"You don't have to call my parents; they're probably busy anyways."

Mr. Young, the school nurse, eyes Owen with a raised eyebrow. "I'm obligated to call them. You fainted, Owen."

Owen shrugs, fidgeting with the bed sheets underneath him. His parents are rarely home. Mom is a construction manager often away for months at a time, and Dad's a business consultant. He at least gets to see his dad more often than his mom, so... "I'll give you my dad's number, then. He's probably not gonna pick it up."

He rattles off the number, and Mr. Young dials it on the clunky school phone on his desk. Predictably, it goes to voicemail. Mr. Young frowns and spins his rolly chair to face Owen after leaving a message.

"Do you have anyone else that can take you home?"

Owen considers mentioning Harris, before shaking his head. "Nope, we just moved here about a month ago. I feel fine, sir, I promise. I just... haven't been getting a lot of sleep lately."

"And why is that?"

Crap. That's not where he wanted this conversation to go. "I'm up late working on homework and catching up in my classes." And researching a dead girl, who also happens to be the reason that he is currently in the nurse's office. He'd woken up, slumped against the lockers with a random concerned student bent over him and telling him help was coming.

There's a knock at the doorway before Mr. Young can respond.

"Derek, this stupid croc bite keeps reopening—"

Harris, of all people, groans as he steps into the room. The sleeve of his left arm is pulled up, revealing white bandages stained with red. Mr. Young swivels in his chair; Harris immediately stops talking and pulls his sleeve down upon seeing the bed's occupant.

"Oh. Heeey, Owen. Um... I'll just come back." He starts to back out of the room.

Croc bite?

"Come grab what you need first, Harris," Mr. Young says. "You may as well, since you're already here."

Harries goes to the nurse often enough for them to know each other by name? How often does the guy get hurt? Sure, he has a lot of scars, but... what?

"I need... a band-aid," Harris says. There's no way a little band-aid will cover the supposed bite. Sure enough, as Mr. Young starts to roll over to a nearby drawer, Harris adds, "No. I mean... a big band-aid."

Owen's mind is reeling. Is that what happened when Harris had left Saturday? No teacher would have bandages like the ones Harris has on, that, which means the injury didn't happen at school. Yet, his arm was fine just two days ago at the bowling alley. And... "croc bite?" Owen had to have heard that wrong, because what the heck is a "croc?" He couldn't be talking about a crocodile; there aren't any in the area.

Mr. Young pauses. There's a tense moment when he and Harris are having some sort of psychic conversation, before they both glance at Owen.

"Okay," the nurse finally says, as if something just clicked in his head. "Here, let me finish up with Owen—"

"Don't let me stop you," Owen interrupts. "He's bleeding, that definitely takes priority."

"Um," the other two chorus.

Silence. Owen realizes they don't know how to tell him nicely to leave.

"Or, I can just go," Owen blurts, standing. "I'm going."

_____

Unfortunately for Harris and Mr. Young, the open door to the little office means that Owen is still in earshot when they start talking again.

"Harris, what's going on with you?"

Owen stops. He really shouldn't eavesdrop, it's not polite... oh well, it looks like he's doing this.

"Rhea texted me for backup on Saturday. I went and helped her, so it wasn't like I was alone this time. I'm fine. Croc just got the jump on me, and I need help dressing the wound better."

"I mean these past few months, Harris. Rhea's supposed to be the reckless one. We're both worried about you. Something's putting you on edge."

"I love how you're getting onto me when Rhea's the one who doesn't remember the last time she got more than three hours of sleep."

"And I've been talking to her as well. Don't change the subject."

Silence.

"Alright, I won't push, but I'm going to say what I think. I think you're trying to work through something on your own. I think you're not quite sure how to deal with it, so you've been throwing yourself into fights. I don't think you're okay Harris, so I'm just going to remind you that I'm here if you want to talk. Okay?"

Oh, man. What... what has Harris been going through? Has Owen really been completely oblivious? Granted, they've only known each other for a month, but he at least thought they grew close pretty fast. Wow. Who doesn't know that their best friend has been getting into fights? There goes his stupid tendency to latch on to people, meanwhile Harris has been hurting and he didn't even notice. What exactly is it that he's doing with Rhea?

"Do you feel like you're... missing something?" Harris's voice finally says quietly.

"What?"

"Something's missing, I think. From all of our lives. I know there are things out there that can affect our memories, and I think that happened at some point, and I think we're all forgetting something really important but I can't... I can't figure it out." The words had tumbled out faster and faster as he spoke, choking on the word "can't" and ending on a note of... defeat.

Owen leaves.

_____

After school that day, Owen heads down to the science room once again. Hopefully, Emily is there. It didn't seem like she meant to hurt him earlier. If anything, she was just incredibly upset. She said that someone had tried to kill her; maybe she'd remembered her death?

A voice in his mind tells him he should be looking for Harris, that he should be focusing on someone that's actually alive. He ignores it.

"Emily!" he calls upon entering the room, not registering the unlocked door until Ms. Perren looks up from her desk. "Oh. Hi, Ms. Perren."

"Hello, Owen!" Ms. Perren chirps, smiling warmly at him. "I thought you managed to finish today's lab in class."

"Oh, um… I did," Owen says.

Ms. Perren cocks her head to the side. "Then… I'm not sure why you're here today." She glances at her computer screen, where she has the grade book pulled up. "You've managed to catch up on all the assignments that you're behind on. I promise I remembered to enter the grades in this time."

"Thank you," Owen responds, for lack of anything better to say. Ms. Perren is always one of the first teachers to leave the school, but that doesn't mean she doesn't have to stay after every now and then. And he actually had gotten work done after school over the past couple of weeks, despite his conversations with Emily. Why hadn't it occurred to him to think up an excuse to keep coming here? He wracks his brain for a lie.

"I wanted to make some extra agar plates," he blurts. Then he slows down. "I mean, I've gone through four or five plates with all this makeup work, so I figured I'd replace them. If that's okay?"

"Oh, you don't have to," Ms. Perren says, beaming. "I was just going to do that after I finished up here."

"Please? It's the least I can do. You let me stay for so many days, it's only fair." Now that he thinks about it, he actually has been burning through agar plates. He really should be replacing them.

"If you insist."

Owen didn't realize how tense he was until his shoulders slump in relief. He puts down his bookbag and starts to head to the backroom.

"Owen?" Ms. Perren calls once he's in the doorway.

"Ma'am?"

"Who is Emily?"

"Oh. Um. She's someone I was going to meet in here today, but I guess she didn't show up." Not a lie.

"...You were going to meet a girl in my classroom, Owen?"

Crap. Owen balks and backtracks. "I mean… yeah, but it's not like that, I swear. We just, um…"

"You don't have to explain yourself. I trust you." Her voice sounds pleasant, but it has a dangerous note in it. "Just don't let it happen again."

"Yes, ma'am," Owen says meekly.

_____

Ms. Perren leaves before the agar cools, making Owen promise to lock the door when he leaves. As soon as the door shuts behind her, Owen hears,

"I'm sorry I hurt you." Emily seems subdued when she speaks, but not in the same way she was when he found her in the hallway. That's a good thing, at least.

"I'm okay. At least, I feel okay... can I ask what you did to me, though? "

She fidgets, floating in a cross-legged sitting position. "When I get too upset, it... messes with the living. Changes their emotions, too. You probably felt super depressed and wondering why you died, right?"

"Yeah. That's really what you were feeling?" That's an incredibly saddening thought.

"Yep. It's so frustrating. I can't control it, it's like my emotions are amplified."

"Is that why you were all bloody, too?"

Emily frowns. "Bloody?"

"Your throat was all messed... up..." Owen trails off as it clicks in his head. If she were alive, there's no way she would have survived... which probably means those were the injuries that killed her. Something wrong with her arm, a cut on her face, and a mangled throat... it must have been so painful.

"Tell me more about it."

He describes her injuries in detail. Her hair shifts ominously as he speaks, making him want to take a step back, but she doesn't seem to descend into the state she was in earlier. When he's done, her fingertips are lightly touching her throat.

"That's probably how I died then, isn't it?" she says humorlessly. Owen really wants to say something comforting, but nothing comes to mind. He should change the subject. Now would probably be a bad time to ask about whoever supposedly "poked" her, so...

"I think I may have found you in some yearbooks!" He turns and picks up a book, flipping through for the picture with Rhea and Harris. The gradual cold air behind him tells him she wordlessly floated closer and is peering over his shoulder. When he finds the picture, however, the cold suddenly presence disappears and she gasps.

"What? What's wrong?" he asks, turning to face her. Her hair is floating again, and he gets a bad feeling in the pit of his stomach. She's pointing at the picture with Rhea in it.

"That's her! That's the girl that poked me!"

Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.