Looking back on it all, I cringe at thinking that it could even be firemen…or police (which was my second thought). For one, there were plenty of windows and glass double-doors on the first floor. This was the 21st century and they had guns and other big, hazardous weapons and tools. It wasn't like the firemen were gonna to try to randomly get through the stairwell with a battering ram or something.

But that's what we thought. And we all were too roused to think properly.

So there we were...3 mutant high-schoolers wigging out over the possibility of only getting one phone call, having a stressful interrogation session, and ultimately, being put in the slammer. I wanted to tell Kiya and Nate that maybe the authorities weren't that corrupt, that maybe they'd just blame me and be done with it. But before I could even open my mouth to convince them to leave me behind, the brick wall to our left began to collapse.

Dust began to seep from the cracked cement, filling the room with its chalky substance and causing us all another coughing fit. I was waiting for the "This is the police! Put your hands where we can see 'em!" line while the wall began to crash down, but then I saw the figures of a bunch of people that looked around my height, looking like ghosts in our currently powdery surroundings.

Finally, after the fogged air had cleared up and I could see Nate and Kiya up against the wall coughing hysterically and bulky chunks of cement near my feet, I looked up to see who exactly had caught us.

It was a few of my classmates.

I know right! You must be thinking, "Damn you, Westley! All that suspense for that?!"

Well, yeah. But I was just as surprised as you were.

Standing in front of me in a brown miniskirt, with perfectly-glossed lips and strategically fluffed blonde hair…was Paige.

I pretty much felt like shooting myself just then. Rather than seeing some grouchy, gun-wielding jerk with a badge or some idiot crying into the smoke, "Hello?! Is anyone alive?" I got Paige instead. And I wasn't happy about it one bit.

What's worse? There were other people standing behind her. There was Blair Xency, balancing awkwardly on the uneven cement in a pair of her expensive girly heels. Behind her was Felix Ramirez, a random loser I shared art class with who was still coughing his guts out from the dust and smoke his lungs had inhaled. Peering from behind Felix, was Stacy Arlietto, glaring at us like we were angels sent to save her from some terrible fate. And then there was Mitch, but his afro of ostentatious curly red hair was in his face, so I couldn't really tell if he thought it was fantastic or outrageously disgusting that we had still lived.

And as if I hadn't gotten mentally bitchslapped by realizations enough times today, I realized one more thing: These people (that I absolutely couldn't stand, by the way) were the others…my new buddies for some project Kiya and Nate must have been planning for all of us.

I really wanted to just run away from everyone at that point. But I couldn't. The police would just track me down…or maybe even the military. I heard sometimes they needed the Air Force and other camouflaged idiots to go after mutants and lock them up in "Special Rehabilitation Centers for Homosuperiors."

SRCH my ass! Half of those people who went in never came out! And when they did, it was only to be taken to the wacky shack or something.

"We weren't sure what had happened to you guys," Paige explained. Her arms had brick dust all over them, and I began to suspect she was the one who had caused the wall to crumble. That sort of freaked me out. I mean, if Paige really did have superstrength than all those teases I gave her in P.E. class about breaking a nail might just result in me being torn limb from limb. I glanced at the others. Felix had finished sounding like a cat coughing up a hairball with his insistent wheezing and looked over at us with a big smile on his face.

What was his power? Super geekiness?

"We escaped from the line just barely," Stacy cut in, coming from behind Felix to enter the dilapidated stairwell, stepping around cracked bricks.

"Did they follow you?" Nathan asked, brushing some of his dirty blonde locks away from his flawless face.

"Some of them tried," Mitch offered, sticking his hands into the dirty pockets of his baggy black jeans, "But we were too good to get caught."

I bit my tongue lightly to hold back a scoff. I was supposed to believe the class rebel that certified and nicely-paid school officials were about to let a handful of us run off to no-man's-land in the midst of a fire drill? Hell no.

"They're probably on our tail then," Kiya remarked.

I smirked. I'm glad Kiya had enough sense not to buy into that crap. She began walking outside where Felix and Paige were still standing, awaiting a game plan.

She didn't stop walking though so everyone began to shuffle after her. I guess Kiya was the head honcho of all of this mess. I wanted to blame her, but she had kind of saved my ass, so I decided to put if off for a better day.

"So here's what's up," she began, "A few months ago Nathan and Paige told me they got a brochure, asking them to be a part of a school for mutants that's located in Westchester…Xavier's School for the Gifted to be exact."

I noticed the name. It was the school for freaks off in Westchester that had sure enough spammed me and my mailbox a few weeks back. At first, I thought maybe it was computer geek's lameass way of pulling a fast one over on people. Or maybe the government was trying to search out mutants and lure them to one place to get attacked by a whole bunch of army tanks or something. When I did finally believe it was a school, I didn't act on it. Or, at least, my mom hadn't. She didn't want to send me off miles away without knowing who these people were or how they even knew I was a mutant in the first place. I was glad she was concerned, but now the school seemed like the only option. I couldn't come back here to O'Reilly Senior High again…not after killing my teacher.

"And it seems we've all gotten the brochure…well, maybe except you, West___"

"I've got it…well, I had it anyway" I interrupted her. I think maybe I lost it somewhere. Kiya just nodded her head at me before continuing.

"Anyways, I figure we could just go there."

Everyone looked like they wanted to say, "Damn, Kiya. You're pretty talented. Either you can crap out some magical teleportation machine or you sure know how to make traveling miles away from here with no money, no means of transportation, and with the government hot on our tails, pretty easy."

But it was Kiya. So no one said a word.

Then Nathan opened his mouth. He had that "tread carefully" tone in his voice, "How are we going to get there?"

"Mitchell is 16! Maybe he could drive us?" Paige pointed out enthusiastically, turning to give Mitch a hopeful smile, her eyes pleading with his to agree with her.

"I don't have my license," the fro-clad Mitch admitted sheepishly.

"Oh" Paige said, disappointment lacing her words.

"Well…we could take a bus?" Nathan said.

That would've been fine; except buses took money…and we didn't have money.

"Hmmmmmmmmm…." Felix thought noisily, tapping his finger to his chin in an infuriatingly stupid way.

"Gee, Felix, don't blow a brain gasket," Stacy muttered sarcastically.

"Okay! I've got an idea!" Felix proclaimed, his left eye twitched and his nasally voice spouted over the silence, "We hijack a car!"

I'm ashamed to say I actually considered his pathetic idea for a few seconds, before my face went red…you know, in that way it does when I want to slap something really hard without anyone noticing.

"As if we're not in enough trouble with the law already" I muttered. Paige giggled at my comment. At least, I think it was a giggle. You could never tell. It was like Eartha Kitt's catwoman purr mixed with a rumbling squeal…yeah, I know. Nasty.

"We'll have to go home then." Kiya explained as we began walking through the mass of trees behind our school that led to an intersection.

Felix began to protest and Stacy whined while Nathan squeezed her hand and cleared his throat in that way he did before he protested something.

Kiya shut them all down with a few flicks of that sharp tongue of hers, "Shut-up you godforsaken babies. I'm not gonna sit here and breastfeed you the answers to all of your insignificant problems. I don't care if you don't want to go home. Fine, we'll be walking to Westchester. But if you want to go home and get a few things that you just might need to survive on this trip, you'll cry yourself a river, build a bridge, and get the hell over it. Do I make myself clear, imbeciles?!"

It was like when my mom had enrolled me in boot camp for a month and a half. Kiya had the whole slave-driving lieutenant thing down packed. No one looked particularly happy to be called imbeciles, but no one looked ready to challenge her either.

"And now that we've graduated from our soiled diapers to thongs, I'd also like to state that this isn't a trip for the weak-hearted. Either you're coming with us the whole way or you're staying home, trying to fight off the press and make up a lie to cover yourself. But in the long run, if you slow me or any other dedicated, hard-working individual down on this trip, get ready to get the snot beaten out of you."

Yep…definitely like boot camp.

It got really quiet after Kiya stopped talking and I figured everyone was thinking about what she had said. This was the end of our old lives, in a way. We weren't coming back. Sure, we could've lied and said none of us caused our teacher's death…we could've lied about a lot of shit, but that wouldn't stop us from being mutants.

We all knew, at that moment, we lived in a messed up world where we would probably never be accepted. To society and every other human being, we weren't people. We were freaks.

But the ironic thing was that before we had all even known each other, we pretty much had already labeled each other as such. And we all probably still hated each other's guts and we all probably would rather be getting roasted in the Underworld than travel for days with each other. So that being said, it really made me wonder…if everyone we thought was a freak, really was a freak (mutant or non)…that would make a lot of people a freak…in fact, that would make everyone a freak.