The walk to college was usually a quiet, invisible affair. Today, it was a panic attack.
"Get down!" Elian hissed, looking frantically at the cars passing by. "You're floating ten feet in the air! People are going to see you!"
Lyra was doing lazy backstrokes in the sky above him, her black coat rippling like a flag. She looked down, bored. "So?"
"So it's not normal!" Elian pulled his collar up, trying to hide his face. "If they see a girl flying, they'll call the police. Or the government. Or Ghost-busters. Just walk like a normal person!"
Lyra rolled her eyes, flipped upright, and landed lightly on the pavement next to him. She started walking, well, skipping, but her feet didn't quite touch the ground.
"You worry too much," she said.
"I worry the correct amount," Elian muttered. He walked past a woman walking a dog. He held his breath, waiting for the woman to scream at the sight of the Reaper. The woman walked right past them. She didn't even blink.
Elian paused. He looked back at the woman. Then he looked at Lyra. "She didn't scream."
Lyra grinned, a wide, mischievous smile. "Hmm? Oh, did I not tell you? No one but you can see me."
Elian stopped walking. "What?"
"I'm a Reaper, dummy," she poked his forehead. "To them, I'm just a draft of cold air. Only the person on the List can see the Reaper."
Elian stared at her. "So... this whole time... I've been shouting at nothing?"
"Yep."
"And when I was waving my hands at you earlier..."
"You looked like you were fighting a bee," Lyra giggled. "A very angry, invisible bee."
Elian groaned, burying his face in his hands. "Great. I'm not just a loner anymore. Now I'm the crazy guy who talks to sidewalks."
"Come on, Crazy Guy!" Lyra cheered, floating through the college gates. "Let's go learn things!"
The Lecture Hall
Physics class was usually Elian's sanctuary. It was dark, the projector hummed like a white noise machine, and Mr. Harrison never looked past the first row.
Elian sat in the back, hunched over his notebook, trying to copy down the laws of Thermodynamics. ΔU = Q - W
"That is incorrect," a voice whispered in his ear.
Elian flinched. Lyra was sitting cross-legged on his desk. Not an empty desk, his desk. Her body passed right through his notebook and his arms, making his handwriting shaky from the sudden cold.
"It's the right formula," Elian hissed under his breath, keeping his head down. "Go away."
"I'm bored," Lyra groaned, falling backward so she was lying across his desk, staring up at the ceiling. "He's been talking about heat for forty minutes. If I wasn't already dead, this would kill me."
"I have to pass this class," Elian whispered.
"Why? Are you planning a career in engineering in the afterlife? Spoiler alert: We don't use steam engines." She sat up and pointed at Mr. Harrison. "Look at his tie. It has little atoms on it. That is a cry for help."
"It's kitschy," Elian defended.
"It's tragic. Watch this." Lyra stood up. She walked through the rows of students. No one shivered. No one noticed. She stopped behind Mr. Harrison. She started making shadow puppets in the projector light. First, a bunny. Then, a bird. Then, she used her hands to make it look like Mr. Harrison was being eaten by a giant wolf.
Elian bit the inside of his cheek. Don't laugh. Do not laugh.
"Oh, look," Lyra narrated. "The wolf is hungry for knowledge. Nom nom nom." She moved her hands so the shadow-wolf bit Mr. Harrison's head.
Elian let out a snort. It was loud. He immediately covered his mouth, turning it into a fake cough.
Mr. Harrison stopped writing. He turned around. "Is there something amusing about the Conservation of Energy, Elian?"
The class turned. Thirty faces looked at the back row. "No, sir," Elian squeaked. "Just... a cough."
"Drink water," Mr. Harrison scolded. He turned back to the board.
"Close one," Lyra whispered, appearing instantly back at Elian's desk. "But you know what would be funny? If I erased the board."
"Don't," Elian whispered frantically.
"I'm gonna do it."
"Lyra, no."
"I'm doing it!" She flew to the board. She grabbed the eraser.
"DON'T!" Elian shouted.
The room went dead silent. Mr. Harrison turned around slowly. He wasn't holding the eraser. The eraser was sitting perfectly still on the tray. Lyra was floating next to the teacher, grinning. She hadn't touched it. She had bluffed him.
"Elian?" Mr. Harrison asked, looking concerned. "Don't... what?"
Elian looked at the teacher. He looked at the silent class. He looked at Lyra, who was giving him two thumbs up. "Don't... forget... to carry the one?" Elian tried.
"Get out," Mr. Harrison pointed to the door.
"But," Elian tried to say,
"Out. Take a walk. You're disrupting the entropy."
Elian grabbed his bag, his face burning with humiliation. As he walked the walk of shame, Lyra floated beside him, bowing to the students. "Thank you! Thank you! He'll be here all week!"
The Cafeteria
By lunchtime, Elian was hiding at the "Sad Table" near the trash cans. He unwrapped his sandwich. It was flat. It looked like it had given up on life.
"That sandwich is a metaphor for your social standing," Lyra noted, hovering over his tray.
"It's peanut butter," Elian muttered. "It's protein."
"It's sad beige food for a sad beige boy." Lyra leaned her chin on her hands. "So, you got kicked out of class. How does it feel to be a rebel?"
"It feels like I'm going to fail Physics," Elian said miserably.
"You have 28 days left!" Lyra threw her hands up. "Who cares about grades? You should be thanking me. I saved you 20 minutes of boredom."
"You humiliated me."
"I made you visible."
SLAM.
A plastic tray hit the table so hard Elian's water bottle jumped. Jason stood there. He was flanked by his two lackeys. He looked like he had smelled something bad.
"Space," Jason said. "You're in my space, Nerd."
"I'm at the trash table," Elian said, looking down. "You never sit here."
"I'm sitting here today," Jason lied. He tossed a crumpled worksheet onto Elian's sandwich. "History. Due tomorrow. Mr. Henderson liked your last one. Write mine. I need a 95."
Jason leaned in, flicking Elian's ear. "And don't use big words. Make it sound like I wrote it. But smart."
Elian's hand automatically reached for the paper. It was muscle memory. Comply. Survive. Disappear.
"Are you actually doing it?" Lyra's voice cut through the noise. She wasn't smiling. She was floating between Elian and Jason, glaring at the bully. "Elian, look at the math."
"Not now," Elian whispered.
"Yes, now," Lyra snapped. "You have less than 29 days. That's 672 hours. You sleep for 8 hours, which leaves you 448 waking hours. That paper will take nearly three hours."
She leaned into Elian's face. "That is nearly 1% of your remaining life. Are you going to donate 1% of your life to him? This rude guy?"
Elian stopped. He looked at the paper. He looked at Jason, who was checking his hair in his phone reflection. Three hours. In three hours, he could go to the park. He could listen to music. He could argue with Lyra.
"Tick tock," Lyra whispered. "Don't be an NPC."
Elian's hand hovered over the paper. "I can't," Elian said.
It was quiet. Too quiet. Jason stopped checking his hair. "What?"
Elian looked up. His heart was hammering so hard he thought Jason could hear it. "I said I can't," Elian repeated. "I don't have time."
Jason laughed. "You don't have time? You go home and play video games, Elian. You have nothing but time."
"No," Elian said, staring at Lyra for courage. "I really don't." He pushed the paper off his tray. It fluttered to the dirty floor.
The cafeteria went silent. The glitch in the matrix had happened. The Nerd said no.
Jason's face turned a dark, ugly red. "Pick it up," Jason said.
"No."
"You little freak..." Jason didn't push him. He wound up. He pulled his fist back for a real punch, right at Elian's nose.
Elian flinched. He squeezed his eyes shut. Stupid. Stupid. I should have just written it.
WHOOSH.THUD.
There was no pain. Just a sound of impact. Like meat hitting a wall. Elian opened one eye.
Jason was frozen. His fist was stopped in mid-air, six inches from Elian's face. Jason was straining, his biceps bulging, his face purple, pushing with all his might. But his hand wouldn't move. He was shaking, his face turning purple, trying to pull his arm back. But his arm wouldn't move. It was rigid. His fist was covered in a thin layer of white frost. He had punched into a pocket of air so cold it had instantly numbed his nerves and locked his muscles.
Lyra was floating right in front of Elian, hovering directly in the path of the punch. She had simply let Jason punch into her aura. She looked bored. She was inspecting Jason's frozen, trembling fist which was currently phasing slightly through her shoulder.
"He really needs moisturizer," Lyra commented to Elian. "His knuckles are so dry."
"He really needs moisturizer," Lyra commented to Elian, ignoring the guy whose arm was currently hypothermic. "His knuckles are so dry. And now they're frozen. Tragic."
"My arm!" Jason gasped, staring at his limb in horror. "I can't feel my arm! Why is it cold?! Why is it stuck?!"
"Let him go," Elian whispered, terrified.
"I'm not holding him," Lyra shrugged. "He's just suffering from rapid-onset frostbite. He should have worn a sweater."
She leaned forward. She brought her face inches from Jason's ear. "Boo," she whispered.
Jason's eyes went wide. He heard the voice, but he saw no one. "G-ghost?" Jason stammered.
Lyra grinned. She raised a finger and aimed it at his forehead. She didn't touch him. She just built up the static charge she usually used to flicker lights. She released it. ZAP.
A visible spark of blue static electricity jumped from her finger to the center of his forehead.
"Boop," Lyra said.
It wasn't a physical flick. It was a neurological shock. Jason's head snapped back violently. His eyes rolled up. The sudden jolt broke the paralysis in his arm, and he stumbled backward, flailing. He tangled his legs in the chair behind him and crashed to the floor in a heap of limbs and terror.
"MY BRAIN!" Jason screamed, clutching his forehead where a red mark was forming. "SOMETHING ZAPPED MY BRAIN! IT WAS ELECTRIC!"
The cafeteria erupted. Not in fear, but in confusion and laughter. Jason looked insane, screaming about invisible tasers.
Elian looked at Lyra. She blew on her finger like it was a smoking gun. "Run," she suggested cheerfully. "Before he reboots."
Elian didn't wait. He grabbed his bag. He bolted toward the exit, leaving the bully screaming on the floor, defeated by a ghost who didn't even have to lift a finger, physically, anyway.