*Robin Douglas's POV:

It was October 5th. It had been a week since that incident and I was still shook. We decided not have a sleepover for a while after that.

The sleepover was pretty fun after the incident though, but I was honestly glad it was over.

I might never forget that terrible night, nor will I ever play Truth or Dare with Hikari again. The question she asked Shimizu honestly still makes me blush. I didn't know if I liked Shimizu or not, I just met him a week ago and usually, I don't have crushes.

Me and my friends just got out of school and were ready to start the weekend. Everyone had a good day except for me.

As I was at my locker earlier today, I saw a Muslim girl walk pass me to her locker and these two boys whom were standing in the hallway saw her and started playing "Allah Akbar" and explosion sound effects out loud. They giggled and laughed as they were doing so.

The Muslim girl looked as if she was about to cry.

That's when I had to nip that shit in the bud.

I slammed my locker and stormed over to the two boys.

I snatched the phone out of the boy's hand and slammed it on the ground.

"Play that again and I'll show you an explosion" I threatened them.

One of the boys picked up their phone and both speedily ran away, scared for their lives.

I asked the Muslim girl if she was okay. She said yes then walked away, clearly afraid of me.

I swear, it was like even if I tried to help people it was never enough for them.

After school, we hung out at Shimizu house for a little bit, then decided to go out to get something to eat.

Throughout the week, me, Gaia and Beval had learned a lot about our new friend Shimizu. We even exchanged numbers and social medias.

We learned how his birthday was July 4th, his favorite color was blue, he had a four year old German Sheppard named Tadashi, and that he loved photography and wished to pursue a career in it one day.

We learned how he was kidnapped and experimented on at nine months old. He visits his homeland of Tokyo, Japan every summer for a few weeks, and his Japanese culture and heritage meant a lot to him.

I honestly didn't care for my Scottish heritage like that, but my parents did. It would make since, they spent most of their lives there.

Me, Shimizu and my friends walked around town looking for somewhere to stop and eat, that's when I spotted a pizza spot called "Laguini's" across the street.

"Hey, look over there!" I pointed across the street to the restaurant. "I've never seen this place before, do you guys wanna go check it out?"

"Sure" Gaia said with a shrug. "Let's just hope it's not too expensive"

"Or that their food is terrible", Beval added.

"It shouldn't be, Italian food is always delicious", Shimizu spoke up after being quiet for some time.

"Well, let's go in to find out", I said before opening the restaurant's door.

When we went inside, we were emotionally overwhelmed at how surprisingly beautiful the place was for a pizza spot. Most pizza spots look kind of basic, but not this one. There was a huge chandelier in the very center of the restaurant. The restaurant itself was big, most pizza places are a decent size.

"Table for four" Beval said to the host.

"Alright then, follow me" the waitress said while eyeing us up and down after gathering four menus.

"What's her problem?" I said to my friends as I gave her a mean look.

"Maybe it's because we're experi-babies?" Gaia guessed.

As we followed her, I looked around. Everyone seemed so fancy, so elegant and so upper class. The way they talked, the way they walked, the way they dressed and what they ate told it all: Laguini's was an upper class restaurant.

I sat next to Beval, and Gaia sat next to Shimizu, across from us. We started looking through the menus.

"Oh cheesy crackers! Everything is so freaking expensive!" Gaia cringed.

"Well yeah it makes sense, it seems like we're in a restaurant catered to rich people" I said as I rested my head on my hand.

"What?!" Beval and Gaia all yelled at once.

Because of their loudness, some of the people in the restaurant glared at us.

"Shhhh! God, you guys are so loud. You can look around and tell. Look at what the people are wearing, look at how they are carrying themselves, look how elegant they are, look at the prices on these menus" I said to them, trying to prove a point.

"Yeah, I guess you're right" Gaia said as she and Beval looked at the menus.

"The least expensive thing on here is the water which is $5.30 and the personal pizza which is $15.30 each. It's still pretty expensive for a glass of water and a personal pizza, but compared to these other dishes, it's cheap" Shimizu stated as he looked through the menu.

"Welp, then that means each of us would pay around $21-30 for our food along with our drink, especially if it the pizza has toppings, but can we just remind each other to not come here again. For real, we just got here about five minutes ago and I already feel judged by everyone" Beval slouched as he looked around.

I looked around. Some of the people in the restaurant were eyeing us down and whispering to each other.

"Agreed, I can't be in a restaurant full of snobs who think they are better than us experi-babies" I replied as I laid back in my chair, crossing my arms.

"What are they doing here?"

"Look at their eyes. They were definitely experimented on."

"Why on earth would anyone let them in here?! What if they try to destroy the place?!"

These were just some told the things I could hear people say about us from afar. I wish I could just slap every single one of them, but what would that prove? It would only add to their point of how we experi-babies are dangerous and violent.

About a few minutes later, a waitress came and we told her what we wanted. She wrote everything down and took our menus.

Five minutes later, she came with the waters.

It was about a twenty-five minute wait until we got our personal pizzas, but trust me, it was worth it.

I ordered a personal veggie pizza, Beval ordered chicken on his, Gaia ordered just cheese and Shimizu ordered pepperoni.

The pizzas were so delicious I had to eat slowly to enjoy the taste. I felt like I was in food heaven.

"Oh my god, this is so freaking good" Gaia squealed before eating another piece of pizza.

"I know right, at one point I honestly thought this was going to be trash, but I guess I was wrong. I guess you could say rich people have the best food" Beval winked at Gaia before he took another bite of his pizza.

After Beval winked at Gaia, she blushed a little for some reason.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a host guiding a girl and her friends to the table next to ours. She of looked kind of familiar but we paid no attention to her. About five minutes later, a waitress came to their table.

"Hello Ms. Mina Talikki, it's very nice to have you and your friends again. What would you like to have?"

The minute Beval heard Mina's name and saw that she was at the table next to ours, out of shock the water that he was sipping came out of his nose and mouth. He started coughing vigorously.

Again, we were attracting unwanted attention to ourselves. Some of the people in the restaurant including: Mina, her friends and the waitress were staring at us, especially Beval.

I had to pat my man's back just to help him out a little. Gaia gave him napkins.

As he was coughing, Beval and Mina made eye contact.

She awkwardly looked away and giggled with her friends. The waitress apologized and proceeded to serve them.

Upset and embarrassed, Beval excused himself and stormed to the bathroom. I could tell he felt so insecure making himself look like a fool in front of Mina and I didn't blame him.

"I'll go talk to him" Shimizu said to us before he got up and walked over to the restaurant's bathroom.

Me and Gaia just looked at each other.

"Well, that was embarrassing. I feel so sorry for Val" Gaia frowned as she shook her head.

"True that, we're going to her party tomorrow and I honestly hope she doesn't remember his face, nor what just happened because that was just downright unfortunate" I said, swirling my straw around.

"Do you think we should tell her who we are?"

"Hell no Gaia, not after what just happened. We'll tell her at the party."

"Have you even decided what to wear yet?"

"No not yet, but all I know is that we're going to have to look like popular kids, since this might be an upper class party. Who knows? She might be inviting a lot of friends from Jefferson High, which are filled with rich, spoiled, self-centered brats, so we're going to have to look the part. You know how to do hair correct?" I asked Gaia rhetorically.

"Yeah?"

"I'm gonna need you to curl my hair, every time I try to do it myself it ends up looking a mess."

"I gotcha covered Robin" Gaia smiled.

"What are you going to do with your hair?"

"I am going to have the left and right sides of my hair cornrowed and the rest of my hair out, like a mohawk. I already picked out what I am going to wear: It's a short black dress with black sandals. I'm not wearing heels because my feet will be hurting like crazy" Gaia explained.

"Oh, well I don't know what outfit I'm going to wear, but I'll figure it out" I said pushing my plate away because I was finished.

"I can do your makeup, I think the smokey eyed look would look good on you" Gaia smiled.

"Really?! Thanks, you're a life saver!" I smiled back.

A few seconds later, Beval and Shimizu came back and sat back down.

"So what did I miss?" Shimizu asked.

"We were talking about what we were going to wear for tomorrow's party and how we needed to blend in with the crowd" I replied.

"Yeah, we need to look popular, just like Robin said, "we gotta look the part" Gaia quoted.

"That makes sense, tomorrow is a good time for me to try something I never tried before. I am going to try to gel down my hair" Shimizu stated.

"Really? That would look so nice on you. You would kind of look like Elvis Presley" I smiled as my eyes lit up.

"Yeah, but I'm not trying to look like him though, hahah" Shimizu replies.

Beval was as quiet as a mouse as he ate the rest of his pizza.

I looked at Mina. I noticed her glancing at him, but it was only for a second, nothing major.

"Beval? You okay?" I asked.

"Yeah, I am fine, still a little embarrassed" he mumbled.

"It's gonna be okay, she might forget all about it tomorrow" Gaia said, holding Beval's hand on the table.

That's when we heard Mina and her friends laughing out loud. We didn't mean to eavesdrop on their conversation, but we did anyway.

"I promise you guys, I will never date someone who was experimented on, even if they're cute. They might try to kill me or manipulate me into doing things I don't wanna do. How about you Mina? Would you date a guy who was experimented on?" her friend asked her.

"Oh no Macy, I would never. They are just too weird" Mina laughed.

That's when we all just looked at Beval. I felt sorry for him. Imagine hearing your crush basically indirectly say that you aren't their type.

Beval didn't show any emotion, he just kept eating his pizza.

"I'm wearing hazel contacts tomorrow. I think we should wear contacts of our natural eye colors just to be safe" he said.

That was when Gaia spoke up.

"What?! Who cares what she thinks?! You're still human even if you were experimented on! Why do you want to change the way you look and change who you are? You are fine just the way you are and you don't have to change anything! You are one of the most good looking people in school so you can date anybody you want and-"

"And she can date anybody she wants, but the problem is that she doesn't date experi-babies" Beval snapped back.

Gaia just looked away and crossed her arms.

"Guys, let's not argue please, I honestly think this would be a good chance for us to be accepted as human beings. This is something we've been wishing for years and that's a chance to be accepted. Gaia, if you think about it, Beval is partially right. We have to hide our powers, and the proof of our powers are our eye colors. Example: My natural eye color before I was experimented on was blue, so therefore, I am going to wear blue contacts, what was your's Shimizu?" I asked.

"Brown," he answered.

"Gaia?"

"Brown," she answered.

"Beval?"

"Hazel" he answered.

"Well then, wear brown and hazel eye contacts, problem solved" I said brushing off my hands. "And under no means, try not to accidentally use your powers."

After we paid and gave the waitress a tip, we got up to leave. As we were leaving, Beval slowly looked at Mina. Mina looked back at him and he quickly looked away in response.

"That restaurant was trash, I am never going back in there again, no matter how beautiful it was. It was so expensive, it took most of my allowance. And not only that, I just created some bad memories in there!" Beval ranted after counting the rest of his money as we were walking away from the restaurant.

"Agreed, but let's just hope she doesn't remember us or that embarrassing incident" Gaia spoke up.

"Now I know where she goes out to eat" Beval smirked as he raised his eyebrows up and down.

"Don't be a stalker Beval!" Gaia sneered.

"I'm not!" Beval yelled back.

"Whatever you say" Gaia smiled with an eye roll.

We went for a walk around downtown, which was good for us because it gave us some time to talk about some things, like that night for example.

I couldn't stop thinking about that night, as scary as it was I am pretty sure none of us could.

I looked up at the evening sky. It was early October so that meant that it got dark earlier, like around 6 or 7 pm and it was about 5:40 pm.

Shimizu and Beval were talking about the San Francisco 49ers and how they won their game against the Pittsburgh Steelers. Gaia was just listening.

I interrupted their conversation with a question.

"Hey guys?"

"Yeah?" they answered.

"Do you think this whole "kidnapping kids" situation will ever end?" I asked.

"Hmm, that's a good question Robin, but I don't really know. More and more kids are getting experimented on. I honestly feel like the government is doing this to prepare for something huge, but I don't know what" Shimizu wondered.

"Maybe it's extraterrestrial" Beval guessed.

"So you mean to tell me, you believe in aliens but you don't believe in W.E.A?!" Gaia asked Beval with a cocked eyebrow.

"There's evidence of the extraterrestrial, but there's no evidence of W.E.A" he answered as he gave Gaia the side eye.

"I honestly think that they're experimenting on people just for the fun of it. They might not even have a real reason of why they are doing it" I explained.

"Maybe so" Gaia replied.

"You are wrong..." we heard someone say.

We all stopped walking and turned around to see who said that.

It was man whom I assumed was homeless. He looked to be in his early twenties, he was dirty and had on baggy clothes with patches of white paint on his pants. He was obviously drunk. He had a huge book bag with him and was swaying side to side with a beer in his hand. As he sat down he gave us an evil look.

"You are all wrong! You have-"

He stopped to cough for a minute.

"You have no idea what the U.S. government or the rest of the world have in store for you people."

"Sir, what do you mean?" Shimizu asked in deep confusion.

The homeless guy struggled a little to stand up.

"They are calling for a genocide kids! They're calling a genocide all over the world! A genocide on every infant, child and adult who was experimented on! You're gonna be put in F.E.M.A camps, and then... they will exterminate y'all!"

Me and the others just looked at each other.

The homeless man took a sip of his liquor.

"It's gonna be like the holocaust all over again, but this time there is no real dictator. What you don't see is that you're a threat to the U.S. government and to the rest of the world! You are hated! You are dangerous!"

That's when I decided it was time to leave, he was scaring Gaia, she was shaking and tearing up.

"Guys let's go, we don't have time for crazies" I said as I grabbed Gaia's hand and guided her away. Shimizu and Beval slowly but surely turned around and began walking away from the man as well.

"You can run now, but there will be nothing but dead ends soon!" the man yelled at us.

That's when we all stopped walking and started running.

A couple minutes of running later, we stopped near a park to calm Gaia down. She was stuttering, sweating and shaking, she was panicking.

That guy was such a jerk for scaring Gaia with that false information. It wouldn't make since for us to be a threat to the U.S. government when they were the ones that gave us these powers? Right?

I sat Gaia down. I sat next to her and tried to calm her down.

"Gaia! Gaia look at me, everything is going to be all right, there is no genocide and the U.S. government doesn't find us a threat, nor does the rest of the world. He was just trying to scare you" I said, rubbing her back.

"But we aren't really liked by people! We are considered monsters and hated because of a few bad apples of people who use their powers for evil and-"

"Gaia, he was drunk, I wouldn't take what he said seriously. We watch the news everyday and they never said anything about a genocide. It's all in his head, okay?" Beval interrupted her.

Gaia looked at Beval and hugged him.

"It's gonna be okay" Beval said, hugging her back tightly, rocking slightly from side to side.

I looked up at Shimizu, he obviously had something on his mind. He was just standing there, silent.

"You don't believe what he said, do you?" I asked him.

He looked at me, then at the ground.

"No, I mean, I don't know. The government has always hid things from the public, but this, I don't think so, and the fact that he brought the holocaust into it was so disrespectful" Shimizu said as he angrily shook his head.

All because of that stupid ass homeless guy, our day was ruined, especially Gaia's. Gaia picked up her things from Shimizu's house and went straight home afterwards. Me and Beval decided to stay at Shimizu's house for a bit. We never said or mentioned anything about what the homeless man said because there was no need to. He was just a drunkard, a wasted asshole.

But I could tell just by looking at Shimizu's face that he was wondering if what that man said was true or not and he was starting to question everything on the news, media and in society in general.