Phil finally finishes his lunch and we leave the lunch room, only to run into Donny. 

   “Sup Donny!” Phil smiles and they do their handshake. Donny nods, and gives me a glare that just radiates hatred.

   “Hey Phil, I’m having a party this weekend, my room. Wanna come?” Donny asks without removing his eyes from me. I glare at him too, not wanting to break away. It’s like an unspoken rule with Donny; you look away, and he wins. 

   “Aww shucks. Sorry Donny, but I promised Ollie that I’m gonna go with him when he’s visiting his sister this weekend.” I smirk, rubbing my victory in his face. He growls and looks away from me. 

   “You sure you can’t make it? Are you seriously gonna hang out with this . . .” Donny looks at me, head to toe. “. . . weirdo?”

   Phil shrugs. “Sorry Donny, promise is a promise.”

   Donny growls and takes a step forward, his hands turn into fists. He holds up his arm and connects his fist with my face. I stumble back from the blow and look up at him, only to see that he had come closer. My hands ball into fists also, and I start punching him also. On the first blow, my fist connects with his nose, knocking him back a couple inches. I take this opportunity and jump up from my position and lunge at Donny. We fell into a pile of body parts, arms flailing around, trying to throw a punch at each other. I could smell the blood and sweat from Donny wafting through the air.

   Phil wedged his arm between us and held me as I struggled to break away from his grasp, but he held on tight.

   “Stop,” Phil grunts. Donny glares at me, wiping some blood from from his lip. Phil leads me away from him, and once we were in our dorm, Phil shoves me to the ground. 

   “What was that?”

   “What are you talking about?” I ask, shifting my head to the side slightly.

   “Don’t play dumb on me! You attacked him!”

   “I attacked him? ‘Course I did, Phil. ‘Cuz he attacked me first!”

   Phil sighed and rubbed the bridge of his nose, and I immediately knew that the conversation was over. I leave the room, finding a letter on the ground, addressed to me. I picked it up cautiously, looking around the corridor before opening it. It read: 

Dear Oliver Blackwell,

   There once was a rumor that was so captivating that it was spoken of for weeks. Neither the school board or the government knew what to do. It latched onto the students like the plague.

   Confused, I slipped it inside my pocket and went to the nearest bathroom. My evening classes don’t start for another couple of hours, so I have plenty of time to do whatever I want. I looked into my reflection and see a disheveled boy looking back with a bleeding lip and a black eye.

   I run the water and wash away the blood and my face altogether, and looked back. Not bad, but it’ll have to do.

   In the corner of my eye, I see another letter tucked away in between the soap container, addressed to me. I manage to get it out and open it, reading what’s inside.

Dear Oliver Blackstone,

   As the rumor starts to spread, so has this enthralled pull. Students were more focused into school, they stopped talking to one another, only when the teacher asks, and they lost all of their will to have fun.

   I look up from the letter, but see no one in the bathroom. “Hello?” I yell out, but no one replies. I raise my eyebrow as I pull the other note out. What does this all mean? Why do they want me to know this stuff?

   There was a loud, ear-piercing scream that startled me so much, I dropped the letters on the ground. I quickly scoop them up and head out of the bathroom, peering out, but the hallway is empty with no single soul around. I look around confused. There’s lots of people who have evening classes. Where are they?

   There was another scream, but this time, they seemed to be begging my name. “Ollie, Ollie, Ollie, OLLIE!” the disembodied voice yells.

   “I’m here!” I yell back, hoping it would do something but it didn’t. The person kept screaming and begging my name. I rush down the hall, repeating “I’m here, I’m here!”, chasing down the voice. Blurs of color rush past me as I run up the familiar looking stairs of HolShir Academy.

   I enter the fourth and final floor of the Academy. The screams were sounding louder and more desperate by the minute. I wince, hurrying down the dimly lit hallways of the fourth floor. 

   There was almost nothing on the fourth floor. Mostly storage areas and stairs leading up to the four main towers and the bell tower. 

   “Ollie! OLLIE!” There was a loud gong that sounded, shaking the Academy and knocking me off my feet. The bell tower!

   I rush down multiple corridors, twisting and turning until I found the stairway that leads to the bell tower. I rush up the stairs, taking three at a time until I’m all the way up. The sky was gray with clouds, and the wind blew fiercely against my skin. The screaming had stopped, and there was no one here.

   Is this some practical joke? I angrily kick the bell, making it sound. I squat down and placed my hands on my ears. I can’t believe I let Donny trip me up this far. 

   Just then, a letter dropped from inside the tower. I hurry and catch it before the wind blew it away, and open it.

Dear Oliver Blackstone,

   Soon, every single school in the planet had the rumor, and every child caught it. It became a national emergency. Government leaders invested trillions and trillions of dollars trying to find a cure for it. Unfortunately, they were unsuccessful. 

   I screamed in frustration, throwing the letter on the ground. I watch as the wind carries the letter away, drifting it farther and farther away from the Academy.

   “Ollie.”

   I turn around and see Phil at the edge of the tower, facing me. “Phil?”

   “The rumor is real.” Phil pulls something from his pocket and holds it out in a defensive manner. I flinch at the sight of it, slowly backing away from him, a sense of fear and panic entering me.

   “Phil, what are you doing with that knife?”

   “The rumor is real,” he repeats, taking a step back from me.

   “Phil? PHIL!” Phil backs up, his chest heaving, and leaps off the edge. I rush towards the edge, looking down as I screamed his name. I rush down the stairs of the tower and rush down to the courtyard. As I rush down the courtyard, I bump into someone, knocking me down. I rub my head and look up, completely surprised.

   Phil was there, looking at me with concern. “Ollie? Are you alright?”

   “Phil? But y-you d-did, wha?” I stutter, trying to make sense of everything. Phil held a knife at me. He jumped off the bell tower. Here he is now, in front of me, completely unharmed.

   Phil helps me up and smiles at me. “Come on. We need to get ready for class,” he says and walks away, as if nothing had happened.