Last night was one of the worst nights I had in a long time.

The rest I was hoping to get was ruined by the sudden shift in weather. Louder thunder and bright lightening were cracking all night, stopping me from falling asleep. Having never been in a thunderstorm before I had wondered if they were always that intense. It was so bad I was actually frightened.

Yet when I met my parents downstairs for breakfast, they made no mention of it. They even denied any sort of oddness when I asked them about the crazy weather. All they could do was push me back into following my routine.

I had no choice but to listen to them and go about my morning as I usually do. But it felt like I was having no breaks from the weirdness once another earthquake happened. This one being more intense than the one from yesterday.

Bracing myself against the counter I avoided hiding under the table this time. My parents were giving me a strange look while they stood still, completely unaffected by the shaking. I looked around me to make sure nothing was going to fall on me and was surprised to see that nothing on the shelves were even flinching.

Then the shaking ended as quick as it started. Everything in the room stood in the same spot as it did before and my parents were both angry at me. It didn’t make for a fun breakfast. But everything had to go on as normal.

We ate, I cleaned, mom drove me to school and talked non stop. I felt like I was loosing my mind, and my parents couldn’t care less.

My mom was chatting the entire ride as she usually did while I ignored her. The only thing I could think about was Yukio. I really needed her today. She's been the only normal thing in my life the last few weeks, so maybe she's been noticing the weird events too.

But even if she wasn’t, I feel she would at least try to make me feel better. Yukio is really the only person in my life I can talk to right now. Even though we haven’t known each other for long, she’s the only person I feel safe around.

When my mom stops in the drop-off location, I get out of the car much slower than usual. I’m in no rush to get to class today.

All my life I followed every rule I was given. My high grades and perfect attendance painted me as a model student. I’ve always put my head down and obeyed whatever I was told, no matter how absurd the request. I was the perfect student and daughter.

So what happens if I don’t follow those rules?

By the time the last bell rings, I still haven’t made it to class. It is my first time officially being late. My whole body is full of anxiety as I walk around my eerily quiet school. A quiet you would expect to see in an abandoned town, not an active school. Yet it feels like I’m the only person here.

For another 10 minutes I explore my school. It’s surprising how little of the campus I’m actually familiar with after attending it for two years. So many buildings and courtyards that I never remember seeing. Strangely, all of my classes were in the same building. Like there was no organization at all.

With nothing really to see, I decide to head to class. It was never my intention to ditch the whole period. I’m just really curious what the response to my being late will be.

My heart is pounding once I get to my classrooms door. Even though I had planned on being late, that doesn’t make me any less nervous about what will happen. I keep feeling myself putting a small amount of pressure to open the door, then backing off. I do that until I finally build up the strength to open the door, and what I see on the other side disturbs me.

Everyone in the classroom is staring at me, including the teacher. They’re all completely silent with their heads following me while I awkwardly make my way to my seat. Not even the teacher says anything about me being late.

After I sit down, the teacher begins speaking. Only he isn’t continuing a lesson, he is starting from the very beginning. He’s teaching the lesson as if it were the beginning of class. Almost as if he were waiting for me to start. And looking around the class, everyone else seems fine with it.

The class goes on like all my classes in the past. We’re given an assignment to work on until the end with no other teaching involved. I don’t even do the assignment this time.

After what doesn’t feel like enough time for the class to last, the bell rings and we’re excused. So I get out of my chair, leave the blank assignment at my desk, and exit the room before anyone else. Though not to go to my next class. But to try the same experiment I just did again. I’m curious as to whether or not the response from my class is repeated.

And sure enough, it’s the same result with every other class.

Six classes, and they’re all the same. Has this really been the way I was learning these past two years? I don’t even remember any of those classes, yet I received good grades in all of them. This may even be the first time I’ve payed attention through all my classes, because there is something else weird I noticed about my school… there aren’t any breaks. Not even a lunch period.

Wouldn't there usually be two breaks for a school day that ran this long? Come to think of it, have I ever even eaten lunch at school? Thinking about the last two years of school, I can’t recall ever having a lunch break or any other sort of break. It's just eight hours straight of classes.

How little have I actually eaten over these last few days? I eat breakfast every morning, then I eat nothing for lunch everyday. Plus the last two nights I had sleep for dinner. I must be really malnourished right now. Should I go to the nurses office and get checked up?

Breaking up my train of thought is another earthquake. The longest and most intense one yet. With how many there have been I should probably be getting used to them by now. But I’m not. The less spread out and more intense they become, the more I freak out.

It eventually stops, but it's beginning to feel like a little too much for me. I'm actually getting really scared... why is all of this happening? Is it from not eating? Are my parents somehow drugging me?… no… there terrible, but I doubt they would stoop that low.

With only one more class before my Japanese class, I just feel so tired that I decide to find a bench to wait it out. I don’t care about doing the same test as before. All I want to do is talk to Yukio. And I figure I would have plenty of time to think about what I’m going to say while waiting. But I was wrong.

It’s hard to gauge time when you don’t have a watch, but even then, the time I waited felt way too short. The bell rang and the courtyard was immediately filled with other students. But after all the weird things I was seeing lately, time running quick didn’t even phase me. I just got up and went to Japanese class.

Upon arriving, I see that Yukio still isn’t there. It’s making me a little worried that she will show up right at the beginning again and we wont have a moment to speak. So I sit and impatiently look towards the door. And finally, one good thing happens.

Yukio walks in with plenty of time to spare. But I’m still impatient. I don’t even give her time to say hi "Thank god you're hear early! I really need to talk to you!"

She flinches in surprise out of my urgency "Woah what's going on? Are you not feeling well? Because you look really pale right now."

Hearing her speak makes me want to cry out of joy "I'm not. I feel like I'm going crazy right now! Please tell me that you have been seeing a bunch of weird stuff recently! I can't be the only one that's noticing that things aren't right!"

I can tell I’m concerning her. She moves closer to me and puts her hand on my shoulder "Things have been pretty normal for me. But could you maybe give me some examples of the ‘weird’ stuff you're encountering?"

A response I’m not surprised to hear. But at least she didn’t brush me off immediately "Well first off, the car that drops you off every day used to be black and now it's red! And haven't you noticed that outside of class the world feels really empty? And what about the earthquakes? Can you feel those?”

Before I get too frantic naming off examples, Sensei speaks over me with her greeting "Okay everyone, 今日 will be もっと少し楽しい since the plan is for you to take what you've learned and put it to use by クラスメートと話します! Now this is serious practice time so I don't want to hear too much goofing around. でも if you do mess around, make sure you're speaking 日本語."

Then I get right back to it "And see, that too! She's said the same exact thing at the start of class almost everyday! Do you not notice these things?"

The look on Yukio’s face tells me she hadn’t noticed any of those things. And with my shouting, I think she might be a bit embarrassed by the scene I’m causing. When I look around to the rest of the class, everyone’s head is now turned towards us, staring in silence. All so motionless that they look like statues.

That’s when another earthquake happens, the worst one yet. It's so intense that it almost knocks me out of my seat. I’m so scare that I grab onto Yukio and to hold her tightly. At this point, I think I'm having a full on mental breakdown. It's all become too much for me to handle. Sitting in the comfort of Yukio’s arms, I begin to cry.

She notices my tears and hugs me back "Don't worry, everything will be fine."

The earthquake goes on for what feels like forever while I continue to hold her tighter. Her body is somehow sitting so solidly in this violent shaking. If I wasn't holding onto her, I would have for sure fallen out of my chair. But I feel so comforted in her arms. Holding her like that actually helps me to calm down a bit… that is… until she says some thing that sends an electrical impulse to my brain.

"I'm sure you'll wake up soon. You've always been too stubborn to let something like this keep you down... maybe we can even go back to the way we were before."