The first afternoon and night did not pass well. I had apparently been unconscious until long after lunch. There were no clocks within my line of vision, but a small window on the other side of my bed showed me the setting sun. The doctor brought me some food, wisely not demanding me to speak to her. I refused to eat it. Professor Xavier wheeled back to check on me, but I turned towards the window and refused to be responsive. I also refuse to elaborate on how I managed to go to the bathroom, as I prefer to forget it. When I tried to sleep, panicked thoughts about my being surrounded my mutants filled my brain to the brim. Also, I awoke several times during the night, always clutching at the covers, yet unaware of what my dreams had been.

Finally, I opened my eyes when the sun was up. A small bedside table had been set up next to me. The top was at an easy height for my left hand to reach. On it rested a clock with the two photos propped next to it, a toothbrush and toothpaste, a flashlight, an MP3 player, and a note. Written on the note were four words: "Hope you like it." I was stunned. Inside the drawer, which I opened with some difficulty, was several books, mainly mysteries and fantasy. Upon seeing Dr. Ray, I asked, "Who did this?"

"Well, look who's decided to talk. Good morning, Ryan." She gave me a penetrating glance. "Try not to move too much. Your ribs will 'knit' much sooner than that arm and leg will heal, and then we'll see about moving you to a wheelchair. I brought you some painkillers. It looks like you've been twisting around a bit last night." X-Ray handed me a glass of water and three pills.

"Huh?" I eyed the pills suspiciously. "I have three questions, Doctor. Who put that stuff there, why do you keep commenting on the state of my skeleton first thing in the morning, and are you trying to poison me?"

She laughed quietly at me, smoothing back her brown hair. "To start with," she said, ticking the answers of her fingers, "whoever brought that table in must have done it in the middle of the night, since I didn't see it happen. I keep commenting on your bones because I can see them. The reason they call me X-Ray is that I can see through things. It's very useful for a doctor." Dr. Ray did another piercing look-over, and I shivered when I noticed that her left pupil shrank to nothingness, while her right pupil grew to fill her entire right eye. She blinked, and they abruptly returned to normal size. "Your suitcases are under your bed, incidentally. I assure you that we would not go to all this trouble to help you out if we were going to poison you. You are free to accept or deny the medication."

My chest area, along with the injured limbs, had been throbbing all night. I stared at the pills for five more minutes, then carefully swallowed them. "I guess I am already in about as much trouble as I could be, anyhow," I murmured, then gulped down the water.

Someone knocked on the infirmary door, and the doctor left me there. It was that girl again, my so-called sister. A strange conversation passed between her and X-Ray. Dr. Ray would ask her something, and she would nod, shake her silvery head, or start miming. I wondered if she could talk. Eventually she pulled out a notepad and scribbled a message on it. The doctor read it, nodded, and let her pass.

"What are YOU doing here?" I asked angrily. "Can't you leave me alone?" There was no reply, as she sat down on the bed next to mine, holding her head. Her sunglasses-covered eyes looked away from me. I reached out with my left hand and tapped her wrist to get her attention, and repeated my statement.

Her face was completely expressionless as she grabbed the same notepad and wrote: For your information, I'm not here for you to insult me. I happen to have a headache and I can't concentrate in class.

"Why can't you talk?"

She wrote: I can talk, but you can't hear me. I also can't hear you. I've recently learned how to read lips, which isn't very difficult. The deafness is a side effect of my mutation.

"What is your mutation?"

Do you really want to know? Her handwriting was a messy cursive.

"Well," I said, "I probably have to know sometime. Why do they call you Silent Spirit?" I couldn't believe we were being so reasonably. Chilled, yes, but still civil to one another. Wasn't she supposed to be sucking my eyes out at this point or something? "The 'Silent' part makes sense, but..."

I can only talk to and hear dead people...

"WHAT?"

It even freaks out mutants when they first think about it. Scared me half to death, so I'm not surprised at your feelings, since I'm creepy enough to you already. Go ahead, do the finger-cross thing if you like. I'm used to it. She turned away as the Doctor came with some medicine and advice.

"Spirit," the doctor said, "you can take these, but tonight you have to get some more sleep. That's the best thing for you. It looks like you've been up all night."

I managed to sneak a look at what Spirit wrote after taking the aspirin. I have been up all night.

"Promise me that you will go to bed at no later than 9:30 tonight."

Spirit nodded slowly, then took off her sunglasses to rub them on her light blue shirt. She kept her eyes tightly closed as she did so. Once again she turned to me and stared long enough to make me squirm.

"Please leave," I implored. "Just leave me alone."

Okay. I'll stay away from you. But on one condition.

"What? Are you guys keeping me here to turn me into a mutie-lover or something? I still don't for a moment admit that you are my sister."

No, no, no, she wrote. I don't ask for you to accept or love me. Ordinary people who look beyond the gray are rare. Just let me know that you're alive and you're here. Let me love you. That's enough. With that she left.

"Wait! Were you the one who put these things next to me?" I received no reply, for she was gone. Eventually the doctor brought me some breakfast, which I decided to eat. Feeling bored, I reached for the MP3 player and managed to get the earphones on with only my left hand. Though I was reluctant to accept the gifts, I couldn't stand another day of sitting and doing nothing. To my surprise, the first song was the same as the one I'd heard on Jeff's bus.

[Another love before my time made your heart sad and blue

And now my heart is paying for things I didn't do...

...Why can't I free your doubtful mind, and melt your cold, cold heart?]

The lyrics stuck in my head in an earnest way that bothered me, making me feel guilty. I put the music aside and dug out some books. For the first time in as long as I could remember, I spent an entire day reading and brooding, and I was all alone.

'Let me love you', Spirit had written, seeming completely sincere. The thought tore at my conscience. Part of me pitied her, but most of my mind was full of hostility and bitterness. Crystal said that she loved me, and see how it turned out. Snap out of the sentiment, Ryan, she's gone forever. She's not yours anymore. And this girl has nothing to do with you. Liars, all of them. First they suck up to you, then they hurt you, then they leave you. It's all the same. That was what the angry part of me kept saying. Something else in my brain, however, focused on other things: the photographs, the kindness, the anonymous donation that saved me from torturous boredom, and the tear that dropped from Spirit's hidden eye. This would take a long time to settle, but I had a long time to wait.

The next day was similar to the first, as was the day after that. After the first week I awoke to find a new set of books in the drawers, and new songs downloaded on the MP3 player, though the first song was always the same. A calendar with special event in musical history marked on it also appeared. X-Ray continued to tell me that she hadn't seen the donor. I became very tired of the solitude, but I still was paranoid about interacting with mutants. One day, out of sheer boredom, I played tic-tac-toe with myself. That didn't work too well. I missed my friends in New Jersey, and tried to imagine conversations with them. That failed, because I could only think about discussing my current problems. In short, I discovered true loneliness for the first time.

This ended when, as Spy had predicted, the news leaked out. I began to see a steady trickle of teenagers with mysterious, invisible ailments who tried to gain admittance to the infirmary. The ones who managed to convince Dr. Ray would stare at me with no subtlety whatsoever, but would keep their distance. I would look out the window and try not to scream. Most of them, like Spy, looked alarmingly ordinary. Then I would see one walk through a wall instead of opening a door, or one who would send sparks crackling into the air, or one that sneezed and suddenly turned into three identical copies of himself. Then I would shiver and shrink towards the wall. I felt intensely miserable, and my dreams were filled with nightmares. This was the worst part of my life, full of anxiety, inner struggles, and a longing for companionship.