"Morning Cloud!" Sora cheerfully said, taking his seat in our first period English class. I was still shaken up from Riku's driving. We almost got into an accident thanks to Riku's speeding, and luckily only managed to slightly dent his back bumper while back out from his driveway.

"Call me Mr. Strife, Sora. We're in school" he replied rather aggravated.

"Aw, but Uncle Cloud! 'Mr. Strife' sounds too business-y!" Sora complained back.

"Too bad. Now, that's enough guys" Cloud reprimanded to a group of burly guys throwing pencils around that room at each other. "Take your seats and we'll get started." I took a seat behind Sora in the back left, and got my English binder out.

Today's lesson was something about symbolism in "The Catcher in the Rye". Of course I did the assignment, but I was just too tired to ever pay attention. It'd surprise some people to know exactly how many hours of sleep an average teenager like myself gets per night.

I rested my head in my arms, and tried to relax. For a while I could hear Cloud speaking about "key parts in the next few paragraphs!" but wasn't until I felt almost weightless that I fell dead asleep. When I 'woke', I was in the black world. I didn't particularly feel like dream dropping though. Instead, I wondered around for a bit, just reading the names. There really were some weird names that people had. And there really were thousands of colors out there. Most people would see canary yellow as just "yellow", but I see it as more. Through all the dreams that I've been into, generally all yellow dreams were pretty fun to be in. one time, I went into a Sunburst Yellow dream, where a little girl was dreaming about running through a field of bright white daisies with fairies dancing all around her. That dream was honestly one of the best that I've ever dropped into.

Walking around more, I saw even more colors emerge. A Pear Green color came into my view, and read the name "HAYNER PARKER". Heh, looks like Hayner fell asleep too. Hayner was a close friend of mine. We met when we were kids, and just sort of always stayed friends with each other. Although he's kind of a jerk at times, we still hang out. I guess mornings aren't for him either.

I walked on past Heyner's dream, only to look into the distance to find a fiery red blazing a few feet away. As I came closer to it, the name from last night was shown underneath the orb. There was still the bright red with orange and pink gradients all around it. I decided to drop into the dream, just to see what kind of person this was. Unfortunately, I was pulled out of the black expanse once again, and woke with start as Cloud was calling my name.

"ROXAS!" he shouted, "No sleeping during class! And you too Sora!" he yelled at my brother who sat in front of me. I stretched a bit, only to find Cloud on the other side of the room, scowling at both me and my brother.

"Lighten up Cloud! It's no big deal..." Sora trailed off.

"Yeah, it's no big deal when you have no idea what Salinger meant when he said 'It's not too bad when the sun's out, but it only comes out when it feels like coming out'? What do you think Holden meant by this?" Cloud questioned, knowing Sora had no clue.

"It's too early in the morning for this Cloud! Can't we just have some fun for once?" Sora pleaded. There were some agreeing voices throughout the room at Sora's statement, just wanting to do something other than schoolwork.

"No, Sora. You need to know this stuff. It's important... but, if we have time at the end of class, we might do something fun." he replied. I groaned at his statement.

"Problem, Roxas?" Cloud questioned.

"No... I just don't want to do anything..." I mumbled. I looked up to see him glaring at me. I obviously somehow offended him.

"How would you like to talk to me at the end of class then? Or maybe Xemnas?" he asked. Just because I was his nephew, didn't mean he had even second thoughts on sending me to the principle's office.

"No thanks..." I replied weakly. I looked down at my desk, an picked up my pencil. Just drawing lines on the edge of my paper.

"Good. Now let's turn to the packet I handed out to you all yesterday. I want to get through at least page six today." he announced, picking up an Expo marker to write on the whiteboard behind him.

The rest of the morning classes went by pretty much the same way, save for my uncle intimidating me by threatening to send me to the office. School just didn't possible on Monday's. My brain is all sluggish and tired, reluctant to focus on anything that didn't pique my attention. It wasn't until lunch came around at about one in the afternoon, that I finally felt energized. Talking with people always seemed to wake me up.

I sat in a semi-circle with Sora, Riku, Kairi, and a couple of other friends, on the grass behind the cafeteria. I was leaning against one of the larger trees on campus, eating my re-heated pizza of a lunch, watching Sora explain his "crazy dream" from last night.

"Yeah! It was REALLY weird!" he stated. "Riku and Kairi were in a fight for my love, and then you, Roxas, god. You came out and just yelled the most ridiculous line EVER, and then just ran away!" he yelled, laughing out of control.

"Want to share what I said?" I questioned further. I really truly did want to know what Sora thought about my wonderful help in his dreams.

With a laugh, he started to calm down, trying to focus. "I think it was something along the lines of 'do you choose the suave-silver haired Riku, or the ex-girlfriend hottie, Kairi".. I think. I'm not so sure. All I know, is that it was really weird!" he replied, already laughing by the end.

Riku glanced over at Kairi sitting two people down from him, and then back at Sora. "Well, who do you choose, Sora? Wonderful me, or Kairi?" he questioned, sneering at Kairi's name.

"Hey! It's totally obvious!" she replied. We all looked at her wide-eyed, as she began to panic. She obviously let too much slip. "M-me, of course! Why would he ever choose you, Riku?" she laughed.

"Because I'm sexy as hell, and well... you're the ex" he mumbled with a slight grin on his face. It was dead silent for a few seconds, before we all registered what Riku had just said. I couldn't contain myself anymore, and started to laugh. Like, really laugh.

"Shut up Roxas!" Sora reprimanded, his face bright red, glaring in my general direction.

"You're not denying it!" I said through fits of laughter. At this, everyone else started laughing. I looked over to see Riku's face was a new shade of red, a big goofy smile plastered on his face. Sora had his face in his hands, and Kairi was just rolling on the grass, laughing herself speechless.

"W-w-what? N-no way man!" Sora tried to lie through fits of his own laughter.

"Sure, sure" Riku responded, getting up from his place on the grass, only to walk over to a trash can and dump his half eaten lunch. "You know I'm one sexy beast Sora. Just look at all this!" he motioned with his hands to his whole body, and did a little twirl from where he was standing. He gave us all a little wink, just for an added bonus. At this, tears of laughter came to my eyes, as everyone else was in a fit. Sora looked somehow embarrassed, pained, happy and nervous all at once.

The bell rang loudly for the end of lunch. We all got up, still recovering from our busted-guts, to walk towards our next class. Mine was Gym. Fun.

The boy's locker rooms always smelled like over-used Axe body spray, and some sort of mix between old sneakers and rotting onions. Our Twilight Town High School colors of red and orange were a constant motif all around the school, not excluding the red and orange boy's locker room lockers. As I walked into the dark musty locker room, I honestly had no self confidence to change my clothes in front of all the other guys. Each and every one of them had at least some sort of muscular definition. Or a least a killer tan underneath their sporty t-shirts. I once again became annoyed at my somewhat pale, short and scrawny body, taking my clothes from my locker only to head into one of the bathroom stalls to change.

As I came out into the gym dressed in black sport's shorts, and a white t-shirt, but has slipped on my white sweatshirt. I tried to find my Gym teacher. He wasn't too hard to find, what with his usual spiked black hair and lean muscles, all in his six-foot-three glory. When I did find him, I walked over to the group of kids he was talking to, and waited for their conversation to end before asking him what we were going to do in class today.

"Well", Mr. Fair started "it's either a game of soccer outside, or dodge-ball inside. What do you guys want?" multiple shouts went out for dodge-ball, but the majority of them were for soccer. "Well, let's head outside!" he motioned toward one of the back fields, grabbing a large bag of soccer balls with him.

As we headed out into the cool November afternoon, I hugged myself inside my giant sweatshirt, trying to stay warm. It wasn't particularly cold out, but definitely cold enough to wear some sort of sweater. Which made me look at the people in my gym class with astounded curiosity, the girls all mostly wearing short shorts and tank tops, the guy in just shorts and large t-shirts.

Mr. Fair had parted our class into two teams, thirteen kids on each side. He soon blew the whistle, releasing the soccer ball and resulting in total chaos on the field. I was lucky enough to be picked as goalie. The game went well fro a while, my team winning by just a bit. It wasn't until the other team decided that they should step up the game, and make it more intense, did things start to go wrong.

"Kick it hard! Into the goal!" one burly male said to a skinny girl kicking the ball towards me. Two of my team's members came up on her left, and tried to get the ball away from her, only to have her kick it towards her teammate who had just called out to her. When he had the ball, he started to run as fast as lightning towards me. Once he was a good thirty or so feet away, he punted the ball. Like, he really kicked it. The ball came flying towards me, but veered of to my left, only to hit the goal post. Thanks to the high speed of the ball, it somehow bounced off the goal post, and smack into the side of my head. My vision went black and blurry for a few seconds before I was going down.

I hit the cold ground hard, my head reeling. I heard cries from across the field, and some laughter. "Mr. Fair! Roxas is down!" I heard one girl call to him. I felt the ground shake slightly when Mr. Fair halted his running. He bent down on one knee, and tapped my shoulder.

"Roxas? Hey, kiddo? You okay?" he worriedly asked. I opened my eyes gradually, to see his face peering down at mine.

"Ugh.. yeah. My head really hurts though" I replied. I tried to sit up, but the pain was even worse. Mr. Fair wrapped an arm around my shoulders, hoisting me up with all his strength.

"Come on, let's get you to the nurse's office. I bet you're gonna get a big bruise on your head" he chuckled. "Don't do anything stupid while I'm gone!" he called back to the rest of the class.

As we entered the nurse's office, Mr. Fair laid me down on one of the plastic 'beds', and called for some help. A young women dressed in a professional looking pink dress, her hair braided and adorned with a large matching bow came out from a small office in the back. "Zack! W-what happened?" she asked, rushing to me side.

"Roxas got hit hard in the head with a soccer ball. I thought you should check him out" he answered.

"Well Roxas,how do you feel?" she questioned, already pulling out drawers in search of supplies.

It took me a second to find my voice, and lifted myself up a bit on the bed. "My vision's was a little blurry. And I have a killer headache" I replied, putting my hand to my head to rub my eyes.

"Okay. Now look at me, and try not to blink" she replied, holding a small, hand-held flashlight in front of my eyes. After a few seconds, she stated that I seemed all right."just don't over-work yourself. Just take it easy for at least a week. If anything happens, such as blurry vision, nausea, ringing in the ears, anything, let your parents know, and go see a doctor immediately." she ordered.

"Thanks, Aereth." Zack said. He turned around to face the door and start to leave.

Ms. Gainsborough jumped up from her seat in front of me, and turned to face Zack. "Wait" she commanded. "You can go, Roxas. I just wanna have a talk with Mr. Fair first." she said sweetly. I gave her a peculiar look before hoisting myself off the bed, stepping past Mr. Fair, and exiting the office. The was weird

I was now standing in the entrance hallway of my school. Above posters and lockers, there was a large black and white clock hung on the wall. By the looks of it, I still had almost twenty minutes until the period ended. I walked quietly back to the gym, and slipped in the boy's locker room. A shiver went down my back, as I noticed I was all alone in the locker room. It somehow felt creepy. I changed quickly into my regular clothes, and exited the gym. As discreetly as I could, I rushed to my locker from within the school, and pulled out my skateboard. I was done with school for today.

As the bell rang, I strutted into the office, and went up to one of the secretaries. A name plate on top of a cubicle read "Ms. Faron," where a young women with a swirl of light pink hair draped over her shoulder glanced over towards my general direction, yet still sat in her large cubicle typing away on an expensive looking laptop.

"Need help?" she asked, still typing.

I thought about giving her some sort of sarcastic response, but decided to try and get on her good side. "I just need to sign out on the 'off-campus' worksheet. I'm think I'm going to head home." I replied sweetly.

"Do you have a special reason for leaving early?" she questioned. She shifted her gaze from her laptop, only to glare at me with her somber blue eyes. She lifted a manicured hand to reach behind and grab a clipboard.

"I was kicked in the head with a soccer ball just now in Gym class. Ms. Gainsborough suggested that I should go home." I lied. I looked her dead in her eyes, trying to convince her that I was telling the truth.

"Did she give you a note of some kind?" Ms. Faron asked, raising a perfect eyebrow in stating the question.

I started to panic. In the second that I had to come up with some sort of excuse, all I could make out was that she had wanted to talk to Mr. Fair, and forgot the give me one. Ms. Faron seemed to buy this though, and handed me the sign-out clipboard. As I took a seat on one of the age old benches adjacent to where Ms. Faron was, there was a shout coming through the office door.

"Lightning! I brought you some lunch!" I looked over to the source of the high pitched calling, and found one of my classmates, Serah Faron, standing in the doorway. She had a plate wrapped in plastic wrap, and had a broad smile on her face. When she spotted me looking at her, a slight blush came to her face as she said "s-sorry, I didn't know anyone else was in here". She walked over to where her sister was sitting to hand her the plate.

"Hey Serah. Good observational skills" Ms. Faron chuckled, taking the plate from Serah.

"It's not my fault..." she replied, crossing her arms over her chest. "Well, I have to head to Math now. I just wanted to make sure you had a lunch." she said quietly before strutting out of the office, glancing over towards me one last time to give me a quick "hey Roxas."

I got up from my place on the bench to hand Ms. Faron the clipboard, and head out of the office. When I exited the school, a thought suddenly occurred to me. If I have a boarder-line concussion, is it safe for me to ride my skateboard home? Neither of my parents were home, and it's not like I particularly had a ride home. I only lived a couple of miles away, but it was still a pain to walk.

I rested my skateboard on the sidewalk, and slowly drifted down, trying not to gain speed too much. As soon as I was pretty much gliding, everything else came naturally.

.

..

.

As I closed my eyes once again, I begged for sleep to come soon. What a long day. And my headache still wasn't gone. I just needed to vent to Naminé. I snuggled in deeper into my lush pillow, wrapping the covers around me tighter. I felt a somewhat on edge. I looked around my room, and suddenly every light seemed to be incredibly distracting. I lumbered out of bed and closed my door. I then walked over to the small nightlight to flick it on 'off'. Closing my white lacy curtains, I then staggered back into bed. I then relaxed every part of my body, and soon started to nod off.

It wasn't until I was woken up by a loud beeping that I became panicked. I looked around m room questionably, trying to make out if this was real, or just some sort of... well, really bad Dream Dropping trip. I held my hand in front of my face, trying to see if anything abnormal would happen. "SORA!" I screamed. I heard loud footsteps down the hall, and my door opened.

"What do you want, Roxas? We're gonna be late for school.. hurry up" he murmured. I looked up at him, fear and tensed. Through half-lidded eyes, he stared at me.

"I-I, I don't know what going on. W-what happened? W-why? What's wrong? Why didn't I... Why!" I cried, looking back at my hand. I looked back up at Sora, to see him staring at me with both apprehension and curiosity.

"Are you.. all right?" he asked. Taking a step forward, he placed a soft hand on my shoulder.

"I.. don't know.. anymore" I answered.

A/N: I suck. I'm sorry. Here you go. Q_Q