~CS dimension~

"Can anyone tell me the answer to question E?" Ms. Carlisle asked. The desperation that had been prevalent in her voice for the first few weeks of class was finally dwindling, replaced with exhausted complacency.

Not one hand even twitched toward the air.

She sighed. "Any guesses? If no one is willing to try, I'll have to call on someone." It was the same speech she gave every time, multiple times per class. Eventually, she would stop trying altogether.

When no one offered any thoughts, the teacher's eyes landed on a brown-haired girl who was busy twiddling her thumbs and observing the wall. "Stella, can you give it a shot?"

No response.

"Stella Harris."

Finally, the girl glanced in the teacher's direction. "I don't really know," she said with a halfhearted shrug.

Ms. Carlisle sighed. "Alright. Kaden, would you try?"

After some coaxing, Kaden managed to get the right answer, causing Stella to sigh in relief. She hated being called on to answer questions. In fact, she hated most things school-related. And it didn't help that almost every class she'd been in was full of students as nearly unmotivated as she was.

The wall didn't get any more interesting as Ms. Carlisle rushed to finish reviewing the homework before the end of class, but it was preferable to thinking about environmental science, so Stella continued to study it.

Four long minutes later, an obnoxious bleeping noise assaulted the class through the intercom, letting them know that their thirty minutes of freedom had begun. Since Stella hadn't even unpacked her backpack for class, it was easy to sling it onto her back and meander out the door with her classmates.

As usual, Stella was one of the first twenty people in the lunch line. She then remained roughly in that position for the next ten minutes, as people joined their 'friends' ahead of her until entire groups were forming on the sides of the line like some sort of cancerous growth. The food, when she finally got it, looked only half-edible, but that was more or less usual as well.

She scanned the commons area. The table nearest her was the one usually taken by a group of choir kids — one of several 'popular' groups who seemed to think they had influence. They weren't there yet though, and she didn't feel like walking any further, so she put down her tray and slid into one of the benches attached to the table.

"Hey, Stella?"

Stella glanced up long enough to see the band's saxophone section leader, Morgan Huynh. "Yep?" she asked, turning her attention back to her chicken sandwich. Marching band wasn't exactly her greatest priority — she'd only taken it to get waived on a P.E. credit and appear motivated enough to make her parents happy — but she at least wanted to give back when the rest of the group went out of their way for her.

"I know we didn't get a lot done at the sectional yesterday, so I copied my music with the dynamics written in for you guys to read from." They waved a half sheet of paper in front of Stella's nose.

"Oh, cool. Thanks," Stella answered, taking the paper and setting it on the table next to her. As antisocial as she usually was, she liked Morgan; they always did their best to help the section, and weren't too harsh even as Stella continuously let them down. They seemed to understand that Stella's issue wasn't apathy, but an incredible struggle to find motivation for even tasks she genuinely cared about.

"And don't forget, the section party is at my house at seven."

"Mm. Right."

After a second of silence, Morgan asked, "Are you doing alright?"

Stella nodded distractedly as she tried to unstick her sandwich's bread from the meat enough to get ketchup somewhere into the middle. Realizing that probably wasn't convincing, she met Morgan's eyes again, saying, "Yeah, I've just been kinda tired lately. As usual, I guess."

Morgan chuckled. "Just let me know if you need help with anything, okay?"

"Yeah, will do. Thanks, Morgan."

They smiled, nodded awkwardly, and left with their lunch tray to find their friends.

Somewhere down a hallway, someone made a high-pitched shriek.

Stella jolted, as did most of the people in the commons. From the same hall, more shouts came — they were definitely words, but sounded closer to unintelligible insults than anything really meaningful.

Several people cautiously stood up, curious about what was going on but hesitant to get involved. Stella was about to stand as well when two girls rolled out of the hallway, furiously pulling at each others' hair. She didn't recognize either of them; they looked younger than her, which would make them either sophomores or freshmen. As she watched, the brown-haired one pinned the blonde's hands to the ground with her knees, hands still tangled in the other girl's hair.

"I fucking hate you!" the brunette shouted, slapping the blonde's face hard enough to make a crack echo around the commons area.

Stella flinched at the sound, hands gripping the edge of the table. But now more than ever, she was overcome by a powerful urge to do nothing.

It seemed like the same urge had hit everyone else, too. Several teachers appeared from various hallways, looks of worry on their faces, but no one made a single move to stop the fight in progress.

With a shout, the blonde girl pulled her arm free and grabbed the brunette's chin, pushing her face back. The brunette's fist landed straight in her nose and snapped the back of her head against the tile. She let out a strangled grunt, pulling her hand away from the other girl's face in an attempt to protect her own, but more blows came at her, and she couldn't move quickly enough to avoid all of them.

Stella's eyes were glued to the blonde girl's face. She cringed at each hit, tensing, but her vocal cords never sounded and her legs never stood up. Nausea built in her stomach as she glanced around at the horrified bystanders, every single one of whom was doing absolutely nothing to help.

Her head pulsed in time with the fight, causing her vision to swim.

Finally, the blonde girl managed to push the brunette back enough to scramble to her feet. She glanced around at the bystanders, disgust mixing with the fear on her bruised and bloody face, then turned to the school's main entrance and fled.

The brunette watched her go, heaving, but when she looked around at the crowd, her eyes widened in realization of what she'd just done. She glanced between her shaking hands and the several teachers still staring at her, then bolted down the hallway they had come out of, shaky sobs floating back toward the audience.

Stella sat there with her jaw agape, unable to move even if she'd wanted to. The teachers who'd witnessed the fight had engaged in a heated argument, and someone had gone off after each of the girls, but to Stella, it all looked slow and far away.

A wave of exhaustion swept over her. She watched her chicken sandwich pitch toward her face before the world went dark.