Schizophrenia: A schizophrenic character has lost his grip on reality, and can no longer tell the difference between what is real and what is not. These constant hallucinations cause the schizophrenic to appear erratic, chaotic, and unpredictable to others.

Character: Ned Starling

Disclaimer: I don't own The 39 Clues or Stanford. I don't own anything in the fan fiction.

~-~(For The Gone Angel's December Challenge)~-~

"Professor." Eighteen year old Ned Starling said, raising his hand. Professor Griffon paused his lecture of Quantum Physics.

"Excuse me for the interruption, but do you hear that?" He asked. The classroom was deadly silent for a moment; no one was sure what he meant. After a few moments, the students in the back of the room continued chattering about girls and bars.

Ned swore he heard it again, a loud noise that he would mistake as a gunshot or a student yelling, mistaking it for screaming. He shook his head; Stanford was safe from the Vespers; it was an Ekat base. But not all strongholds were 100% safe…

He heard the door open and close, and he sat up straight. It wasn't like him to zone out, but he had learned about all of this years ago; he just wanted to stay at a safe place. It was his safe house for a month until the Starling Triplets would go to Tel Aviv for help on their medical injuries.

Looking at the door, there was a squad of Vespers, all holding guns pointing at him. He screamed and ducked under his table. He blinked and then the Vespers all disappeared. After a small moment, a chorus of laughter from the students was followed by the Professor telling everyone to be quiet. He continued the lecture, but Ned still didn't feel safe. This wasn't paranoia; this was intense paranoia. Schizophrenia. That's what it was. He heard it happened a lot after traumatic events.

Why didn't this start earlier? The bombings had happened almost 2 years ago, yet it only started a couple of weeks ago. He sighed and gathered his things, then leaving the classroom unnoticed.

Ned closed his eyes and stared at the ceiling of his dorm. He was lying on his back on his bed, in the room he shared with Ted. Ted was still taking his Trigonometry lectures. They were disguised as regular college students so they wouldn't arouse suspicion. Sinead was living away with them, at the Cahill Manor. He heard loud thumping on his door.

"Who is it?" he asked groggily; he hadn't gotten much sleep last night because he kept seeing the shadows change and morph into shapes that resembled an explosion and rubble raining down on him. It's not real, it's not real! He kept telling himself, yet he knew in the back of his mind that it was real. The Clue Hunt had given him large, exultingly painful headaches. All thanks to the Holts.

The door exploded off his hinges; Ned looked up startled at the said large masculine family. Eisenhower Holt grabbed him by the throat and started shaking him around. Ned tried to fight back but grabbed air. He landed a successful punch on his attacker.

"Ouch Ned! It's me, Ted! Dude calm down!" Ned blinked. The Holts disappeared. It was only Ted trying to shake him back into the land of the living.

"Is it one of those headaches again?" Ted asked, concerned for his triplet brother. Now that he mentioned it, Ned felt like his forehead was on fire.

"Yeah… I'm fine." He managed to choke out. He stood up. "I'm going to get a drink."

Great. Chemistry. Easily one of the easiest of all of his college courses. Ned yawned.

"…And so that's why H2O has hydrogen bonds, which only break at 100oC. Are you taking this down?" Professor John asked the class. The professor was a nice man; he would crack jokes everyone once in a while and make puns. It was worthwhile to listen; at least Ned got a daily dose of laughter in this class. The other classes were boring and uninformative.

"Now, does anyone memorize what DNA stands for and the chemical formula for it? No, Tyler, it doesn't mean National Dyslexic Association…"

Ned tried hard to focus. Today, he was not going to let his hallucinations own him.

The glass windows shattered, but he tried hard to pay attention. It's only a hallucination, not real… He could hear a helicopter in the distance, no wait – two helicopters! Gunmen poured through the now shattered windows, but Ned ignored it all. Not real… not real. He looked at his classmates to clarify they were only hallucinations; they didn't seem bothered. He couldn't help but cringe when the guns were pointed at him. Not real… Not real… he kept telling himself. He felt a searing pain on his head, like a hammer was pounding it. In fact, in his illusion, a hammer was hitting his head.

Darrel had thought his classmate, Ned, was one of the few sane people in Stanford. Apparently he was wrong. Casting a sideways glance at him while Professor John was talking, he saw that he was almost ripping out his hair and cringing whenever someone cast a look near him. Finally, he watched as Ned screamed, "I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!" and exited the classroom. Professor John looked highly offended but ultimately shrugged and continued lecturing.

There went another sane person.

A/N: How did you like it? Hate it? Lurve it? Go type up a review or something. Yeah sorry for turning it into a humor at the end… Anyways, bye!

-Powers(ss)