"Hey Lana," greeted the boy beside the blonde girl with a smile, and she smiled politely back at him. "How's Whitney doing with his father and everything?"

Her mood-season immediately changed from spring to autumn.

Her eyes were downcast for a second before she looked up at Pete and responded. Everyone else looked a little subdued as well. Max assumed it must have something to do with this Whitney's Father. Duhh, way to think the obvious! She thought to herself, amazed at all the dumb thoughts one can think, under the guise of being smart.

"He's . . . he's doing better. We're all just hoping for the best." She smiled weakly and Clark looked to reach out for her – metaphorically speaking. You know . . . with his heart . . . and stuff.

"Good to hear it," Pete replied nodding, before an eerie silence took over the group. Max imagined a big ball of western hay rolling by, accompanied by a few performing crickets.

"Well!" Said Pete, breaking the lull in conversation, "We'd better get to the Torch. . ."

"Yeah! Yeah. The Torch. Right." Said Chloe with an aw-shucks-I-have-to-go kind of face.

"Yes, and I have to help Brianne with her English paper. It was nice talking to you guys," she smiled at them. "Clark," she added with a playfully serious expression, nodding her goodbye.

"Bye. . . Lana. . ." Clark managed as Chloe grabbed him by the arm and led him down the hall.

And I am alone. Max thought, her minds voice sounding like someone's voice might sound like from a movie or something. All deep and meaningful. You know the type.

She sighed, and hesitantly followed, unsure whether she made the right choice. She had been invited to come along, but you can never be sure if an invitation made by someone still stands after an influencing event, and she figured that had been of the influencing event kind.

She caught up with them a few paces before what she presumed was the Torch entrance, and Chloe looked back at her as she opened the door.

"I thought we were going to the caf," said Clark as he and Pete sat down in seats in different places, and Max presumed once again that those were their habitual seats, like a lunch time routine. Go to Torch. Sit. Eat. Chat. Leave.

Or maybe it was more complex than that, but she didn't have any more time to ponder it uselessly, as she noticed Chloe had started speaking.

"So, Max, how do you like Smallville so far?" Chloe walked around a desk and sat down comfortably in its chair, and the three of them turned their attention to her. Everyone ignored Clark's question.

"Uh, well," she said, walking over to the couch and sitting beside Pete, "it's alright."

Chloe smiled, "Translation?"

Pete gasped sarcastically, looking shocked and appalled. "You mean to say you think Smallville is boring?"

"I wouldn't say that exactly." She said unsure of whether he was being sarcastic or if he was just a little odd.

He laughed, "Naw, it's fine, we know Smallville's not exactly Funville."

"Nice one Pete," replied Clark sardonically.

"What? It was the best representation I could come up with. Unless you want to tell her what really goes on in Smallville . . ." He wiggled his fingers as if the subject were on ghosts, instead of a town. Clark and Chloe shared a look, before Chloe got up and walked over to stand in front of the wall opposite her.

The wall was covered with a large off white sheet, and she hadn't until now wondered what was behind it. People rarely ever really look at their surroundings, and if they did they'd all either be Autistic or on a permanent brain over-load. She always tried to scan her environment; you know, find any sources of danger or an alternate exit.

She had been reading a lot of action books as of late, and apparently the first thing you should do upon entering a room is look for another exit. But she supposed since government agents weren't trying to kill her, that was kind of unnecessary. Even still, she liked the idea of knowing exactly what was in a room, even if that advantage wouldn't ever be put to the test quite as excitingly. She had a problem following her own rules however, and always forgot.

"Clark, Pete, think you could give a girl a hand?" They got up and walked over to separate ends of the sheet. Clark got his end down first, and it took Pete just a few seconds longer. Clark gathered the sheet to him, and started folding it.

"I was just going to throw it over there." Said Pete, pointing to an empty chair.

"Oh, right," Clark cleared his throat and threw the sheet on the chair carelessly, as if he hadn't just been fondling it with care.

Chloe hadn't been paying attention, but Max laughed. Pete laughed too, but it soon dissipated as he looked to the massive and powerful wall, covered with newspaper clippings.

Max needn't follow his gaze, as her eyes were already trying to make sense of what they were seeing.

"I call it the Wall of Weird." Chloe stood proudly in front of it, gesturing grandly in its direction with her arms spread wide.

They watched her face for a change in expression, but it didn't change. Instead she looked to Chloe to continue with an explanation, but it was Clark who spoke next.

"Chloe believes every weird thing that's happened in Smallville was caused by the meteor shower fifteen years ago."

Chloe nodded seriously, "These articles detail every case of the unexplainable Smallville's seen, and as you can see they fill no small box. From invisible boys to fat sucking girls, the meteors have affected the inhabitants of Smallville for, as Clark said, 15 years since the meteors were first hurtled into Earth, and I expect this trend will continue for many years to come."

Max stared at the wall with her eye brows knotted, but didn't move to get up and read the articles themselves.

"I think you guys are crazy." She said flatly. What they didn't know though, was that she believed everything they were telling her. How could she not? She berated other people for dismissing the strange and the weird; she couldn't very well do it herself. How hypocritical that would be!

They shared a look, not at all surprised she had rejected this theory. After all, the whole world had already done just that.

Chloe smiled humorously, "You won't think that forever." She sat back down at her desk and turned on her monitor, and focusing on the screen went to work on whatever it was she had to work on. Clark and Pete sat back down as well and started on their lunches.

All conversation was kaput.

"So you're saying meteors can make people invisible."

"That's what we're sayin'." Chloe replied concurringly. "Though the side effects are different for each person, and depend on the environment or situation they happened to be in at the time; which is why each case is different."

"They all end the same." Pete mumbled.

"It is somehow able to mutate the human body during increased levels of emotional, chemical, or electrical activity."

She stirred on the couch for a second before getting up and walking slowly towards the wall. Clark and Pete looked up from their lunches to glance at her, not sure if they were happy or feeling the opposite towards her interest in the articles. Chloe looked up as well, and though she was worried they had perhaps been a bit too rash in their uncovering of the truth, she couldn't say she was really sorry for it.

But then she remembered what happened to her last summer, and how she fought constantly, every day in fact, against her own beliefs because of it. Did she regret what she found? That was a hard question to answer. Especially since it all seemed like a dream, something unreal, though real enough so that it was impossible to pretend it was a dream. I mean, even their faces –

"Explain to me why no one has validated this." She turned away from the wall and to them, her excitement bound by her reason; which was telling her that this couldn't possibly be true without it being known to the whole world. But then again . . . civilian detainment camps were being built all over the United States.

Weirder things have happened.

"That stranger danger area where the aliens landed is blocked off to the public, isn't it?"

"You mean area 51?" She replied inquisitively.

"Yeah, yeah." Pete said hurriedly, the point of this subject not in particulars. "They don't let people wander around in there. Why is that?"

"It has nothing at all to do with aliens."

"Well," Clark interjected, "if we pretend it does, the government wouldn't want people to know aleins exist because there'd probably be riots and society would be up heaved. Or something."

"If, that is, people even believed it in the first place." Pete finished. "Even the people of Smallville, this small strange farming town, don't believe any of this. It's like people've shut their minds to it. Pretty wack."

"Yeah. I mean, this is absolutely positively definitely, plus all other words of ly, almost impossible." And now I'm starting to make the kind of sense that isn't. She thought. "So not even the people who live here believe this?" She added quickly before they could comment on her previous remark.

"We pretty much make up the select few." Max raised her eye brows in surprised acknowledgement and looked on the articles once more. "How many people in the school have seen or believe this?"

"Select few, Max, remember?" Pete repeated and laughed good naturedly.

"Oh. Yeah." She gave a small laugh as well. "It just seems unlikely is all, that the population of this room makes up, well, the population of this room." She made a face at that as if she didn't like what she had just said, and instead went for, "Well, what I meant to say, was that there should be more people here."

"And more people believing this. We got ya." Chloe nodded. There was a small silence.

"Are you wondering why we told you?" She asked politely, instead of assuming that's what Max was wondering. Even though she already knew that's exactly what Max, and everyone else she had tried to persuade, wondered. There's something about the giving of truth that's special, special enough to make people wonder why. Wonder why they're being told, why they're so special.

"It does seem kind of spur of the moment." She said, having thought about this. They could have either planned this whole thing in some big conspiracy, or just told her because she was eating lunch with them.

But she betted it was probably because they wanted as many people as possible to believe this. Maybe for safety, or maybe so their theory could finally be given some merit. She wasn't entirely sure.

"At least now you know to stay away from meteor rocks," Clark said. "Yeah, and anyone looking a little under the weather." Finished Pete, trying to make light.

Everyone smiled at that, though their good humor at the situation was strained with the truth of it's problematic and life ruining impacts.

At that instant the potentially annoying sound of Beethoven's fifth blasted through the torch speakers, and the sound of hurried footsteps could be heard outside the door.

"And then the music begins . . . and it is time for class." Clark threw out his garbage and tossed his bag over his shoulder.

"Ahh, class. How I detest thee." Pete got another grin from Clark, and following suit, threw out his lunch and grabbed his backpack.

With goodbye's said, Max and Chloe did the same.

Soon the Torch and hallways were empty. Well, almost empty.

Max searched for her next class, having forgotten to ask her new found acquaintances where anthropology was. Thoughts of their recent conversation were all that occupied her mind, and could it be true? Could it really be true?

X-Men reincarnated.

Holly fuck.