The next few weeks Rael kept the usual pace, pretending nothing had changed.
Rael still woke to Lian's bell, still folded the same thin blanket, still joined the washroom line behind the same backs. Sunview's classrooms still smelled like chalk and dust and too many bodies. Dawnrise's hall still echoed with kids' arguments over the last piece of flatbread.
Only his mind felt different.
In maths class, Teacher Mirra stabbed the board with her chalk.
"Pay attention. This is important for your term test."
Letters and numbers marched across the green surface:
$$
2x + 5 = 17
$$
Rael copied the equation mechanically, hand moving on its own.
Were we really taught this kind of algebra in 6th class… damn.
On Earth, he remembered learning something similar in 8th or 9th coaching centre, sweating under a ceiling fan that squeaked. Back then he'd been a bored teenager pretending to care about exam marks.
Here, half the class was still trying to remember what "variable" meant.
"Rael," Mirra said suddenly. "Solve the next one."
He blinked. "Yes, ma'am."
She wrote another equation. His brain supplied the steps before he finished reading it. He stood, solved it on his slate, and read the answer out loud.
Mirra frowned, checking her notebook, then nodded. "Correct."
A few heads turned his way. Teren gave him a small thumbs‑up. Miko looked impressed for exactly three seconds before losing track of the solution somewhere around division.
Rael sat down again.
He didn't feel proud. Just… off balance. In his previous life childhood, he remembered hiding behind other kids whenever teachers asked questions. Even when he knew the answer, he'd kept his hand down.
Now, the answer had jumped out of his mouth before the part of him that liked staying invisible could stop it.
"Don't make a habit out of it," he told himself, staring at his slate. "Middle of the pack is safe."
Still, his homework that night ended up finished before lights‑out instead of half‑done in the morning rush.
Drawing class was another story.
"Today," the art sir announced, "we are painting city. Houses, streets, trees. Use your imagination."
Rael stared at his blank sheet.
As expected I'm still no good with drawing.
He remembered bad stick figures from both lives. On Earth, his friends had laughed at his attempts when he'd tried painting . Here, the best he could manage was a house that looked like a hut.
Beside him, Jarel's page exploded with confident lines—skyscrapers, cars, something that might have been a robot. Miko carefully drew a huge sun with a smiling face.
Rael added a small tree and a crooked road and decided that was enough for one day.
When the teacher passed by, she paused, then gave him a mild smile.
"Your lines are cleaner than before, Rael," she said. "Just keep practising."
He almost laughed. Cleaner didn't mean good. But he nodded anyway.
Later, back at Dawnrise, some of the younger kids begged him to draw with them. He watched them make simple stick‑figure families and felt a small, hollow ache he couldn't quite name.
The first time his class went to the school library that month, Rael's feet stopped just inside the door on their own.
Rows of shelves. Old posters urging kids to "Read More!" A single creaky ceiling fan doing its best. The room smelled of paper and dust and that particular bookish scent he'd always liked.
He trailed his fingers along a shelf as they walked past.
I wonder if they have the same comics like Earth.
Back then, he used to read cheap weekly comics in library as, then later on phone, between boring computer batches. Here, the covers stared back with unfamiliar titles: adventure series, old sci‑fi, a lot of textbooks.
"Pick something in your level," the librarian said. "No fighting."
While the others grabbed for flashy covers or the few comics they recognised, Rael drifted to a quieter corner. His hand hovered over a book about stars, another about animals , a thin booklet on what seemed like textbook key he hadn't noticed before.
He didn't take any of them.
In the end, he picked a simple comic about a clumsy robot and a boy, because Miko was eyeing it nervously and would never reach it before Jarel.
"Here," Rael said, passing it to him.
Miko's face lit. "You don't want it?"
"I'll read it after you," Rael said.
He walked away with a random story collection instead, feeling both stupid and relieved. Wanting more from this life and actually reaching for it were two different mindsets. The first one had just started waking up. The second still lay frozen.
The month blurred into a rhythm of small changes, with him nagging Teren a little about homework to taking over reading practice with two younger kids because Lian's voice had gone hoarse,folding laundry without being asked when he saw Vira juggling a crying Nori and a basket. Changes that were noticed.
"Since when are you this good?" Teren complained one night, flopping onto Rael's bunk. "You're ruining my image , you know."
But when lights went out, he lay staring at the cracked ceiling, thinking of a cramped Earth bedroom, of ashtrays and half‑eaten noodles and messages he'd never answered.
He hadn't exactly been irresponsible there. Just… absent.
Maybe this time, he could at least do better?
He didn't promise himself anything big. No "I'll become the top student" or "I'll change the world." Those sounded ridiculous even inside his head.
For now, doing ordinary things properly felt like enough of a stretch.
The next morning the started like any other but for some reason Rael was feeling uneasy, his nerves just weren't calming down.
Lian's bell. Washroom queue. Cold water complaints. Breakfast. The walk to Sunview with Teren chattering about a TV serial and Miko worrying about a maths quiz, all seemed normal but unknown fear keep coming to him leaveing him distracted.
Rael answered in short lines, listened more than he spoke, and tried not to think too hard about how it all felt.
By late morning, they were in social studies. The classroom windows were open; a faint breeze carried in street sounds.
"Today we continue with 7 th chapter " Teacher Mirra said, flipping through her book. "Someone remind me where we left off? Rael?"
He started to answer, then paused.
A loud police siren wailed in the distance.
Nothing unusual, he told himself. Sometimes there was an accident on the main road, or a fight near the market.
Mirra frowned briefly toward the window, then looked back at her notes.
"Right," she said. "Sectors Tehr and Valin share—"
Another siren joined the first. Then, a minute later, a third.
The sound threaded through her words, . Some kids shifted in their seats sinkering while hiding.
"Quiet," she said. "Focus on your books."
Rael tried. The map lines in his textbook wavered slightly.
Mirra's phone, lying screen‑down on the desk, buzzed once. She ignored it.
It buzzed again. And again.
She picked it up, checked the caller ID, and silenced it. Her mouth pressed into a thin line.
The sirens outside kept coming.
After the fourth call, she sighed.
"Class, copy the notes from the board," she said. "I'll be right outside. Monitor, keep everyone in their seats."
She stepped into the corridor, shutting the door almost fully behind her.
The moment it clicked, low chatter burst out.
"What do you think happened?" someone whispered.
"Maybe a minister is visiting," another boy said. "They always make too much noise for nothing."
Rael watched the slice of corridor visible through the glass pane. Mirra had her back to them, phone pressed to her ear. Even from this angle, he could see her shoulders stiffen.
She nodded once, twice, then turned partly toward the staffroom. Her free hand pressed against her forehead.
Whatever the caller was saying, it wasn't about a minister.
A few minutes later, a peon hurried up. Rael couldn't hear the words, but he could read the urgency in the man's gestures.
The door opened. Mirra stuck her head back in.
"Everyone stay in your seats," she said, voice a little too tight. "No one leaves the room. Monitor, write names on the board if anyone makes noise. I will come back in a while"
The class collectively went "ooooh" at the words, but more out of excitement of having no class
As soon as she left, the noise level jumped.
"let's play a game
"Idiot, we're still in class."
"Well, no teacher, so—"
Teren leaned over. "you think it's about that minister? think they'll close the school?" he asked, eyes shining at the idea.
"Why would they close it?" Rael said.
He tried to sound bored. Inside, something tightened in his chest. Sirens. Phone calls. sudden leave. On Earth, those combinations usually meant bad news.
He stared at his half‑copied notes until the words blurred.
Time stretched thin. The sirens came and went. Somewhere, a helicopter chopped the air, a rare sound over their town.
The door finally opened again.
Mirra looked more composed now, but it was the kind of calm Rael recognised as heavy.
"Listen," she said, and the room quieted without her having to shout. "School is ending early today. Your parents and guardians have been informed. They'll be coming to pick you up. Those who use the school buses will go with staff. No running, no shouting, no leaving the campus on your own. Understood?"
A ripple of excited noise ran through the class.
"Why?" someone asked. "Miss, what happened?"
"Nothing much" she said carefully. "The school will be closing for a while and you will be having holidays, the rest you will know once you go home ."
closing for few days?
Rael's stomach did a slow, uneasy turn.
"Pack your bags," Mirra said. "We'll move by sections."
The courtyard buzzed like a disturbed beehive.
Parents clustered near the gate. Teachers tried to sort kids by class and bus route. Younger children clung to hands or cried; older ones stood on tiptoe, trying to see over the crowd.
Rael stuck close to the small group from Dawnrise, his bag strap digging into his shoulder. Lian had one hand on Nori, the other on Miko's shoulder. Nyla was talking to another teacher near the gate, her expression clipped.
"What do you think happened?" Teren whispered. "Terrorists? Riots? Meteor?"
"If it was a meteor, we'd see it," Jarel said. "And we'd be dead."
"Don't say that, stupid," Miko hissed.
Rael didn't answer. He kept watching the adults instead.
Then there was loud 'click'
Nyla suddenly fell silent mid‑sentence and looked past the school buildings, toward the far side of town. Her face went blank in a way that wasn't calm at all.
"Miko, stay here," Rael said quietly.
He stepped a little away from the group and turned to follow her gaze.
For a moment he didn't understand what he was seeing.
The sky over the distant fields was a soft, harmless blue, dotted with a few clouds. Across that blue, cutting from one invisible point to another, ran a **line**.
It was too straight to be a cloud, too jagged to be a contrail. Bright, like sunlight on broken glass, yet not quite the colour he knew. It hung there, unmoving, like la crack in a window no one had noticed until it caught the light just right.
"What… is that?" someone breathed.
Other people were starting to notice. A murmur rose, spreading across the courtyard like wind in dry grass.
"Some kind of light?"
"Is that a plane trail?"
"Plane trails don't go sideways."
Teachers told kids to keep moving, keep walking, don't stop. Nobody listened for a few seconds.
Rael's throat felt dry.
So much for a quiet second life.
He watched the crack for one heartbeat longer, trying to decide if it was closer than it looked or unimaginably far. The air around it seemed wrong, like heat shimmer on a summer road.
"Rael!" Lian called sharply. "Over here!"
He tore his eyes away and hurried back to the Dawnrise group.
Lian's grip on his shoulder was firmer than usual as she counted heads. Nyla's voice, talking to another teacher, kept slipping words like "nationwide" and "broadcast" and "we'll know more tonight."
They led the kids out of the school gate and toward the road where the transport van waited.
Rael climbed in, squeezed between Miko and Teren. The crack stayed visible through the side window for a while, a bright scar against the sky.
Looks like things are going to change again, whether I want it or not.
The van turned a corner. Buildings blocked the view. For a moment the sky looked normal again, ordinary and blue.
But It didn't help much, not at all.