The thoughts of Alice Wright and John Newman

The first thing that John saw after the world shattered was Alice standing right in front of him. She noticed him a second later and began speaking.

“Hey John, I didn’t see you there,” She said, her voice showing how surprised she was to suddenly see him in front of her as well. At first, she waited a short while for John to respond, but once she had understood that he was not going to, she began once more. “Are you ok? You seem pale. Maybe you should go to the nurse or something?” Alice asked. That was after she had noticed the strange tint that John’s face was taking. A little while later, after she had seen that John still had not moved and that the pale colour his face was taking continued to increase, Alice grabbed his hand and began moving towards the nurse’s office. Alice had done this because she worried about John. Him being this unusually quiet caused her to believe something strange had happened, and him ignoring her made her conviction about the subject even stronger. Furthermore, there was something else worrying her about John. His strange look seemed familiar to her.

During the whole time that Alice was dragging John towards the nurse's office, both of them were completely silent. For the same reason that he was non-responsive earlier, John was silent because he was still attempting to process the knowledge that there was apparently another world adjacent to our own. The shock of it had hit him so hard that his face could be described as a sheet of white paper, and the look upon it was quite strange.

’What was Ember talking about? A world called the Abyss? One containing magic? And I am a part of it somehow? Ok, I need to figure this out. First things first, she said it was adjacent to our own. What does that mean? It could mean that it’s somehow connected to our world but hidden, or that it’s in our world somehow, though that seems less likely. Whatever the answer is, however, I need to figure this out and fast. It’s very likely that I’m either going to be in immediate danger in the near future or that I will be pulled into this world with little to no explanation. That is if I understood what she said about either recruiting me or killing me correctly. Honestly, even if I had a choice, this Council of Exploration thing sounds interesting, so I think I’d want to help them or whatever it is anyhow. After all, if there truly is this Abyss thing, and I don’t really have any reason to disbelieve her especially after the magic that she showed me she has, I would want to do something like exploring this Gateway thing anyhow, so this might be a good opportunity. Though the possibility that someone, who can seemingly go invisible at a whim, would come back and try to kill me scares me to ****. I need some insurance against that, but how can I get it? Maybe one of those chicks I saw yesterday? No, I can’t be sure they’re not involved with this Council of Exploration thing, and if they are I’m basically sealing my own fate. That means I can’t risk it. For now, I just have to act normal so if they’re still watching me, they continue to think I’m not going to be doing anything, and try to prepare as best I can for the possibility that she is going to try and come to kill me, for as long as I have until one of those things happens,’ This was John’s entire line of thought, which had caused him to completely ignore Alice until the moment he had finished. That was when he realized the situation he was in and made a decision.

’I have to calm Alice down. I don't want to lie to her like this, but I'm not sure I can tell her about it, and it'd be safer for both of us if she didn't know for now.’ He concluded, and soon after began to talk to Alice. Before that had happened, however, and during the time in which John was dragged to the nurse’s office in silence by Alice, she had thought about many things. First, she had thought something that would seem strange to all but her. That thought was the one that began the sequence that follows.

’Huh? Why’s John here? I thought we’d meet at lunch to discuss the date, but maybe he couldn’t get there or something?’ That was what she had thought before she first attempted to talk to John. Once she had attempted to talk to John and he had not responded, her thoughts became less mundane. ’What’s with the look on his face? It looks familiar somehow. No. That’s impossible. It’s the same exact one. But how? How could that look be on John now?’ She pondered, panicking all the while; she attempted to speak to John once again, and when he did not answer she began dragging him to the nurse’s office in her panic. Her mind was racing in an attempt to explain the impossible now in front of her and to settle her panicking mind.

’What if this is the same thing as dad? He had the same look on his face though didn’t he, just a few days before he got it. The same look as John has now. No, it’s just a coincidence. It has to be. There’s no reason to believe John has it too. I’m getting ahead of myself anyway, I just need to take him to the nurse. I’m sure it’ll be fine. What happens if it isn’t fine though? Could I stand to lose him again? No. I can’t think about that. It’ll just get me to be more worried than I already am, and it won’t help John or me at all. Let’s try to think about this rationally. He’s ignoring me so much I have to assume he’s in shock from something, but what could it be?’ she looked at John again, hoping something about him changed, but the same distant and strange appearance was still there, ’whatever gave him that look on his face maybe?’ she rationalized, ‘that means I have to ask him about it, don’t I? I guess I never really knew why dad had that look on his face in the first place, guess that’s another reason to ask John. Ok, I’m going to do just that,’ That was her thought process, which was based on her initial reaction. After she had decided that, and had relaxed somewhat, she had one more thought cross her mind. ’I hope John really is ok. I was looking forward to our date,’

After all that had happened, both parties had independently decided to talk to each other, and they had both decided to do so before reaching the nurse's office. That led to an interesting conversation that occurred about a hallway away from it.

“Hey Alice, I’m sorry for worrying you. I’m fine,” John started the conversation, Alice having not noticed the colour returning to his face yet and thus not having started the conversation herself. “Huh? You’re fine? I have never met anyone that looked less fine than you did back there,” She responded, with anger in her voice. “Yeah. I’m sorry about that, I just got a bad grade on a test and wasn’t really handling it well. I think we should go back to class now. Shouldn’t we?” John responded, his excuse so terrible it only worried Alice more, but she said nothing of it. “Ok, if you say so. I’ll see you after school then? We should be finishing at about the same time today,” She said instead. “Yeah. Let’s do that,” John said, having noticed Alice had disappeared before he had finished only a bit later.

Alice obviously did not believe John’s excuse, and that attitude had only made her more suspicious of what had happened to John. A thing that she had decided to investigate through the only method she knew, his connection to her father’s mysterious disease.

John had hoped that his response would fix the situation, but he could tell from Alice’s response that it did not. At first, that made him want to tell her the truth right away, but he still did not know what consequences might follow such an action, so he decided against it. Whenever he did know, however, he wanted to talk to her about both of them sharing more as well. They both had become more withdrawn over the years, and it seemed to him that it was affecting her behaviour, which worried him.

On that note, he went to his final class that day. The class was Civics, a class that, just like history, was taught by Miss Wentworth. Luckily, this time, the class was mostly uneventful, but one thing did stick out to John. Civics class had the same air to it as History class the previous day. That seemed strange to John as up until now he had assumed that was somehow caused by Ember, who was now gone. That meant it could be only one other person, a person John used Observe on almost immediately. It was Miss Wentworth herself, the only person that was not so obviously mundane and who shared both those classes with John. After he had used Observe on Wentworth, however, he did not get an Observe screen like he usually did but a simple message.

Observe can not examine target: The target has blocked Observe functionality

For a second it seemed like something about Wentworth’s stance had shifted, but it was so subtle John was sure he had imagined it a moment later. Now John knew something was up with her, but as she was the first person to block Observe he was much too worried about her ability to kill him to interact with her any further, and once the class had ended he rushed out as quickly as he could.