Chapter 46: Open Your Mind
The Monday after prom was a lot more lively than the previous week in Elmore High. That's because it's the seniors final week in school and some of them couldn't wait to get out.
Gumball and Darwin were walking down the halls as they hear normal chatter from the other students. "Can't wait to not hear this anymore. It gets annoying when you have enhanced hearing." Gumball said.
"Ugh..tell me about it. Us wolves have a lot better sense of hearing than the rest and it gets really frustrating when everyone's too loud." said Christine out of the blue. She was taking out her books from her locker when she heard Gumball and Darwin come by.
"Oh, hey CJ. Didn't see you there." Darwin said apologetically.
"Oh, it's fine. You guys emptied out your locker yet?"
"We got a few more days to do that. We'll do it later." Gumball said.
"Alright then, suit yourself."
Darwin looks at Christine as if something's amiss. He put his stubby hand on his non-existent chin and tried to make it out. "Hey uhh...CJ?"
"Hm?" Christine's ears perked up.
"Are you alright? You seem a lot more...confident I guess? I don't know, you're normally kinda shy."
Gumball looked at her and could barely tell the difference, but she did show some certain changes on herself. Her body posture seems a lot more confident and her face is beaming with light. Normally that happens when she's around her friends - and that alone is already rare - but he noticed she's doing this for no reason whatsoever. She just seems happier and better with herself.
"Oh yeah, I don't know what happened either. I just suddenly felt more confident with myself. I don't even remember why I always felt down before. Everything is just great." Christine answered with a smile. She took her backpack from the ground and started walking to class, leaving the two alone.
"That was weird." Darwin said. "But if she feels better this way, then I'm happy for her."
"I'll say." Cato said from behind them, making Gumball jump. "Looks as if she got bit with a confidnece bug."
"That is true." Amber said, suddenly emerging in between Gumball and Darwin. "She really looks a lot better now.
"Will everyone please stop coming in out of nowhere?" Gumball yelled out of frustration. Cato and Amber looked away from him. "As I wanted to say, so what if she feels more confident now? Let her. If she's happier like this who are we to stop her, right?" Gumball said as he walked forward, only to hit something floating and made of rubber. Gumball backpedalled and looked in front of him.
"Oh, pardon me. I didn't know I was..." said a familiar looking turqoise balloon.
"Wait, Alan?" Gumball said. "Alan, buddy! Where have you been?"
Alan looked at Gumball with a bit if confusion. "I'm glad that you're happy to see me, Gumball, but I never went anywhere. I was here this whole time, we go to the same class together."
Now Gumball has a look of confusion to what Alan just said. Cato leaned to look behind Alan to see a piece of toast, a potato and a floating eyeball along with Bobert.
"And who're the others?" Cato asked.
Alan looked behind him and was now even more confused. "Anton? Idaho? William? Bobert? You guys really don't remember us at all?" Anton said.
Cato and Amber shook their heads. "I don't think we know you guys, except for Bobert we've met before."
"That is correct." Bobert chimes in. "However, it is not correlating in my programming that you have not met the rest of us for we have been studying in the same facility for approximately 4 years, 7 months and 16 days."
Cato and Amber exchanged glances, Amber scratched the back of her head with a confused look and shrugged.
"Well, if you'll excuse us, I'm trying to prepare a graduation speech for graduation later this week since I'm the student representative and these guys are going to help me out. We'll see you guys in class."
And with that, the group left to do their thing while Gumball and his friends remained confused. "Am I the only one who's weirded out by this?" Amber asked the guys, to which all of them shook their heads.
"Something doesn't feel right." Gumball wondered. "By the way, where's Carrie?"
"Right here, snuckums." Carrie said popping out from the wall to his face, smiling. Gumball tried to keep his composure since everyone keeps surprising him and he's just about to shit his pants at this point. "Did I scare you?"
"Just about." Gumball said. Carrie smiled to make up for it.
"So what's up? Why's everyone looking confused?"
"We bumped into Alan earlier along with Anton, Idaho, William and Bobert." Darwin said.
"Yeah, and?"
"You remember them at all? We always thought they moved out of town or something."
"No, they've always been here. They're in our class, remember?"
Everyone shook their heads.
"Wow, really? Are you guys that blind or narrow-minded?"
"Not funny, Carrie." Amber said.
"Sorry, it's just that us and our group of friends aren't the only ones in the class, you know."
It never caught their attention before, but they only now realized that they thought they were the only ones in class. Carrie grabbed hold of everyone and teleported to their class to prove her point.
"See? It's not just us."
The others turned to the class and saw just their friends: Lexy, Dante, Ivan, Jake, Kelsey, Teri, Jamie and Anna.
"Hey, guys." Dante greeted. Cato waved at him.
"Uhh...I think it's just me but I don't see anyone else."
Carrie sighed. "Okay, I need you guys to really look. Like REALLY really look. Open up your mind a bit and I don't mean literally, Gumball."
They all squinted their eyes and slowly faces are forming from the empty seats in the class.
Overtime, students of the class started appearing one by one in their respective groups. The gossip girls emerged out of thin air - Masami, Carmen, Sarah, Leslie - followed by Sussie scribbling something on a piece of paper. Ocho, Juke and Clayton appeared near their group of friends talking to each other. Everything seemed a bit more...normal. As normal as Elmore could get at least.
"Am I the only one who's seeing this?" Cato asked as he turned to Amber who put up a frightened look. Guess for a ghost, she's not too fond of non-paranormal beings to suddenly appear out of nowhere.
"I remember now!" Darwin said.
"Yeah, they never left. They were just here and none of you actually noticed them."
"They look a bit different too." Gumball said, mentioning about Juke's more well-built body than when they were in junior high. "How did we never notice them?"
"I don't know. Maybe that's something you need to ask yourselves." Carrie said as she floated towards the group sitting down.
As they were still trying to comprehend, Alan and his friends walked by them into the class. "Hello again." was all he said. The other gave them some weird glances.
"This is pretty weird, but if it's something that's only happening to us..." Amber said.
"Then why us and us alone?" Cato finished.
"Ahh, it's probably nothing." Darwin said waving his fin. "Just imagine, us not knowing our own friends and classmates still here? What's next? Them disappearing again into some unknown void?"
"That was Bob." Gumball said reminding Darwin of the cyclops friend that claimed to come back from the Void and became their nemesis as Dr. Wrecker.
"You mean Rob?" Cato corrected him.
"Yeah, that's what I said. Ross."
Cato looked like he wanted to continue but fought the urge to.
"What I'm getting at is this is too ridiculous." Darwin continued.
"Maybe you're a bit too overwhelmed by this." Amber said.
"Which is crazy because we've been going on some weirder stuff than this."
Darwin started to panic. "There's no way. No no no no. Oh, let me guess. Next what's gonna happen is we all forget this ever happened and they start showing up like we never thought they left and was always here?"
"Seemed to be that way for every other shit we've been through thus far." Cato said. "You're just overreacting, calm down. We probably didn't notice them until now because we're always within our own group of friends and rarely without them. That kinda thing can happen with your brain."
"That's right. You should just relax. It's not a big of a deal and let's not make it because you're kinda making a scene right now." Amber said with a lower voice right at the end, pointing to the class who is now staring at Darwin.
Darwin, now flushed with embarrassment, took his seat and plopped his head on his desk. Gumball shrugged and took his seat, acting like this never happened since he's probably accustomed to any strange shenanigans happening around him. Cato and Amber looked at each other and finally went to join their group of friends.
And that's what happened to the rest of the class throughout the story. They were never gone or missing, just unnoticed.
That ending got off more ominous than I intended honestly. But good news, I'm not dead! I know last time I said I had some spare time but apparently time wasn't on me to decide and I got crap ton of stuff to do back to back. So to compensate for that, I'm trying to get back momentum and give some subtle chapters along the way (I know I say that a lot but I'm trying my best).
This was a chapter I wanted to do for so long in this story because in the entirety of this story and my previous one (A New Life), I rarely bring up the side characters of the original show and I wanted to have one chapter that follows about the other characters rather than the main group (kinda like "The Others"). It may seem pretty rushed I know and I apologize for it.
Also, what's up with CJ having a confidence boost all of the sudden after prom? Did something happen? Mysterious...
But as always, hope you guys enjoyed this chapter, lemme know what you think and I'll see you guys in the next chapter. Peace out!
