--Picks up directly from where Chapter 1 left off--

Still on the verge of hyperventilating Jack was able to mutter but two syllables: "You sure?!?!?"

"Well, unless my watch, my calendar, that calendar over there, my agenda, and..." Looking at Jack's watch "Even your own watch are all wrong: yes, today is Monday. Sorry...I guess?"

After struggling somewhat to pull himself together and regain some semblance of composure, Jack was actually able to speak. "Okay...well...you ever have one of those weeks where it feels so much like it's actually a day it's not? Like today being Friday instead of Monday?"

"Yeah...all the time..." Paul said only sort of agreeing. It was true, Paul had sometimes felt like this, but always just attributed it to lack of sleep...or falling asleep in front of his computer and waking up at 3:00 in the morning and having to finish all his homework. However, now it seems as though Jack was subconsciously eluding to something else. "Woah, we got to get going, we're gonna be late!"

"Right, lets go." Jack said, feebly trying to get himself back to a normal state. He knew he hadn't slept hardly at all last night, but he had never felt this bizarre after getting a bad night's sleep.

"Mr. Randall..." Jack heard the ominous voice behind him as he was about to pass over the threshold of the door. "Forgetting something?"

"Oh boy...you get going, I'll catch up later." Jack breathed to Paul.

"Okay, good luck I guess." Paul said as he left the room.

"Well?" Came the simple yet venomous question from his teacher.

"Well...what?" Jack asked still befuddled at this whole situation.

"Well, what do you have to say for yourself?"

"I think I already explained myself and with a legitimate reason too." Jack responded, politely but somewhat matter-of-factly.

"I see."

"I know you're the one who's supposed to be interrogating me here, but I have a question for you." Jack said after a momentary silence that lasted an eternity.

"Go ahead."

"Why did you chose today and me to make an example of? I mean, people come in late all the time and you don't seem to mind, so why me?"

"I felt it was the right time to make an example of somebody, and you happened to be at the right place at the right time." His teacher responded. And then added "For me at least."

"Okay..." Jack said trying to process this. "So, can I go now?" Jack asked as the bell rang.

"Sure." Said his teacher as she picked up her things and started heading for the door.

"Can I have a pass...?" Jack asked confused, again, as his teacher exited the classroom. "I guess not..." Jack picked up his backpack and started heading out of the classroom. Once he got outside the room he looked up and down the empty corridor. It was eerily empty. Then suddenly a small, paranoid voice came from behind him.

"Your right."

"What?" Asked Jack as he turned around to see Chester, the school weirdo. "Oh, hey Chester. What was that?"

"Your right." Chester said, getting excited, looking like a giddy little mouse. As Jack looked at him he noticed that Chester looked like a more humane Gollum. The bulging eyes, crumbled frame, pallor, voice, just less extreme and paranoid. Darting eyes, twitching head, seeming as if surveying ever crack and crevice for 'they' or 'it' might be lurking inside of it. "About the date."

"What? About today being Friday? How is that possible?" Jack asked feeling very much like he was about to return to his state of paranoia, but also suspecting it was Chester being a little bit crazy.

"They changed it, again. And it changed us...again." Chester said as he became more excited and slightly more paranoid, as impossible as that seemed to Jack. "Except me, it doesn't work on me. But they don't know that yet. Heheh."

"Right..." Jack said now firmly believing that Chester was very much crazy. He was about to venture an inquiry at who 'they' were but stopped himself and reminded himself of something. "I...have to go now...I'm already late to class, and so are you, actually."

"That's not important to me anymore..." Chester replied somewhat mournfully and contemplative. "Not since - - " He was cut off by the P.A. system coming on.

"Will Chester McNally please come down to the main office. Will Chester McNally please come down to the main office." The voice was chilling cold and it showed on Chester. He visibly left the realm of paranoia and was delved deeply into fear.

"Oh no...this is it." Chester said frightened and somewhat resignedly. "I have to go now..."

"Wait- - " Jack started.

"No, it's okay. It's time." Chester cut him off, seeming like he knew something. Chester walked off down the hall, his small frame disappearing down the stair well. Before he was totally out of sight Jack saw him turn back and say something. However, he was too far away to either hear what Chester had said or to see what he said.

"What did you say??" Jack asked, but before he could finish Chester had disappeared down the stairs. "Wow...I need to get out of here, this day is just way too fucked up for me..." Jack said to himself as he turned and started down the hall to his next class.

When he got to his classroom he was already 10 minutes late, but his teacher was nice about it – a welcome change from his other teacher – and didn't really even notice.

"Wow, I needed that." Jack chuckled to himself as he took his seat. He went through the normal motions of pretending to pay attention in class and was now trying to sort out even more stuff than before. He was still trying to figure out what his dream was about, why his teacher was acting so peculiar and then what was going on with Chester. Chester was odd to begin with, and everybody knew that, but he normally just kept to himself. Today was the first day in about seven years that Chester had actually said something to him, and as far as he knew, to anybody at all. And then there was the matter of what he said. The echoes of Chester's words were ringing in Jack's ears. He was going back and forth trying to figure out who 'they' were and what 'it' was. He was trying to digest almost everything that Chester had said, and attempt to make some sense out of it. But by the end of the period he was still clueless. The monotone bell was becoming the sweet sound of momentary freedom from this mental hell which he was being subjected to.

"Military History next, awesome. Maybe I'll stop thinking about all this for at least 40 minutes..." This was of course to no avail as Jack soon remembered that his teacher wasn't in school and the substitute just gave them a free period. This of course meant more time for Jack to mull everything over. He kept going back to what Chester had said 'they' 'it' 'it's time' and what did he say when he was going down the stairs. Jack was at his wits end when the P.A. clicked on again.

"Will Jack Randall please come down the main office? Will Jack Randall please come down to the main office?" The P.A. clicked off and Jack was over-come with fear. Whatever Chester had seen coming had visibly scared him, and Jack was just called down to the same place, in the same way, by the same voice.

"I guess I should go down then." Jack said to the substitute.

"Umm, okay, sure." The substitute said looking up from their newspaper. "Go ahead."

With that Jack started down to the main office. He was unsure of what awaited, and he did not want to know. As he went down the stairs, he realized that they were the same stairs the Chester had gone down, and that he was on the same exact path as Chester had taken. This increased his level of fear. He turned the corner to see himself face to face with the office. As he stood looking at the door, he noticed a dark aura surrounding it. He blinked and shook his head and it vanished and he realized it was his mind playing tricks on him.

Jack reached out for the handle and found it so cold it felt iced over. He turned it slowly and could feel the gears turning and the bolt coming out of the door jam and receding into the door. He pulled the heavy wooden door open and as he did so felt his heart jump into his mouth. He looked down at the ground as he walked in. He didn't want to see whatever it was that was waiting for him.

"Jack!!" The familiar voice of his dad came ringing into his ears. His dad ran over to him and embraced him. "Thank God your alright."

"Yeah, I'm okay..." Jack said, trying to calm his dad down a little. "Why wouldn't I be?"

"No time to explain now." Then turning to the secretary "Excuse me, I'm Jack's father and I need to take him out of school right away." This seemed like a God-send to Jack, even though he began wondering why his dad was doing this.

"Reason for early dismissal?" the secretary asked in a routine, policy-forced way.

"Family engagement." Jack's dad, John, answered.

"Generic enough." The secretary answered with a chuckle. "Just print the student's name here, and sign here, then put the date and time here and here" the secretary said pointing out four boxes in a chart on a clip-board on the desk.

"Okay, thank you." John said to the secretary after filling out the required information. Then to Jack "Okay, let's get out of here."

"Okay." Jack said as they exited the office. Then once they were outside the school "Dad, what's this about?"

"I can't explain right now, we have to get out of here." John answered in a nervous, rushed way, he then added, paranoid, "Quickly."

When Jack didn't see his dad's usual hybrid-electric car parked in the parking lot he asked "Where's your car?"

"Not here." Then motioning to the exact opposite kind of car on the gas-conservation spectrum. "Here's the new ride."

"Oh my God, a Hummer??" Jack said confused. Then jokingly "That's not very environmentally sound, Dad."

"I know, and right now that's the least of our worries. We just need to get out of here, and we may need to go over some rough terrain on the way."

"Dad, you have to tell me what this is all about." Jack demanded.

"Get in, I'll tell you on the way."

"To where??' Jack asked as he climbed up into the cab of the giant vehicle. He was then very, very scared upon looking in the back. The roof was extended all the way back, like the military Hum-vee. "Dad...what are those for...?" Jack asked motioning to a militia's armament in guns and ammo cans in the back of the truck.

"Protection." John answered coolly, almost sarcastically.

"From what??!?!? The 101st Airborne Division?!?!?!?" Jack asked completely flabbergasted.

"Your not far off." John answered in the same manner as his last response leaving his son totally dumbfounded.

"What that hell is going on???" Jack asked for the third time.

"Well...you see, the thing is, I haven't been completely honest with you about what I've been doing – at Umbrella." He explained as he pulled the truck out onto the main road. "The fact is, I couldn't be, because if word got out about what my colleagues and I were doing, Umbrella would be ruined, and so would I, all my colleagues, and your future. But I think I may have endangered far more than just that..."

"Okay...so what were you doing?" Jack asked thirsting for explanation.

"I was doing research, development and experimentation with a highly unstable, highly volatile genetically mutated virus." John went on as he made his way onto the highway which was completely vacant. "I was working on the T-virus."