Evan's first day at Y City High ended the same way most school days did.
With noise.
Students poured out of the building like water released from a dam. Conversations overlapped, lockers slammed, and the parking lot filled with engines starting one after another. The late afternoon sun sat low above the buildings, casting long shadows across the pavement.
Evan stepped outside with the flow of students.
He walked calmly, backpack slung over one shoulder, eyes forward.
To anyone watching, he looked like any other seventeen year old finishing his first day at a new school.
Inside, his mind was busy sorting through everything he had experienced.
The noise.
The people.
The movement.
High school was different from middle school. The building was bigger, the students older, the energy more chaotic. Hundreds of voices mixed together into a constant hum that Evan had to filter carefully.
When he was younger, sounds like that overwhelmed him.
Now he had learned control.
