shrugged. "I guess we'll have to wait and see."

* * *

People were pushing through crowds of teenagers trying to find their kids. Everything was going from orderly to hectic in a matter of minutes.

Jakob didn't see his parents anywhere. He had gone through the crowd maybe five or six times and they were nowhere. Things were so out of hand now that he didn't know what to do. No one did. Everyone was just roaming around hoping to run into someone.

Teachers didn't bother having parents sign their kids out anymore, people were just leaving anyway.

Half an hour passed and more and more people were leaving. It wasn't as disorderly as before. It wasn't exactly calm, but it wasn't as stressful as it was.

A scrawny, short, brown haired women with a little too much black around her eyes and a slightly chubby old man walked towards Jakob. They were his parents. They never really quite looked like him, he had his jet black hair while they had the brighter colors. Their interests had so much divergence from his. The arts was not a thing they were into.

"Let's get out of here, Jake." Renae snapped at him. She never called him Jakob, so he never called her mom.

He nodded and followed them to the car which was parked only a block away from the school.

"What the hell is going on?" Jakob asked, hoping they would have an answer.

"No one knows," his father said while getting the keys out of his pockets. "News said there were enigmatic happenings going on all over the country and even some parts of Europe."

"There was this old women on the news who was nagging these kids and the next minute she was a popsicle. Literally frozen in place, surrounded by a block of pure ice!" Renae was perplexed, she was never shaken up like this before.

The car engine started with a roar that made Jako almost lunge out of his seat. All this talk of bizarre events was making him jumpy.

Who knew what could be happening next?

Jakob and his parents sat motionless in the car, wishing that life was making sense again.

***

School had been cancelled for a while due to weird circumstances. It was day four of no school and everyone was getting more and more afraid of stepping outside of their homes.

Social networks were exploding, links to videos were being uploaded left and right. The news wasn't the most reliable source to what all these eerie happenings were all about, a lot of it was probably true, or was deeply exaggerated. Either way, the media was expanding on all things paranormal.

Jakob sat on the couch watching TV while half asleep. He had been up all night keeping updated on what was happening all around the world.

There were groups of people who were running through the streets, randomly burning things or hurting people. No one knew why. There were more and more of these strange occurences, such as; Someone robbing a bank without ever entering; A kid, maybe the age of eight, ran right through a wall. There were a few more people who turned invisible and a few accidental deaths due to fires, murders and suicides. At least, things that looked like suicides.

Jakob could barely believe all this was happening. There were times where he thought he was dreaming. But this wasn't a dream and he had to accept this, before reality consumed him.

It had been days since him and his parents had left the house, but food was running low, though they didn't have much to begin with. His parents didn't have the greatest income. Jakob's mom was a receptionist and his father was a construction worker at Henderson's Construction.

Now there was no income at all.

Food would be gone in less than a they if they didn't get anything.

Footsteps were coming down the stairs. Jakob's parents entered the family room in all black clothing, probably to attract less attention.

"You going somewhere?" He asked them as they headed for the door.

"We need food," his father said, opening the front door. "There's some

sort of food drive a few blocks away. We'll be back in an hour or so."

"Couldn't you just stay here?" Jakob protested. "I mean with everything that's going on. . ."

"We don't have time to talk about this. See you in an hour," The door slammed behind them.

Jakob was alone.

Jakob was alone for a long, long time. Days passed and they weren't back yet. On top of that he was starving. He tried searching around the house for food, he didn't want to go outside. When he tried leaving he saw a group of people running around with metal bats and other tools. They were masked and hitting random things like trash cans and mail boxes. After Jakob saw this he was too intimidated to even try leaving the house again.

The neighborhood was never a very good one, but now it was even worse.

Police sirens and other sirens played through the night. He could hear glass shattering a few doors down, probably burglars or some peope who have become "metally unstable" as the government is calling it on the news.

All the lights were off in the house to make it seem emptry and Jakob was huddled in the family room's corner with a flashlight and a baseball bat. This was how every night went since the disappearence of his parents.

He hoped no one would come in. At least not until his parents were back. They were coming back, right? Jakob pushed the thought out of his mind. Of course they're coming back.

When he knew for sure there were no masked people outside he turned on the TV. He didn't leave his corner, even though he was hungry again.

Light filled the room as the TV flickered on. It was on the news channel, just as he had left it. There were more "superpower" stories. No one knew any other name for those mysteries. There were abilities, abilities that no one thought were even possible.

A girl in Wisconsin imploded and a little boy in Kansas mutilated and killed hi parents. He was one of the "mentally unstable" people everyone was talking about. There were more of more of those stories. Jakob called them the Psychs, short for psychopath or psycho.

There have been more of those occurrences of Psychs and the Virus, which was introduced only a few hours before. It said people were dying all over the world now. People were just dropping dead within minutes of getting this virus. There was still no explanation of the cause either.

The unexplainable abilities, the Psychs and now this Virus? What was the cause? Why were all these events happening?

Did his parents die because of the Virus? Even thought him and his parents were never close, it still chilled Jakob to the bone that his parents, the ones who raised him, are dead.

It would, of course, explain their disappearance, but the Virus didn't show up until ealier this very morning. Jakob didn't think that's what had happened. It had to be something else that was keeping his parents away. If it wasn't the Virus, it could have somethingto do with those Psychs running around. They were becoming crazier with each passing day.

The guys in all black who walked around and broke into houses were probably some of those crazy people.

Jakob knew he couldn't stay at home alone for long. He had to do something. Anything. If he stayed here he would die from not being able to protect himself or maybe of starvation. There was maybe only a loaf of bread, a few canned beans, frozen orange juice and a frozen pizza in the freezer. Everything else was already eaten.

Noises were starting to sprout from the distance.

Jakob quickly clutched the bat closer to him and turned the TV off. All light was sucked out of the room, except for the stree lamp that dimly seeped through the thin curtains.

He could hear yelling and smashing coming from down the street.

Jakob scrambled to the window, nervously. He tried to not make a sound as he leaned towards the window. He didn't risk moving the curtains, he looked through the crack between the vails, hoping to see where they were. Most were next door but one was in his yard. He had a wooden bat with what looked like nails hammered into it. Maybe it was to be used as some sort of spiked club.

Jakob ducked down as Nailed-Club-Guy pointed towards the house.

His house.

Sweat was starting to form on his shaking palms as he looked at them for a moment. His heart had never beat this fast before.

They were coming into his house. The place thought to be his sanctuary in a time such as this. But that wasn't the case. The black suited people split into two separate groups. Half in one house, half in the other. The would be inside in mere moments.

He could hear the tremor of the doorknob as they attempted to enter.

It was locked.

Jakob sighed in relief but he guessed they wouldn't give up that easily.

He saw a shadow come over the room as he heard the window shatter behind him. Broken pieces of glass fell upon and around him. He crawled away, not even thinking about the glass from the, now shattered, window. His figners were turning pale from gripping the bat so firmly.

He was now far enough away from the window so that there was no more glass surrounding him.

He hadn't noticed it while getting away due to adrenaline, but now he felt it. Actually, it was more of what he hadn't felt. He looked at his palms and he was startled to see that different sized shards of glass indented his hands, but none of it was breaking through the skin. There was no blood and there was no pain.

Nailed-Club-Guy stood over Jakob and was about to swing his bat, but as the bat came down, Jakob was propelled backwards and into the wall behind him. The nails on the man's club had just missed Jakob but were bent due to the impact of the floor. He looked at his own club and then at Jakob, astonished at what just happened right in front of him.

Jakob was pretty astonished as well. Did I do that? He asked himself.

The man came at Jakob, he missed once again and looke up. Now Jakob was on the ceiling, floating right above the supposed Psych, but only for a second. He fell to the floor, now right behind the man.

The other Psychs who were with him -which included three men and two women- were now pitching in on trying to cath him. One of the women had an axe in her hand. As she swung it at his head, time slowed. Jakob saw things almost twice as slow. He dodged the women's axe as it gradually passed him by. All he did was run and then a moment later he was on the other side of the room.

He ran to his room in almsot triple the time it would normally take him to sprint up there. Everything was a little blurry as he ran, but he was still somehow able to see where he was going. He was so stunned by what was happening that he totally stopped thinking and totally stopped in midspeed. Now Jakob was one of the Mutes that he was seeing and hearing about ever since it all started.

Forcing himself to continue was hard, but once he got running again it only took half a second to get to his room. He grabbed the bag he had used for school, flipped it over and watched as all the contents fell out and onto the feet of his bed. After going over one hundred miles per hour it felt like the stuff was falling at sloth speed.

It wouldn't take the Psychs to figure out where he went so he tried to hurry.

He packedd his bag with clothes, his flashlight and a pocket knife. He had no time to worry about food. Those worries would come up again later.

Jakob was about to make a run for it, but the group of Psychs was blocking his exit. He picked up a shoe that was left on the ground of his dingy room and threw it against the window. The glass shattered. He ran over to the window, waved at the Psychs, grinning as he did so, and leaped out the window, almost scrapinga giasnt the shattered glass that didn't want to leave the security of the window pane.

He hoped that this theory, that he had durableness, was right, otherwise the landing would be really unpleasant.

He kept his eyes shut, and for a split second, he felt like he was flying. Then he felt the ground connect with his feet. It didn't hurt, just as he'd suspected.

The glass from the window never penetrated his skin mere moments ago. It would have penetrated normal human skin, it would have been horribly painful for a normal person, but for Jakob, it wasn't. Something was happening to him. Something horrifying, but, at the same time, fascinating.

He looked behind him to make sure they wouldn't follow him down. They didn't. They all just stood there by the broken window, gawking at him.

Their stares were breaking down Jakob's insides. Making him spiral down into darkness.

He shook off their gaze and swung his bag -that he had pulled down with him- over his shoulder.

Then he ran.