Insert pointless filler AN here

Alright, headed for the bus stop. Hopefully this week won't suck. Not that last week did, just...school tends to suck sometimes. I'm wearing my watch to school, by the way.

And there's Erika. She's always at the bus stop before I am.

"Hey, Erika," I say, stepping up next to her.

"Good morning, X."

...We got nothing else to say at this point. We get on the bus and head over to sit by Azalea...except she's not there.

"Oh come on, she had to get sick on a Monday!" I exclaim.

"Calm down X, you'll be fine," Erika insists.

"Okay, sorry about that..."

I get out my school-issued iPad and start playing Crossy Road, until Darius and Minerva show up.

"Man, I was up so late last night doing chemistry homework," Darius expresses.

"Dude, chemistry's easy," I tell him. "You just learn the rules and put it in the calculator."

"There's so many freaking numbers, dude! It takes me two minutes to do one problem."

"Do you have all the formulas down, though?" Erika asks. "There's a test today."

"I think so," Darius responds. "Which one was Gay-Lussac's Law again?"

"Temperature and pressure of a gas are directly related. In degrees Kelvin."

"Okay, thanks."

Do neither of them realize Azalea isn't here? This is the first time she hasn't been on the bus ride to school since before winter break! Speaking of breaks...

"Hey guys, isn't it Spring Break next week?" I ask.

"Holy crap, it totally is!" says Minerva. "I can't believe I forgot that."

"Don't worry about it," Erika suggests. "The past week and a half has been rather...eventful."

"Yeah..." I say as I tune out. Our lives definitely have gotten better, but it's only been this way for a little over a week, and...it probably won't go on much longer. Once we get Mason Richards, the Shadow Guard will go after the rest of the cult, and leave us here. Our watches will run out of magic eventually, and then we won't even be able to use our soul powers anymore. Even if they activate some other way, we can't let other people see this stuff. And while it's nice to know that monsters are living alright with humans for the most part, it could be decades before they're revealed to the rest of the world and vice versa...and Undertale's annoying fanbase probably isn't going to help that.

When the bus driver lets us off the bus, we head inside, and I use the school's wi-fi to send Azalea a message: Are you doing okay? Actually, now that I think about it, it's possible she just missed the bus. Eh, we'll see.

Once again, our percussion teacher isn't here, so I spend the whole period practicing playing "Ruins" on the marimba. Pretty much anytime I find a song I really like, I end up trying to play it on the marimba in band class. Ruins is pretty easy actually, and I'm also not bad at Heartache. Gonna be some time before I can stop missing notes, though.

English is boring, crap I didn't finish the assignment and I'll have to stay after school...chemistry test isn't hard, so I'm done early, gonna check my phone, and...Azalea hasn't responded. She must really be sick. I probably shouldn't bother her with more messages.

Yep, now I'm in Spanish class and Azalea isn't here. This isn't such a great day so far.

Oh, but now our World History teacher is letting us listen to music while we work! I haven't done that it a while, so I get out my earphones and open up Pandora on my iPad. Now let's see if I can find some good nightcore or dubstep...

Holy dang, this is one of my favorites! I feel like I could take on the freaking world listening to this! This worksheet's got nothing on my analysis skills...wait, actually I suck at analysis. But still, it's going down!

"Hey X, what's that on your shirt?" the dude sitting to my right, Brandon, says to me.

I look down and realize that my soul is activating slightly. Crap.

"Oh, I think that's just...I was playing a game, and I accidentally turned up the brightness really high," I tell him, calming myself while pretending to turn my iPad's brightness down.

"Oh, okay, I just thought there was a bug on your shirt or something, that's all," he says, getting back to work.

Dang, I hate lying to people all the time like this. That's, what, three times to my family and six times to my classmates? I'm starting to see why superheroes tend to wish they aren't superheroes from time to time. If I keep having moments like that, eventually someone's going to notice that something's going on. And if I want it to stop, I'll have to pretty much quit being myself around anyone but my closest friends.

Yeah, nothing's really going well today. Guess I'll eat lunch.

"X? Uh...is something bothering you?" Erika asks after watching me eat slowly for a few minutes

"Eh, maybe," I reply. "My soul flared up and someone saw it again. I don't think we're going to be able to keep this stuff hidden forever."

"Hmm...you may be right. There's got to be a way to keep them down somehow."

"I hope. I'd hate to quit being fair to people. And I sure as heck wouldn't want you to have to stop being such an honest friend."

"Of course. Do you have the Shadow Guard's number? I could try to figure something out next time I see them."

"Oh, yeah, here you go."

I open up the contacts list on my phone and show the number to Erika while she adds it to her contacts. Dang, Erika's such a great friend. I really hit the jackpot all those years ago.

Note taking in Child Development, percussion ensemble rehearsal in band, and now I gotta stay after for English. Honestly, English is pretty much my worst subject. Like I said, I suck at analysis, and I can barely write an essay, especially if I only get 45 minutes. Thank goodness I get a tutoring session to catch up on this annotation and thesis-statement-writing assignment.

Okay, I think I got it down. Now I can finally go home.

I head down to the main doors and get out my phone to text my...wait, is that a dollar bill outside?

I step outside and...it is a freaking HUNDRED DOLLAR BILL! I run to pick it up, but the wind blows it away. I chase after it, but dang, it's moving fast. Wait a minute, it's not windy at all right now. Is this dollar bill even real?

Ow! Someone's grabbed me! Get your hand out of my face! Wait, is that...no...

Sorry, I know this chapter was short, but I seriously don't know what else would happen during a normal school day that you'd want to read about.

Next chapter will be a lot more interesting.