I sit on the edge of my desk, fluorescent lights buzzing above me, their harsh, sterile glow casting sharp shadows across room 214. Outside, the morning sun filters through the dusty blinds, splitting the classroom with uneven strips of light. But inside, everything feels muted, gray—lifeless. I run my fingers through my hair, trying to push the sleep away, but it lingers in my head, dull and heavy. My mouth tastes stale, like the dry, cottony feeling after sleep, even though I haven't had coffee yet.
The hallway hums with voices, but they sound muffled, like I'm listening to a conversation through glass—untouchable, disconnected.
Miss Patel stands at the front of the room, droning on about reaction rates. Her voice blends into the hum of the fluorescent lights, both a monotone buzz in the back of my head. I push my notebook aside. I already know the equation. I don't care. Maya—an acquaintance of mine, sitting up front—laughs at something Miss Patel said, but even her laugh is muffled, distant, like it's coming from another world. Oliver, across from me, taps away on his tablet, likely plotting his next robot or gadget. Aiko is by the sink, silently sorting test tubes. I haven't really spoken to her since she transferred here. They all move around me like characters in a dream I'm not a part of. I'm standing just outside of it all.
My gaze lands on the periodic table on the wall, the symbols—Potassium, Krypton—blurring in my vision. I linger on a yellow smiley sticker Maya slapped in the corner last week. I can almost feel the sticky edges of it in my vision. I remember her from yesterday, handing me a snack in the lunch line. "You okay, Trev?" she asked, her eyes searching mine. I nodded, but I couldn't fake a smile. She tried again, mentioning last night's game results. I just mumbled something. People expect a response, but I don't have one to give.
Morning drags into lunch. I slide into a spot at the worn cafeteria table, joining Maya, Oliver, Kory, Michael, and Connor. They're my friends, I guess—though I don't really get why they enjoy my company. The afternoon sun leaks through the windows, warm on my neck despite the harsh fluorescent lights overhead. Maya's talking about a movie she watched, her eyes lighting up, but I only catch fragments of her words—her voice muffled, like I'm listening to music with the volume too low. Oliver munches on chips, flicking through something on his phone, but I don't care enough to look. Kory's showing off plans for a new engine he wants to build; Michael and Connor are laughing at some inside joke. Aiko sits quietly at the edge, her smile soft, distant.
I'm the ghost at this table. They greet me out of habit, like I'm some shadow they've learned to walk through, a part of the scenery they don't really see.
"Trev," Michael says between chews. I just sip my soda. "Another quiet one, huh?" Kory teases, tossing a napkin at me. I swipe it off my shoulder, offering a small smile just because he's looking at me. Kory's one of the few who notices. He sees me. I hold that empty space in my mind where I should've responded. It makes me feel worse.
The bell rings. Oliver stands, already done with lunch, like it's just a distraction from whatever else he's thinking about. The others follow. Connor slaps Michael on the back and heads for the door. Maya waves, "See you later, Trev." I nod, watching them leave. I never wave back. Not sure if I even know how. The hall feels narrower now, their absence pressing down on me. For a moment, I think about stopping by my locker to grab my physics book, but the hallway's a river, and I just float with it, shoulders hunched.
In physics class, Ms. Nguyen asks who finished the assignment. I pull my gaze from the dusty chalkboard and raise my hand halfheartedly. She calls on me first, and I say, "Yeah." I'm sure I aced it—just like I would've aced chemistry if I cared. All I feel is the ticking of the clock. A tick I'm waiting for, but it never arrives. After class, I hang back against the wall, listening as the others slip into their own conversations. Aiko and Maya are bent together, comparing notes. Kory's flipping through his notebook, eyes blank. Oliver's digging through his locker. They all talk around me, but I'm still standing outside of it. They don't even notice.
When the final bell rings, I'm one of the last to leave. I stop by my locker to grab my forgotten books. The janitor sweeps the floor in the corner, but otherwise, the halls are empty. I don't speak to anyone. My reflection stares back at me in the dark window as I shut my textbook. My eyes are empty, the face in the glass not quite matching the kid who's supposed to be wearing it. I feel like I'm watching myself from somewhere else.
Walking home after school, the neighborhood is still, the air thick with the weight of nothing. The streets are quiet, houses lined up like the pieces of a board game no one's playing. I pass Aiko's house—her parents are in the yard, chatting. She's laughing about something when she spots me and waves. I return the gesture with a small smile, though we're barely more than strangers. She keeps walking inside.
At home, the front door greets me with a corgi magnet and a sticky note: "DON'T FORGET GARBAGE NIGHT." I kick my shoes off in the hallway and drop my backpack onto the couch. Mom's at the stove, cooking dinner. Dad's still at work. The apartment smells like sautéed onions and old pizza. I nod to Mom, and she asks how my day was. I give the standard answer: "It was fine, thanks." She smiles and asks about my test. I tell her I got an A, though I barely remember the questions. She's happy, but I wonder if she's proud or just relieved. Either way, it doesn't mean anything to me.
I grab a slice of cold pizza from the fridge and push peas around my plate. The TV hums with an old sitcom I don't care about. Mom and I exchange small talk about dinner plans and my little brother's math homework. I tell her I stayed after school to clean up after practice, but really, I couldn't stand the thought of sitting at home, doing nothing, so I pretended I had something to do.
Later, in my room, the day quiets down. I drop my jacket on the chair and make my way to the corner where my old gadgets sit. A shelf filled with parts—soldering iron, pliers, old phone prototypes. And under a dusty blanket, there it is: my old VR headset. A cracked sticker with the Interworld logo peeks out. I pull it out slowly, running my fingers over the contours. It's heavier than I remember, a faint film of dust covering it.
"It's been years since I thought about this thing—since 2026. I can still hear the last sounds of Interworld in my head: the battle cries, the digital hum, the rush of victory. And yet... the headset feels foreign now, like it belongs to someone else." Once, in another life, it was everything to me. In Interworld, I was Vox, a warrior. But now, the world I left behind feels distant, strange, as if it never existed. I remember the last time I tried to turn it on, months ago, when it didn't even power up. The shutdown—everything shutting down—lingers in my mind. The cheers, the pain, the panic. Then black.
My room is quiet except for the drone of my computer fan. I lay back on the bed, staring at the ceiling, feeling the thinness of the mattress beneath me. I watch dust particles float lazily in a shaft of streetlight. Everything feels slower than it should. My hand twitches toward the headset, almost without thinking.
And then… something happens.
A tiny light flickers weakly on the side of the headset. My breath catches. I sit up. The hallway lamp spills light in stripes across the floor. The headset sits on my desk, humming softly, almost like it's alive. That thing hasn't powered up in years. There's no way this is real. It must be the circuit board doing something impossible.
I stare at the lens as it snaps open on its own, the glass splitting with a delicate seam.
The screen is black. Then, pale blue words flicker into existence:
"Welcome back, Vox. Sync in progress. Interworld 2.0 initializing."