Era slowly walked through the halls of her new school. Her blue jean jacket holding just right around her torso and her arms. She loved this jacket. She had gotten it for her birthday and she had worn it almost everyday since. It kept her at a sense that she was at home still.
  This place, though, it seemed so new. So long had she lived in Tokyo, Japan that was the only home she’d ever known. Now her parents took her to this foreign land known as Boston, Massachusetts in the United States.
  Everything was so different from her old home. In Japan, there was the bustling noises outside and crowds of people everywhere. Here, it was relatively quiet for the most part and wasn’t as jam-packed. She had to admit how uncertain she was of everything due to these changes, and those were only a couple of changes she had found.
  Right now, as she walked through her new high school, all she could see were the stares she was getting. Stares from the Americans who knew so much about this school while she knew so little. Stares of those whose eyes were judging her and her new appearance. She had a feeling what thoughts were buzzing around their heads as they looked at her, some with cold or mocking eyes.
  Era walked through the halls lined with lockers and packed with other students. For such a small town, it was quite filled with students of all ages. But she supposed that was to be expected. It honestly wasn’t that different in Japan.
  She could smell the aroma of the afternoon lunch being made which inadvertently made her mouth water a bit. She was quite hungry since she didn’t have breakfast. She could hear the different voices from Freshman students to Seniors. So many things going on here; Nothing was as the same as at Tokyo, yet so much was the same.
  Era soon found her first classroom and gave a subtle sigh in relief. She couldn’t tell whether the relief was being out of the hallways or from finding her first class. She carefully entered her first class being English Language Arts. She sat down on the brown, hard, plastic chair which was attached to her tan colored, ceramic topped desk. After a bit, the straggling kids slowly filed in one by one until all kids in class were in and present.
  “Hello, Class,” the teacher, Mrs. Decker, greeted. She wore the typical business outfit with her auburn hair in a bun and glasses sitting snug on the bridge of her nose. “As I’m sure you’ve heard, we have a new student today.” She turned to Era. “Please, stand up and introduce yourself.”
  Era looked around a bit nervous before slowly rising, pushing her long black hair out of her electric blue eyes that were shining in the early morning light and fixing her jacket a bit. “Hello, my name is Era Windser. It is a pleasure to be in your class,” she greeted slowly and her nervousness was quite a bit obvious.
  “Where are you from? China?” asked a boy who had a smug grin of his face. He had red hair and forest green eyes. He also wore a American football jersey and jeans with black tennis shoes.
  “Tokyo, Japan,” Era answered, her voice calm and stable. His tone had more annoyed her and allowed her to come out of that nervous atmosphere, but she managed to keep her calm. The boy went a bit wide eyed. “Were you expecting a different reaction?”
  “Of course, he was,” another boy quickly chimed in. Era turned to him to see a boy with brown hair stopping at the tip of his ears and emerald green eyes. He wore a black t-shirt and dark blue jeans with dark green and white converse tennis shoes to top it off. “That’s Mark Kenting. He tends to like to get on people’s nerves.”
  “I see,” Era responded.
  “Now that’s over, let’s get to work. And class, since Era is new to America, I expect you to help her as much as she needs,” Mrs. Decker called.
  “Of course!” exclaimed a girl excitedly. Era couldn’t get a good eye on her to figure out who said it with looks.
  “Absolutely!” another girl followed, this one sounding a lot more on the crazier side. Annoying Era, she once again couldn’t locate this girl either.
  Sometimes classes are way too big, Era thought.
  The boy who introduced Mark said, “Don’t worry, Era, we’ll help you out.”
  “I appreciate that,” Era responded sitting back down a bit relieved to have such good classmates… if you take out Mark.
  “Alright, now let’s get started with writing college essays,” Mrs. Decker suggested to get the class started. Almost everyone in the room groaned while Era raised an eyebrow. “I know you’ve all done this before, but you’ll be going to college next year and I assume none of you have done a college essay.” They all rolled their eyes while the young, Japanese woman was confused as to why her teacher would assume something like that so easily. Especially when she said only moments ago that they had done this before. However, Mrs. Decker was quick to take notice of Era’s shock and confusion. “Era, what about you?”
  “Excuse me?” she replied uncertain.
  “Have you written a college essay before?” Mrs. Decker asked.
  “I’ve written about five college essays since eighth grade; mainly about things we expect to do, physics, and other areas. I’ve also sent three into some colleges in Tokyo and other parts of Japan,” she explained. Everyone was a bit shocked and sat in complete silence.
  A couple seconds later, Mrs. Decker broke the silence, calling to the class, “Oh, don’t be so shocked. I heard Japanese students are learning calculous in their Freshman year.”
  “So we have a nerd in class…” Mark muttered annoyed.
  Era gave a small smirk. “I wouldn’t say a ‘nerd,’ but maybe a higher-educated student, which is obviously quite unlike you.” She had to admit to herself. She was gaining quite a bit of confidence standing up to Mark.
  The second girl she had heard was forced to cover a laugh while Mark glared. The teacher cleared her throat to nab everyone’s attention again. “Era, do you still have one of those essays?” Mrs. Decker asked.
  “It’s on my Google Drive, ma’am,” the female student answered calmly.
  “Mind pulling up the best one by your opinion?” Mrs. Decker requested.
  “I… I suppose I could,” Era agreed, a bit uncertain. She got up, grabbing her laptop from her bag. She plugged it in as the teacher turned on the overhead. As she came over to sign in to her account, they were shocked to see it all written in Japanese.
  “Where’s the English?” Mark asked. He was about to say something else when the teacher shushed him.
  When Era finally opened her folders, they were shocked to see the amount of files she had. It had to be at least a hundred. Era pulled up one. She hit a button which changed it to English. The title shocking everyone into a sense of awe: “The World’s Physics is Truly Unknown.”
  ~ ~
  After class, Mark almost immediately pushed Era into the lockers and pinned her there, the pressure of his arm against her throat kept her from moving to much. But Era could still get plenty of air into her lungs and still remained as calm as possible as she glared at him a bit in warning, asking him, “What do you want, Mark?” Her voice was still calm and concise, not giving away a shred of fear while people gathered around.
  “Shut it, smart mouth!” Mark ordered sternly and angrily. “You know what happens to those who mock me?” He began to pull his arm back when someone grabbed it in their hand’s firm grip.
  “Back off, Mark,” the person said and yanked Mark away from him and Era to show it was the boy from before. Era was barely able to hide her relief and keep composed features. “You don’t want to get another detention, right?”
  “Leave us, Jack! This doesn’t concern you!” Mark retorted.
  “It does when you try to hurt new students,” the boy, Jack, argued. “Back away from this now. Before-”
  “What is going on here?” called the principal’s voice. He was mostly bald with grey sideburns and was African American by appearances. He wore a black, stereotypical principal uniform with shiny, black business shoes. Mark immediately gulped in nervousness at the principal’s appearance.
  “Sir,” Jack greeted. “I found Mark harassing Era here.”
  The principal turned to the girl in question. “Is this true?” he asked.
  “Yes, sir. Mark was upset that I was a bit smarter than him and was trying to stop me from showing such a thing again,” she explained.
  The principal looked at Mark with a glare. “Mark, my office. Now.” He walked towards his workspace with an infuriated Mark following.
  Era turned to the boy who saved her, a heavy sense a relief in her. She then told him while all the watching kids dispersed, “Thank you. Jack, right?”
  “Yep. And I’m glad to help. Mark gets away with a lot since he’s good at covering things up. But with both our testimonies and the others who saw it, I’m sure he’ll get a good, long suspension.” Era nodded with a small smile.
  ~ ~
  It was the prick of night, cold and dark. The only way Era could see anything were with the road lights that were standing here and there. She was walking to meet Jack at a restaurant, a bit uneasy at the feeling she was getting about tonight. Her blue jean jacket fit snug around her, keeping her warmer while the areas that weren’t covered were subjected to the cold nip of the autumn night air.
  She turned a corner when she caught someone standing there. The lighting wasn’t great and a hood and dark clothing helped cover his features. But Era couldn’t help get the sense that she had seen this man before… somewhere.
  Era carefully stepped forward, bit by bit. She wanted to learn this mysterious man’s identity, but she was sure to be cautious. While all her common sense told her to turn and run, to ignore this man, her curiousness had taken over her usually calm and reasonable mind.
  Who was this man? Did he know her? If so, how? So many questions ran through Era’s mind in unending and growing loops. So many she wanted answered. And it was these amounts of questions that forced Era to go on in her quest to figure out this man, however dangerous he seemed to be.
  Era paused just a few feet away from him, finally grasping herself from her curiousness. What am I doing?! I’m walking towards a man I don’t know! And… And I do need to get to Jack,’ she thought.
  “Era, how wonderful it is to see you again,” greeted the man, but his voice was changed with a modulator of some kind. “And don’t you look nice?”
  “Who… Who are you?” Era asked a bit nervous. Even so, she kept a calm and collected facade plastered onto her face. “How do you know me?”
  “My name? You’ll learn it very soon. I just ask that you walk with me,” the man replied in the most of vagueness. Even his changed voice held a sense of withholding information that seemed would never go away.
  “I… I’m sorry,” she responded. She looked down a bit as she backed up. “I can’t go-” She stopped when she looked back up to see him gone. “Hello?” Era grew nervous at the soft laugh that echoed around her ominously. Suddenly, something sharp pierced her neck making her give a quick cry of pain before she slowly began to black out.
  The last thing she heard was one sentence with the modulator off: “Sleep well, Era…” Before she could decipher why that voice sounded so familiar, her mind went black.