"Hi, Melanie!"

"Quiet in the halls!" barked a nearby teacher. Daina ducked away from her and moved toward Melanie. She smiled but did not talk. Melanie whispered,

"Hi! Come on, we have to go."

"Oh yeah, the thing. I brought my thingy, too."

"Good." Melanie was always thrilled when she could talk to her friends like this. The most nebulous terms brought complete understanding among certain friends. They walked through the hallway as the fluorescent lights still flickered in the same rhythm. Daina swayed on her feet a bit.

"Daina, you look tired. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm fine. Just very, very sleep deprived. I got back late from confirmation class, got too slow a start on my homework, and then I made the mistake of going on the internet. I wanted to check something, but, of course, I got into a 'quick chat' with my best friend, and I couldn't get off! And then I had all the homework! I didn't finish until four in the morning! And then I had bad dreams! Weird ones!"

"That's not good! I didn't get too much sleep either."

"I don't think anyone did."

"Did you hear they're selling coffee gift packs for a fund raiser? And they're giving out free samples! The table is mobbed with kids! Do you want to go get some? You look like you could use it."

"No, thanks, you know how much I despise coffee." Daina made a face.

"Are you sure? It looks like you could use it." At this Daina gave up argument.

"You're right. I've run out of internal hyperness. I'm dead. Lets get some."

"I wish these lights would stop flickering! They're giving me such a headache!!"

"Quiet in the halls!" barked a nearby teacher.

Melanie and Daina hurried in silence to the table selling coffee. Surrounding it was a surprisingly orderly mob. Daina grabbed a steaming cup and they headed up to meet the rest of their friends.

Followed two adults that did not look like teachers at all. They wore long trenchcoats and looked around suspiciously.

"It's so quiet and orderly."

"Yes, it's eerie."

"It's just like all the other schools, Scully. An unexplained flickering of all lights, in a regular rhythm."

"Could changes in the earth's geomagnetic field affect the synchronization of the lights?"

"Perhaps. You know, sudden changes in the geomagnetic field are often accompanied by UFO sightings."

"Mulder, you know it has also been hypothesized that such changes actually create light themselves. Geomagnetic changes have been directly linked to strange lights that appear over certain deserts that have baffled people for millennia."

"Oooh, look, Scully! Free coffee!"

Melanie and Daina met the rest of their friends hurrying down the same stairway they were heading up.

"Come on!" urged Rachel. "The teacher's won't let us eat in the halls or hang around or anything! We have to go down to the cafeteria before they get even more angry. What's with everyone today?"

"Yeah!" exclaimed Valerie.

"Yeah!" exclaimed Sarah. "**** all the ********!"

"Maybe everyone's been in a bad mood because of the lights," offered Veena halfheartedly.

"I don't know," responded Melanie. "I heard there was a big inspection or something yesterday, but they're acting strange today too."

"Even the students are acting weird!" added Rachel.

"These lights are giving me such a headache," Melanie grumbled to herself. But they had to do something.

"Come on everyone, we have to go outside. We can't let anyone see us!"

"Melanie, you haven't told us what we going to do yet!!" persisted Sarah.

"Melanie, the teachers even won't let us eat outside today," reminded Veena.

"Melanie, are you sure you want to skip photography?" asked Valerie "All the teachers are really strict lately. You could get a detention. Or worse!"

Daina, half asleep, just leaned against a wall and swirled her coffee.

Melanie turned to face her friends. "Valerie, Veena, Sarah, Rachel, Daina, trust me. This will change your life. It is worth detention. Suspension. Expulsion!"

"I trust you," stated Daina. "I'll go wherever you say."

"Me too."

"Me too."

"Me too."

"Yup!"

"All right then. If everyone has their pendants, let's go outside."

In the flickering light the five friends scurried down the steps of one of the myriad of stairways lining the school. It was almost empty by now. Fortune had it that no teacher was in sight.

At the bottom of the stairs, just as they were about to push open the door that would lead to the forbidden outside, Daina leaped down the last two steps as she always did. The coffee spilt over the edge of the cup and on her hand. Reminded of it, she took a big gulp.

Daina was falling. It was just like her dream. She was falling through a tunnel of flickering light, falling backwards into darkness.



The other five friends kneeled around Daina in the stairwell. No one could seem to do anything. Then Valerie came to her senses.

"We have to do something!"

"Let's get her to the nurse!" Rachel said.

"No, not the nurse." Everyone looked around, but no one could find who had spoken. Suddenly, Melanie remembered. She opened the backpack she had dropped to let out Minou.

Everyone stared.

"You have to find out what's going on first, or else you might mess things up terribly," the kitten continued.

"Melanie, your cat... talks?"

"Yes, I talk," Minou replied, annoyed. "Or maybe you all are imagining this. Maybe this is a mass hallucination. Come on, get Daina out of here. Away from this school. Then we'll proceed."

No one moved.

"Get out of here NOW!!!"

The five friends grabbed her and carried her through the doors. The sun shone amazingly bright in comparison to the flickering fluorescent lights.

Only a short distance beyond the playing fields, the creek ran through the woods. There the friends stopped. They were within sight of the school but well hidden. Daina had been laid on a clear patch of leaves, but no one knew what do. Valerie, Sarah, Rachel, and Veena did not even know why they were there.

"Come on, you pitiful excuses," sighed Minou, frustrated. "Put on your pendants!" The friends were confused, but they obeyed.

"Now I am going to do something called a mind meld to each of you. It is completely painless, and it will help you remember that which is no longer stored in your minds."

"What about Daina?" Melanie asked.

"We will be able to help her better after this. For now, find her pendant and put it on her."

Melanie searched through Daina's backpack as Minou began melding the others' minds. She searched among the penguin-plastered binder, the notebooks, and finally searched the last pocket, finding forty-three cents an inch deep in sunflower seed shells. She found no pendant.

"Minou! Minou, what do I do?? I can't find it!" Melanie cried, panicking. But Minou was deeply involved in the mind meld. She and the four girls who kneeled on the forest floor with the sunlight streaming down to make dappled designs on their heads and shoulders were comforting, but no help. Melanie made another search, quivering with fear at the lost pendant, the crystal of earthshine. She settled down into the leaves and nervously cracked a few of Daina's sunflower seeds between her teeth.

After a sun-dappled eternity, Minou was finished with every conceivable explanation. Everyone seemed to have lost the ability to speak.

Melanie felt a metal chain slip through her fingers as she groped for the final sunflower seed. She gave a cry of triumph! The purple stone, which everyone could have sworn was amethyst, was fastened at Daina's throat. Sarah, Rachel, Veena, and Valerie pondered their crystals, which they had all along thought were ruby, diamond, sapphire, and emerald respectively, as Minou walked over and sat down on Daina's chest.

"I don't know how much this will help or hurt," muttered Minou, "But here I do." He touched his white spot to Daina's forehead, and in a moment the mind-meld was done.

"You are as ready as you will be," said Minou. "Transform!"

"Water Crystal Power Make Up!" Veena shocked everyone by going first. When she had finished morphing, she stood in dark jeans, a shirt with a large collar like that of a sailor fuku, sandals, and her pendant. But the other guides could easily tell. She had transformed!

"Earth Crystal Power Make Up!"

"Fire Crystal Power Make Up!"

"Air Crystal Power Make Up!"

"Sync Crystal Power Make Up!"

That moment they all were transformed. They were in jeans, wide-collared shirts, and plain sneakers, except for Sarah, whose shoes were bright red and shiny, and Melanie, who wore tall, sailor-style boots. And everyone emanated their transformation.

Crashing through the woods came a mob of teachers, breaking in on the guides without warning. Before anyone could think, the guides, who were outnumbered five to one, where whisked away by their own teachers, who bore them with surprising strength. No one could move or speak for the hands that grabbed and held them everywhere. They just attempted to kick and scream as they were carried into and below the school, below what they thought to be the bowels of the building, to the nearest thing any had ever known to a dungeon.

Each was roughly thrown into a cell resembling a huge metal box, without windows or doors besides that which they came in. The fluorescent lights flickered.


Retreat to Part I.
Proceed onto Part III.
Go back to Fanfic.
Return to central XFAF territory!