((Welp, I decided to dust off my practically-unused FFN account and upload a new story I'm working on, in addition to a couple others, since I like how its turning out so far. I hope you guys enjoy!))

This was unbelievable. This was beyond insane. It was completely and utterly impossible. But there I was, standing in a body that wasn't mine, staring at familiar strangers who thought they knew me. How did I get here? I didn't have the foggiest idea. All I knew is that I was there, and it wasn't a dream. Even my dreams never got this whacky.

My day started out normal enough. You know, just your average teenage guy going to your average teenage high school. I trudged through my dull classes and chatted with my friends, not expecting anything out of the ordinary. We were all really excited for school to get out, since Zach was having his birthday party that afternoon. Everybody in my social group (which included just us four unpopular guys who shared a karate class) was expecting to have a really awesome pool party. True, it was a super chilly and windy day outside; but the community pool was indoors, and Zach loved swimming too much for us to go anywhere else.

It was during Biology when the power outage happened. I had been busy tinkering with my watch and ignoring Mr. Bernard as he rambled on about DNA and other boring stuff. But when I suddenly lost my source of light, it really startled me. I was lucky that my tiny watch parts didn't spill all over the place with how badly I jumped. The teacher abruptly paused his lecture and frowned at the ceiling, while the students started muttering enthusiastically. After all, anything that disrupted the regular school humdrum was something to get excited about.

"Alright, alright," Mr. Bernard called out over our voices, trying to calm us down. "I'll go see what happened. Collin, Natalie; you two are in charge."

When he exited the room, the noise level rose considerably. Collin, one of my friends, stood up and joined Natalie behind the teacher's desk at the front. Among the teachers, Collin and Natalie were known to be some of the most responsible. But behind their backs, my dark-clad friend wasn't actually all that trustworthy.

Once up in the front, he immediately started searching through Mr. Bernard's desk drawers for the yummy mints that were always kept there. I eagerly waited for him to find them; everybody knew that the mint candies were a rare treat (usually for good behavior), and my friend was bound to share them.

"Collin, knock it off," Natalie chastised, gently whacking him on the shoulder. She was probably the prettiest girl I'd ever seen, and I felt a twinge of jealousy that Collin had a reason to be close to her.

"Make me," he replied, and stood up triumphantly with four white mints in hand. He grinned impishly at her, and then tossed one in my direction. As I nabbed the mint from the air, the other students started loudly whining.

"Dude!" "Come on, I want one, too!" "I'll tell Mr. Bernard if you don't give me one!"

Collin rolled his forest green eyes, and then obligingly grabbed another handful of mints. "Mints for everybody!"

Soon, nearly every sophomore in the dim classroom was unwrapping his or her very own candy, while my buddies and I carefully watched the door for the teacher's return. Natalie refused her own candy when Collin offered it to her.

"Just because everybody else here is a troublemaker doesn't mean I am," she scowled, making me feel guilty. Not wanting to be labeled as a troublemaker, I quickly chomped down on my mint and swallowed.

"Not gonna sell us out, though, right sis?" said Kane—another friend of mine—with a roguish grin, rolling his candy around in his mouth. "Sibling code of honor?"

Natalie crossed her arms, and sternly frowned at her brother. After a moment's hesitation, she sighed in defeat. "Yeah, yeah... I won't say anything." She raised a dainty pinkie finger, and added dryly, "Sibling code of honor."

Another reminder of why I didn't try to ask Natalie out: Kane would probably kill me. It was just one of those unwritten rules that you don't ask out your best friend's sister. You were just looking for trouble, especially if that best friend was Kane. The guy was a total hot head, and might punch my face in if he found out I had a crush on his sister. But even so, I couldn't help but gaze at her dreamily; she was the most perfect girl I knew.

Suddenly, Mr. Bernard returned, and everybody promptly shut up and sat down. We all watched with innocent expressions as our teacher shooed Collin and Natalie back to their seats. I half-wondered if his hearing was good enough to notice the muffled crunching sounds coming from throughout the room. With a grumpy sigh, the gray-haired man heavily sat down on his chair and held his face in his hands. Luckily, it seemed he was too irritated about something to bother paying attention to the fact we clearly stole most of his mints.

"Well," the biology teacher said at last, frowning at the class as if we caused the power outage. "Apparently the wind knocked out a power line, so we can't really do anything for a while. The principal said that we're going to shut down the school until it's fixed, so you all better call your parents. If you don't have a cell phone, borrow your friend's."

The chatter started up once more, and everybody whipped out their phones. Kane and I, along with a few others, had to go up to Mr. Bernard to retrieve our cellular devices. I guess you could say that the teacher didn't trust us enough to let us to keep them in our pockets during class time. And yet he was totally okay with people like Python, the school bully, to keep their phones. It was absolutely unfair.

"Hey mom," Kane said, after dialing his home phone number. "I—no I didn't get in trouble… Yes I'm sure about that. Look—" My friend grimaced in annoyance, which meant he was probably getting told off. "Listen, I… You know what? Here's Natalie." He irritably pushed his cell phone to his sister, who then more calmly talked to their adoptive mom.

I caught his eye and grinned knowingly, while waiting for my own parents to pick up. Kane jerked his thumb back to his cell phone and gave an exaggerated eye roll, to show off his frustration. As I chuckled lightly at his expression, the dialing tone suddenly stopped and I stuffed my finger in my ear to block out the classroom noise.

"Hello?" It was my mom who answered, naturally; Dad was busy at the auto repair shop.

"Hi, Mom," I said, trying very hard to ignore the noisy conversations around me.

"Jason," she said in a threatening tone. "What did you do?"

I caught Kane's eye and gave my own eye roll to tell him that my mom asked the same thing. My friend mouthed "Parents are so suspicious!" with an exasperated head shake, and then I refocused my attention on my call.

"Nothing," I assured her. "The school just got a power outage, so I need you to come pick me up."

Mom didn't answer right away, which meant she probably didn't believe me. I hoped she would, because I really didn't want to get Mr. Bernard on the phone; it would be so embarrassing. Eventually she responded, "Oh, alright, I'll be there in a few. But if you're lying to me…"

"No worries, Mom," I laughed. "Wouldn't dream of it."

After we hung up, I meandered over to where the other guys were sitting. Collin could technically drive himself home, since he had a car, but he was nice enough to stick around while us other three waited for our parents.

"So, what're we gonna do about the party, birthday boy?" I asked, casually leaning on the desk behind me. "Should we just meet up at the pool at four like we planned?"

Zach shifted in his chair so that he could face the rest of us more comfortably, before thoughtfully responding, "Well, we're permitted to leave about three hours early. Perhaps we could go at two o'clock instead. We'd certainly have more time to spend swimming."

"Sounds good to me," Kane said with his signature smirk. "Less time bored and more time having fun is always A-Okay in my book!"

Collin wrinkled his nose, and warned us, "I'll have to ask my dad, though. He really doesn't like veering from a schedule."

I smiled mischievously. "You'd think he'd be more flexible, being a dancer."

My raven-haired buddy face-palmed, groaning, "That wasn't even a good one, man. Besides, you know he focuses on singing."

"Well that explains it!" I exclaimed with an exaggerated gasp. "If he doesn't focus on dancing, that means he doesn't stretch often enough! No wonder he isn't flexible!"

"Dude," said Kane with a mild chuckle. "Either you're losing your touch or the power outage messed with your head."

"I blame the power outage," I decided, with a silly grin still plastered on my face. "I need my electricity to power my good jokes."

We lapsed into unimportant conversation—which involved a lot of complaining about homework and teachers—while we waited for our parents to text us when they arrived. As mushy as it sounded, I loved spending time with my friends; something about them made me feel complete. Even Zach and his quiet, formal attitude was still somebody I couldn't imagine being without. We'd been together for so many years—ever since we first met in our karate class—that were practically brothers. After we all got our black belts, even Sensei Wei was able to see how close we were, and we often ended up working together to help train the newer people. Sometimes we were told that we were inseparable, which was quite an achievement for a bundle of unrelated dudes, in my opinion. That was another reason as to why I didn't make a move on Natalie; there was no way I wanted to lose Kane as a friend.

A lot of my classmates already left by the time I finally got the text from my mom, "I'm waiting out front." I quickly texted her back with a "Kk be out soon." After that I snapped my sky blue phone shut and looked up at my friends.

"Well, looks like my ride's here," I announced. "See you all at two!"

They waved goodbye, and I jokingly gave a German military-style salute before heading out the door. It was really eerie walking down the school hallway with all the lights out. But at least it wasn't too bad with the trickle of students walking alongside me. Imagine if I had to walk alone in that place. Now that would be really creepy. Like, Slenderman-level creepy. The idea sent shivers down my spine.

Outside, the wind nearly toppled me over. The muffled howling sound from inside the school didn't warn me about how powerful the breeze actually was. I shielded my eyes from the whirling dust and glanced around the parking lot, trying to figure out where my parents' old jalopy was waiting. I hoped that Mom didn't park too far away.

After a minute or so, I spotted the familiar filthy blue color of my family's car, and was even able to make out my mom's lightly-tanned face hiding behind the windshield. I gave a short wave so she knew it was me, before making my way across the winter-dried grassfield.

It was ridiculously hard to resist the buffeting wind, and I scowled in annoyance. Normally I was okay with windy conditions, but the dust was getting in my eyes and I kept almost falling over. I could hardly even hear the maintenance workers in their shouting match with one of the teachers. When I was nearly at the parking lot, I shut my eyes for a moment, trying to get relief from the tear-inducing grit.

That was my mistake.

I kept staggering forward against the wind, and just barely managed to hear the warning screams of the adults behind me. My eyes shot open, and I saw a sparking black line fly in my direction a heartbeat before it whipped my shoulder.

Electricity instantly coursed through my body, filling me to the brim with absolute pain. The wire had touched me for just a second, but the torturous energy still managed to course and rip its way through me. I didn't even have time to shriek in agony before my brain shut off from all the pain. I crashed to the ground, the entire world fading away in clumps of darkness.