Emmeline was shy and quiet. She had been since she was little and just never grew out of it. So she surprised even herself when she walked over to a guy who had dropped all of his books on the ground.

She leaned down and handed him a couple of the books. "Here," she said quietly. When they met eyes, she realized that this guy was super attractive. He had gorgeous green eyes that seemed to see through her and he had a really, really nice smile. She nervously pushed her hair behind her ears. "Um, I'll see you later." She hugged her books to her chest and quickly walked off as the bell rang inside the building.

Clark looked after the girl. He had never seen her around before and Smallville High wasn't a terribly huge school. Where had she come from?

Later that day during free period, Emmeline walked through the halls until she found the room she wanted. She knocked on the door and slowly entered to find a blonde girl sitting at one of the computers.

"Yes?" the blonde girl said.

"Um, is this the Torch?" Emmeline asked. "I need to do some extracurriculars and I was wondering if you had an opening."

Chloe put her hand to her mouth. "Uh, if you're interested, the only thing I've got open is a proofreader. You'd have to go over the entire issue and make sure everything flows and is correct."

"Okay. I'll take it."

"Great! I'm Chloe. What's your name?"

"Emmeline."

"That's a pretty name. I look forward to working with you. We meet every day during free period in here."

"Alright. I'll see you then."

"Hey, Chloe," Clark said as he came into the room. "Which picture do you think we should use for this article?" He stopped when he noticed Emmeline. "Hey, I remember you."

"Clark, this is Emmeline," Chloe said. "Emmeline, Clark Kent. She just joined the staff as our proofreader."

"Welcome aboard. I promise it's not as scary as everyone makes it out to be. And as a proofreader, you won't even have to go out and talk to anyone."

Emmeline gave him a shy smile. "I'll see you both tomorrow then," she said quietly.

Chloe and Clark looked at each other as she left. "What do you think?" Chloe asked. "Should I not have done that?"

"No, she's shy, so this could be the way to help her stop being a shrinking violet."

"It hasn't done much for you, has it?"

"Very funny, Chloe."

The next day, Emmeline met up with Chloe in the Torch office. "Hey!" Chloe said as she noticed Emmeline walking in. "I've just set up a desk for you over here. I've even got the first article for you to look over."

"Great," Emmeline answered quietly. She took a seat at her new desk and couldn't help but feel a little prideful. Chloe handed her an article and Emmeline got reading. At the end of free period, Emmeline handed the completed article back to Chloe.

"Whoa," Chloe commented at the sight of a ton of red marks. "Don't go too easy."

"I'm sorry," Emmeline mumbled. "Should I have just—"

"No! It's good! Usually people who proofread are way too nice and we end up having a ton of errors in the issue. At least you've proven to me I made the right decision."

Emmeline gave a shy smile. "Thanks."

Chloe smiled back. Another guy stopped by the door. "We still on for after school?" he asked Chloe.

"Yeah! Oh, Pete, this is Emmeline, our newest gal. Emmeline, this is Pete."

"Oh, so you're the fresh meat," Pete said to her. "Glad to see a new face."

"Hey, you wanna go grab a bite with us after school?"

"Sure," Emmeline answered shyly.

The three of them headed out once the bell rang when they saw a crowd gathered around one of the stores on the main street. When they went over to see what was up, emergency personnel wheeled a guy out on a stretcher and put him into an ambulance.

"That's the third guy this week," Pete remarked.

"And they're all former jocks," Chloe added.

Pete tapped on Chloe. "Who's the weirdo?"

"I don't know. Let's check him out." Chloe took a picture of the strange guy watching. After the three of them had gotten some food, they headed back to the school and met up with Clark in one of the study rooms.

Chloe pulled out a yearbook from 1989 and then put the picture she had taken earlier up on her laptop.

"His name's Jeremy Creek. This is a picture of him twelve years ago," she said pointing to the yearbook. Then she pointed to the computer. "This is one I took four hours ago."

"That's impossible," Clark said. "He'd be like 26 today. Must be a kid who looks like him."

"My money was on the evil twin theory till we checked this Missing Persons," Pete added.

Chloe passed Clark a report. "Jeremy disappeared from the state infirmary a few days ago where he'd been in a coma for twelve years. They say he suffered from massive electrolyte imbalance."

"That's why he hasn't aged a day," Pete explained.

"So you're telling me he just woke up," Clark said.

"Well, no," Chloe added. "There was a huge electrical storm, and the hospital's generator went down, and when it came back on, Jeremy was gone."

"The electricity must have charged him up like a Duracell," Pete said.

"And now he's back in Smallville putting former jocks into comas," Clark put together. "Why?"

"Because twelve years ago today, they chose Jeremy Creek as the scarecrow."

"'Comatose boy found in field, twenty yards from meteor strike'," Clark read on a newspaper clipping.

"The exposure to the blast must have done something to his body," Chloe told him.

"No, this can't be right. What do you think, Emmeline?"

Emmeline just shrugged her shoulders, happy with not putting in any input.

Pete looked over at Chloe. "I think you ought to show them."

"Show us what?" Clark asked.

Pete and Chloe took Clark and Emmeline to a dark room. Inside was a huge billboard covered in newspaper clippings and paper print-outs.

"It started out as a scrapbook and just kind of mutated," Chloe said.

"What is it?" Clark asked.

"I call it the Wall of Weird! It's every strange, bizarre, and unexplained event that's happened in Smallville since the meteor shower. That's when it all began. When the town went schizo."

Emmeline looked at the billboard in awe. She could only imagine how much time went into building up this collection. It was really impressive.

"So, what do you think?"

"Why didn't you tell me about this?" Clark demanded.

Chloe scoffed. "Do you tell me everything that happens in your life? We all keep secrets, Clark."

She has a point, Emmeline thought. She did not dare say that out loud.

Clark looked at one cutout of a cover of TIME magazine with a crying little girl on it. "Lana?" Clark muttered. "My fault. It's all my fault."

He quickly ran out of the room leaving the other three to look after him, wondering what had just happened.

Emmeline went after him to see where he was going. When she got outside, she saw Clark get attacked by Whitney and the football gang and shoved into the back of a truck. Because Emmeline could never raise her voice above a level two, all she could do was watch in horror as Clark was taken away.

She quickly went back to the study room, but Chloe and Pete were nowhere to be found. Because it was late in the day, mostly everyone had gone home to get ready for the Homecoming game and the dance following.

As she left the school to go find someone to get some help, she began thinking what would happen if the football guys found out that she had told someone about their prank. She had no doubt that they would hurt her. Clark was a lot tougher than her so he could handle whatever they did, right? She couldn't.

Reluctantly, Emmeline went home instead.

As the Homecoming Dance went on back at school, Emmeline sat in her room, haunted with visions about what those guys could've done to Clark.

Why couldn't she just find the courage to speak out? If she did, maybe she could've saved him.