Finishing the Biohist exam several minutes ahead of my classmates, I checked over my answers— all correct— hit the submit button, then relaxed back into my desk chair and let my gaze drift around the room.
My best friend Ketta was still working on her interactive holographic desktop display, racing to finish before the end-of-day signal.
Jolie, another of our friends, was staring off into space, chewing her lip as she debated her answer.
Either that or she’d hidden a cheat sheet on her ocular implant and was scanning it for a little clandestine help.
Even Lee Huber, who was usually neck and neck with me for finishing first, still labored over his test.
It must have been a tough one—for them.
Luckily, academics came easily to me, and I had prepared well. Biohistory was my favorite subject, and Mrs. McComb my favorite teacher.
She smiled and nodded at me, forming her hand into a thumbs-up gesture of approval and mouthing a silent phrase, “Perfect score.”
I smiled, blushing a bit at her praise before looking away toward the window. Just outside the classroom, a couple of large trees formed a rustic frame for a square of blue, cloudless sky. My ocular implants zoomed in close on the bark of one tree, studying its intricate pattern.
And then I was no longer in my classroom on the base but somewhere altogether different, surrounded by more trees of more varieties than I’d ever seen in real life.
It was a forest, and I was hiking… but not alone.
Up ahead of me walked a tall, broad-shouldered guy. I couldn’t see his face, only the back of his head. Beside him walked a smaller person. A child?
That was impossible, but then so were many details that appeared in what I liked to call my “mental vacations.”
They were happening more and more frequently.
Sometimes they were fuzzy and dreamlike, but this one seemed so real. The air was cool and crisp, scented with pine and a hint of campfire smoke.
The sound of deep male laughter sent a pleasant shiver down my spine and a warm feeling spreading throughout my mid-section.
I couldn’t hear the conversation of my two hiking companions except for a snippet that drifted back to me in a high, childlike voice that sometimes haunted my dreams at night.
“The lost boys, Reya! The lost boys,” it rang through the trees.
“Mireya,” Another voice punctured the idyllic vision. This one was louder, more insistent and much more mature.
I blinked, feeling something in my brain shift, and I was back in the classroom at Florian Air Force Base.
Mrs. McComb was staring at me, concern furrowing her brow. “Mireya, are you okay?”
Several of my classmates stood near their desks, staring at me as well.
“Oh.” I jumped up from my own desk, hurriedly gathering my belongings. “I didn’t hear the final chime.”
“You didn’t hear your holoconnect either when it signaled time for meds. Did you black out? Are you feeling sick?” my teacher asked.
“No, definitely not,” I blurted.
Several months ago I’d apparently missed a few days of school due to some mystery illness, and though I couldn’t remember my time in the hospital, I felt a distinct aversion to going back there.
Mrs. McComb frowned. “Maybe you’d better go see Dr. Rex just in case.”
Grabbing my backpack, I rushed past her toward the classroom door where Ketta waited for me.
“I’m fine,” I called back over my shoulder. “Just daydreaming. See you tomorrow, Mrs. McComb.”
“Don’t forget to take your meds,” she called after me. “It’s not safe to skip them.”
Walking down the corridor with Ketta, I obediently dug my pill dispenser from my bag and dry-swallowed one of the green pills I’d been instructed to take three times a day.
Ketta watched me with interest. “I wonder why yours are green instead of red like mine?”
I shrugged and shoved the dispenser back into a pocket. “I guess it’s some leftover thing related to my illness? I totally feel better, though,” I added quickly. “Mrs. McComb is flipping out over nothing.”
Ketta was my best friend, and I wasn’t exactly afraid she’d tattle on me, but I knew she was concerned. All my friends had been, which was so nice. I’d come home from the hospital to notes and gifts from several of them and a fruit arrangement from the school staff.
Ketta narrowed her eyes, apparently debating whether to take me at my word.
“I promise— I feel fine,” I assured her.
And it was true. Other than experiencing increasingly frequent waking dreams like the one I’d just had in the classroom, I felt completely… normal.
———————————————————-
Mom acted anything but normal when I arrived at home. She rushed into the foyer, startling me in mid-cuddle with our dog Dingo.
“There you are,” she wheezed. “The school called. They said you had an incident in last period?”
“It wasn’t an ‘incident,’” I argued. “My mind just drifted a bit. I finished my test early, and I was bored. I got a perfect score, by the way.”
“Oh wow, that’s great.”
She flashed me a brief smile before the worry returned to her eyes. “But we’re going to see Dr. Rex just in case. Do you need to grab a snack first?”
My heart gave a hard thump. “Now? We’re going to see him now?”
“Yes, I’ve already called the office. They’re expecting us.”
Dropping my head back to my shoulders, I let out a long breath. “I told them, and I’m telling you… I. Am. Fine. You’re becoming a total hypochondriac-mom.”
Although come to think of it, she always had been.
“Well, after what happened…” she began.
I cut her off. “It happened months ago. And I’ve been fine since then. Dr. Rex said I was recovered and perfectly healthy. You remember that, right?”
My tone turned teasing. “Or do you need to go to the med clinic and get your hearing checked?”
“Hey,” she chided through smiling lips. “Just because you’re Miss Perfect Test Score that doesn’t mean you can get away with having a smart mouth to your mother. You have your dad’s sense of humor, by the way. I am completely outnumbered.”
“Sorry. But I’d really rather just skip the doctor visit… if that’s okay.”
The look on her face told me it was most definitely not okay.
“Mireya… please go? For me?” she pleaded. “Just to put my mind at ease—and then I promise I’ll try to stop being a hypochondriac mom.”
If past experience was any indicator, that was like the sun promising to stop being hot, but I knew there was no winning this battle.
What was I going to do—run away?
