He Who Calls

Chapter 22

Journal of Jeremy Belpois

Tired

It's been two weeks since Aelita's birthday. Everyone was in high spirits then. But with six Xana attacks in two weeks, we're tired. Ulrich keeps on walking in to walls. Odd never jokes around, and I think he might be having trouble with Sam. Nobody else is having any trouble with their relationships, mainly because my troubles aren't visible to Emily (I haven't made any advances on anything about Lyoko in weeks) and Aelita and Yumi know Ulrich and Milo are going through the same things they are. So I feel especially sorry for Odd. And Yumi gets furious over nothing. Aelita's grades are plummeting from As to Cs and she even got one D. And I feel really sorry for Milo. He's the youngest of us all and he collapsed in class twice the first week after Aelita's birthday, and the only way he avoided repeating it the second week was sleeping thirty-six straight hours on the weekend. He then devoted eight hours to hanging out with everyone and slept for the last four. People are looking at us closer then ever. We're a few inches away from getting discovered and we can't keep this up much longer.

William Dunbar

Data Entry # 4900

The Lyoko Warriors are exhausted. Lord Xana is pleased. The side of me they call Good William failed to kill me, but Milo now routinely tries to split me. Lord Xana is not pleased about that.

Aelita looked at her latest chemistry pop quiz. C-. Another bad grade to add to her collection. If she had parents who cared about her grades, they would be seriously disappointed. How Milo was keeping up that hundred-point average, she would never know. Then again, he had to sleep forty hours out of forty-eight on the weekends to stay sane. He had apologized a lot for that. It wasn't necessary. She knew that they all had different ways of letting battle fatigue get to them. Milo went unconscious. She went stupid. She was sitting in her room. Class had just let out for the day. Someone knocked on the door.

"Come in," she said. Yumi walked in and sat down next to her. "Hi, Yumi," said Aelita. "What's up?"

"I'm still yelling at everyone over the stupidest things. I can tell Ulrich understands, but I still feel bad."

"I was just thinking about that. Everyone knowing about how the others have ways of letting this get to them."

"You seem fine."

"Look," Aelita said, showing the paper. "My fourth C- in two weeks. I also have two Cs, a C+, and two Ds. Normally I'm a straight A student."

"Oh," said Yumi. "Is Milo out of the infirmary yet?" Milo's fainting had been pinned down to lack of nutrition and sleep, so after classes each day he had to report to the infirmary where they made him eat a large dinner and sleep for half an hour.

"No, not yet. He runs around the track at least ten laps every day. He says if he doesn't the huge portions are going to make him incapable of movement," she allowed herself to laugh. Yumi laughed too. "I almost always go out and run with him, and we talk. It's actually nice." She smiled.

"It sounds like it. Maybe Ulrich and I should try it," Yumi said. Aelita looked visibly relieved that she had someone to talk to. "Do you know where Odd has been?"

"He has been withdrawn. And I hear he goes in his room and cries a lot. Sam's about to dump him."

"Just when I thought there was hope for all of us."

"Milo had an idea. He says there's hope. But only if we let Sam in to the group."