Daydreams in History ('Storyteller/White' Path)

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My name is Daniel Easley.

That day had started off like any other; waking up.

"What the..?"

Then I found on my wrist what looked like some grade schooler's idea of a joke, with a knack for calligraphy. It was a kind of character you could have mistaken for Japanese kanji.

It turned out to be something else entirely.

"Psst! Psst, Elaine!"

...

"Elaine!"

...

"Elaine! Hey, stop ignoring me!"

Finally, under the lazy voice of Mr. Gregory, a chair two rows over creaked and a girl twisted her neck backward, dirty blonde hair swishing across her shoulder.

"What is it, Ned?"

She only seemed mildly irritated. Mildly because he had refrained from actually yelling her name for everyone and their mother to hear this time. Irritated nevertheless, because he was Ned, and he was calling her name.

Though, not to form any misconceptions, they were still, of course, by some margin or other...

'Friends.'

Whatever that meant in a context of fleeting fads and enforced assembly, anyway.

Ned's eyes darted from wall to wall. With another breath, he looked to Elaine, leaned forward, and replied, "Did you do the homework?" In his obliviousness, the girl in front of him had proceeded to turn and elbow him in the arm. He flinched. "Ow!" He rubbed himself defensively. "What was that for?"

A finger to the mouth was his only reply.

Sighing at Theresa's turning back, Ned looked to Elaine, who provided her support by holding back an obvious laugh.

Ha-ha.

Very funny.

He held back an utterance of his own as he scratched his head and sat back in his chair. Mr. Gregory at front continued with his casual drawl, the majority of the class adopting some kind of pretense of attention or perhaps actually supplying it. With the shadow of a looming state test around the corner, it was believable, this time.

click!

Just then, a movement of eyes slid to the door, Ned's and Elaine's included. It had swung open, and when they saw a kid with unspectacular black hair, a t-shirt and jeans, and that ever inconspicuous look in his pupils walking through, they looked at each other, then back to the front of the class.

Mr. Gregory was somehow last to take notice. He halted his overview of the history of serfdom in the Middle Ages, conferring a testy gaze the student's way. "Glad you could join us, Daniel," he cheekily welcomed. A light giggle peppered the class, and Daniel cleared his throat nervously, saying nothing as he passed the teacher a tardy slip. The middle-aged man took it, one brow arched. Daniel shuffled towards his seat, Elaine giving him a terse glance as he passed. When he'd made it to the seat next to Ned, the latter socked him in the hip, and the former returned it.

"Why you late, man?" inquired the unruly young man once they'd settled down, both of them filling their seats like the average, abiding high school students they were. Daniel removed his backpack and took out his folder.

"Nothing," he patted his pockets, sticking a hand in either one, "my sister just screwed up my alarm, somehow."

"Ooh, what a jerk," Ned snipped. Daniel just glared at him. He was smiling back, clearly skeptical, in his own suspiciously astute way. Following the repertoire of his own mischievous escapades, after all, he'd had enough experience to sniff out a cover-up, whatever it may have accounted for. But Daniel didn't feel like spinning some intricate story just yet -- let alone telling the truth. By Shakespeare's dead body. Not here.

Not with all these people around.

Not with...

A light-bulb flicked on in Daniel's mind.

...all these people.

His eyes darted from person to person, currently in attendance. Mr. Gregory was going over European feudalism, while most students sat in varying states of apathy, but nonetheless listening. It was funny; some days, they would be rowdier than a jungle gym. Other days, when they were quiet, it was not because of a change of heart but simply a result of being too pooped to play. Daniel knew that a decent portion of students here actually had P.E. in the previous period. He wondered if that had anything to do with it.

In any case, he brushed aside the mundane thoughts. It was the black haired girl diagonal from him, in front of Ned, that silently drew his attention. His old schoolmate and friend was doing something with his notepad, meanwhile, that seemed like asking for another scolding from the teacher.

Theresa, however, fell swiftly under his study, the words of the teacher serving as the subject of hers as he discreetly looked her up and down. She had on a white sweater, that dressed her torso pleasingly. Her black hair reached the top of her chair, and though you wouldn't have been able to tell from his angle, she had a decent face, and one he'd seen enough before to confirm. Daniel's eyes flicked downward, to her desk. Around her wrist was a watch, which was quite an antique of an accessory post-smartphone; unless, of course, it was merely that, an accessory.

Traveling off her figure, his eyes stopped at the mechanical pencil by her hand, a couple inches away from the edge. Daniel swallowed.

He remembered the broadcast from earlier, with the weatherwoman, before Jason's text broke him out of it, and shuddered. Such ease. It actually hadn't occurred to him until now, just how easy it had been.

Just like it was with the office girl, including the older woman she was with.

And his sister.

And Imogene's mom.

And just like it could be, right now, he thought in a cloud of dry-throated contemplation. He breathed, in then out, and dashed a look back to the opposite side of the room, then in front, then back to Theresa. With all these... people.

An electrical spark seemed to charge through the air, that scratched at the back of Daniel's mind. It subsided just as effortlessly as he had failed to notice it, however. His focus was currently deviated from the most immediate of his surroundings, apparently.

"I wonder..."

He furrowed a brow. His mumbled words left his lips and dissipated into invisible specks of wordless dust.

Daniel still wished to avoid any undue attention. He didn't know just how much of a hold he had on these abilities, yet. And to end up committing to something that couldn't be undone would be cold rain on a too-good-to-be-true parade.

Plus, what if there were people watching in the shadows? If this was some kind of devil's curse, and a non-corporeal entity was testing him? What if his very soul was on the line?

He recomposed himself. Calm. Keep calm. Now he was just letting pop culture seep in. Life really couldn't be that cliche.

But then again, he'd figured life as many things, but never quite what he'd experienced thus far. What kind of future awaited him, he wondered? What kind of things he'd choose to do with this... 'gfit'?

No... whatever happened, it was probably best to take it 'step-by-step', for now. However well that would go over, he'd find out after the dust had settled and the contract was in the hole.

In the meantime...

A ball of saliva slid down Daniel's throat, and he took another breath, sweaty palms against the face of his desk. He looked at Theresa, and felt emotions, as well as a certain twitchy organ, stir through him. She was there. She was oblivious to his internal crisis. And, above all, she was a living girl. As human as anyone else, model-tier or not. And with her sleek, raven hair, and unsuspecting, feminine figure underneath that soft-appearing sweater, she made for as prime a target as any.

Not noticing as Elaine shot a brief look in his direction, his lungs took another intake of air.

Here goes nothing...

Surreptitiously, he concentrated on Theresa, his newfound thirst overpowering whatever moral objections his brain at this point had reduced to whispers.