A/N: I'm terribly sorry I couldn't update in such a long time. (smacks self in head) But luckily this week we got this huge break on homework and I could write! YAY! I hope you like this chapter... I think it might be a bit weird and/or odd and/or seem to be skipping things. But I hope you still like it. For those of you that are here and was here before, thank you for not giving up on my snail's pace of writing. Really sorry again. I'll try to write faster. Maybe I can write more now that summer is drawing near.

Darkness again.

Same concert music.

Same dream…

No…

That tapping. There was tapping. A stick hitting something metal, emitting some sort of a ringing sound. It was unidentified. Everything was still pitch black.

---

Jamie's eyes automatically opened. She was conscious, she was awake. Awake and alert. Glancing at her clock, she quickly calculated with her math-loving mind that it would be 14 minutes until her alarm clock should sound.

It was just one of those days that you woke up minutes before you were supposed to. On a normal day, you might think of those precious fractions of an hour that one could sleep and dream away the time. Resting those tired eyelids. Yet on these particular days, all of a sudden you just feel completely alive, like you have slept for a few days straight.

The clock was checked for a second time. Nine minutes until Get-up-and-going time – precisely 7:51 AM now.

Deciding to get an early start, Jamie slid out of bed, and lazily stuck her feet into her blue slippers. Once her toothbrush and facecloth were grabbed, she quietly snuck out the heavy wooden door.

She crept into the bathroom, and did her daily morning routine, dressing and all that regular stuff. Jamie walked down alone to the nearest meal provider, ate a quick breakfast, and came back to the dorm.

A last minute trip to the restroom, a heedless farewell to Jake, and finally off to class.

As the girl exited the Low Rise Building 5, the world still seemed asleep. It was only the third day of school. Maybe they did have a reason not to be used to their new schedule.

With a quickly learning brain working, Jamie progressed through the first half of the school day without a problem.

For her own convenience, she ate lunch at the buffet closest to her next class.

"YO JAMIE!"

Instantly a name popped up in her mind. Zach. His voice was high for a boy, and had some certain playfulness to it, perhaps like a three year old child.

He could be heard, yet not seen.

"You can't seeeeee meee!!!" the singsong voice sang.

"Zach just get out here," Jamie tried to keep a straight face but couldn't. At least her voice sounded menacing.

"You're smiling," said a devious voice.

"Come on, my arms are tired. I've been holding this tray for forever!"

"BOO!" Zach jumped out from behind a column with a tray stacked with bowls of mashed potatoes, chicken, and about 4 soups. In the process, some soup from each bowl and a bit of gravy leaped onto his white shirt.

Jamie just couldn't do anything but laugh! People stared, but she kept snickering. When she finally turned down the volume of her voice, Zach spoke again.

"Oy vey! WHYYYYYYYYYYY?!?!?!?!?!" He sounded half irritated, half joking. Poor Zach was kneeling on his knees now to show his somewhat obvious and fake depression.

Even when biting her lip, Jamie still couldn't resist giving out the slightest giggle. She walked over to an empty table and motioned for multi-colored, drenched Zach to follow.

Jamie began eating her fried rice while Zach started chomping away at his chicken leg that was smeared with mashed potatoes.

"So what's up Jamie?"

"Nothin."

"NOTHING? Dude, the ceiling, man! The CEILING!!!"

"Mm." She simply smiled.

Thoughts scrambled in Jamie's head. Did I finish my homework? Yeah I did. I should call mom. Nah, I'll do that later. Maybe I should actually listen to Zach. Zach was still blabbing away. Nah. Why do I feel so weird? Like I have something to do? Maybe it's not that. Gee, Jamie. Just decide what this crazy feeling is! Excitement? Not really. Anxiety? Not NERVOUS, no… Anticipation. It's anticipation.

"Dude, Jamie…"

Definitely anticipation. What's going to happen though?

"Hellooooooooo?"

Mm. I should just forget about it.

"Anybody home?" By now Zach was waving his hand, still holding bitten chicken, in front of his silent bud's face.

Jamie shook her head violently, breathed.

"Dude, man, Jamie, dude. You like, zoned out, man."

"Huh? Oh. Yeah," Jamie laughed it off.

Suddenly Zach was deadly serious. His face changed from a huge grin to a straight poker face.

"Jamie? You look disturbed."

"Do I? Sorry."

"What's wrong?"

"Nothing."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. It's just that I feel like something's going to happen but I don't know what. But otherwise, I'm completely fine." She slightly tilted the ends of her lips up.

Zach slammed his hands onto the table.

"OKAY! We're fine then. All's well that ends well!" His face broke into a beaming, happy ear-to-ear smile.

A few seconds passed with Zach the Statue Man staring into the eyes of Jamie. His hands were still spread on the table, his back straight, and his crazy grin still on.

Then he shattered, grabbed one wrist with the other hand, and shouted.

"OWWWWWWW!!!!!!!! ShOOT that HURT!" He tilted his head, winced, and made Jamie crack up.

"Dude… Zach…" Jamie breathed in between bursts of laughter, "your… face…" She tried to imitate him, but that was a hopeless attempt.

Zach Rowdy raised an eyebrow in amusement and continued on with his version of a normal conversation.

"ANYWAY, did you hear that joke about the three burglars and the dogs, cats, and potatoes?"

---

Back in the comfort of her dorm room, Jamie checked her cellphone. There were quite a few missed calls. All from her mom. What could be so important? I'll call her back later. Now for homework.

It was around 4, and she had a bunch of homework to do.

At the sound of their weighty door slamming, Jamie lifted her head from her homework to see Jake waltz in through the door. He was holding something behind his back

"What makes you so happy?" the curious, hardworking girl asked.

"Oh, nothing…" Jake sneered mischieviously.

His best friend eyed him suspiciously.

"…just that I got you the BEST present EV-ER!!!" he credited himself and held out a beautifully wrapped box with ribbons hanging over it. The blue wrapping paper was decorated with alternating snowmen and penguins.

Jamie was bewildered, but she took the present from his hands and found that it was rather heavy. With squinted eyes she looked up at Jake and questioned in a puzzled manner, "What…?"

Jake looked expectantly at her, and yelled, "It's your birthday, James, Jamie, Jamie Jame James!"

"It is?"

"YES! August 26th, man!" his smile was wider than his face.

Slowly Jamie's mouth spread across her cheeks. "It is," she whispered.

The blue package was dropped on the table, and Jamie jumped onto Jake, who was standing with open arms. Still being hugged and choked to death, Jake squeaked, "Happy Birthday, Jamie!"

"THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU!" the enlivened friend screamed into her best pal's ear.

Jake could only smile his heart out.

"Open it!" They sat down side by side on Jamie's bouncy blue bed. Jamie set the large gift on her lap, took a happy deep breath, and began untying the ribbon. She stripped the present down to the original cardboard box with much haste, but lifted the flaps at a snail's pace.

"Ho…. Jeez… DUDE!" Jamie was as joyous as could be, and her face showed it. Maybe this was what she was expecting. But she still had that feeling even though this whole birthday thing was happening! Plus, she didn't even know it was her birthday, how could she know this was going to occur?

Jake leaned over and gave his friend a squeeze. "I hope you like it."

"Dude, Jake, this is AWESOME! I mean… look at this!"

"Everyone contributed." Jake was in good spirits yet still very calm as he watched Jamie's hands dig through the items in the box.

"The whole gang?" Jamie asked, referring to their group of buddies from high school.

"Yeh."

"BOOKS! These are like… my favorite books! And… awwwww… how cute. A wittle stuffed welephant! So cute and soft. I love this!"

"We kind of all pooled in some money and bought your favorite things. Ooh, and some of us donated stuff that we already had, too."

"THANK YOU SO MUCH, JAKE!" She then tilted her head to the sky and thanked the rest of "the gang" as well.

"Open the middle thing!"

In the center of all the books and other favorites of Jamie's was a brown paper bag with some sort of object in it.

The eager birthday girl fumbled with the bag as her fingers took out the most special part of the whole shabam.

"Pictures," she whispered. Jamie flipped through each and every photo, occasionally laughing silently at funny pictures and sometimes smiling nostalgically from the memory of certain events.

"Everybody took some pictures from their collection and added it here. They wanted you to remember them."

Without a word, Jamie just wrapped her arms around Jake and somewhat strangled him in a nice way.

"Happy Birthday, Jamie."

---

Bang, bang, bang.

"YO PEOPLES OPEN THE DOOR!"

Jake laughed a little and opened the door of 5484.

"Zach-man here. Everyone want's to go to dinner."

From down the hall, Pete shouted, "You want to go to dinner, J-J?"

Inside the room, Jamie smirked. "Is that nickname for both of us?"

"I dunno. Ask Pete." Zach shrugged the question away.

"It was a rhetorical question, Zach," Jamie replied, putting on her socks and shoes.

"I'm ready. Let's go, Jamie."

"HURRY UP I'M HUNGRY!!!" Zach screamed.

Everybody headed out the building, into the territory of fresh air. Once outside, Zach shrieked, "RACE!!!" and every soul that currently lived in unit 8 of Low Rise building 6 broke into a sprint.

Kevin and Josh were in the lead, head to head, when Zach, trailing along behind everyone, yelled, "RED LIGHT!"

Nobody stopped.

"RED LIGHT RED LIGHT RED LIGHT!!! Come on people you don't know the game?"

Some halted, and then the rest got the notion and froze.

"Don't move!" Zach ordered.

He strolled through all the statues and finally turned around to look at the other 5 when he got to the very front. Josh and Kevin, up front, glared at Zach. They were each standing on one leg, and were about to lose balance.

"Y-e-l-l-o-w light!"

Everyone started walking.

Zach ran ahead quite a few meters. Once he was very well ahead of the others, he yelled "Green light!" over his shoulder.

Soon everybody rushed past him again, but no complaints came from him again. He was just hungry… and too caught up in thinking about mashed potatoes to realize that he would be the last to get his food.

A few minutes after Zach, Pete, Dave, Aaron, Kevin, Josh, Jake, and Jamie had settled down at the round table with their food, someone's cell phone rang. Everyone started looking at each other to see whose cell phone it was except Zach. He just kept gorging down his mashed potatoes.

It turned out to be Jamie's phone. She picked it up and greeted who seemed to be her mom. Jamie motioned that she was going to leave the table and left to go talk in a private space.

Jamie's mom had called, and it was a birthday call.

Right when they said goodbye to each other, Kevin appeared.

"Hey, Kevin. Want a drink?" That's what Jamie assumed he was there for, because she was standing next to the soda machine.

"No, thanks. I just have something to ask you." Kevin scratched the back of his head nervously.

"Sure! Shoot."

"Well um…" he twiddled his thumbs.

"Yez?"

"Do you eh.. um… Do you wanna go out with me?"

End Note: Heheh. No comment. Just review please.