Most would call Sara Lindscott hopeless. Hopeless, clueless, and aimless.

She was the sort of girl who would be sitting in the back of the classroom, nearly unnoticeable, staring outside the windows with an unfathomable expression on her face. The teacher would remember her and decide to call on her, and she would be jerked forward amidst sniggering. Needless to say, she would have no idea what the answer to whatever question the teacher posed, was. She would stare blankly at the class, and then resume to the windows.

She seemed almost unaware of even herself. If they didn’t know better, they would call her mentally challenged. Autistic, maybe even.

And most didn’t know better.

She didn’t seem to mind, though. Whether one knew better or not, I mean. But then again, there was that word- seem. Sara Lindscott seemed many things.

No one wondered what was going on in her mind, questioned her persona. It was just how she was, they decided. They would avoid her, and then go about saying things such as, ‘Oh, he’s not as hopeless as compared to, like, Sara Lindscott.’ She was an object of conversation when there wasn’t anything else to gossip about, a filler. And when they had to talk directly to her, they would adopt an almost pitying or motherly tone.

The usual treatment of an outcast with ‘brain damage’.

Teachers would speculate about her. Such a fine girl, they would say. If only she seemed a tad less oblivious.

Sara, however, couldn’t be more not oblivious to the speculation and shunning of herself by her teachers and peers. She knew about it, and couldn’t exactly say she didn’t care about it. Because she did.

Being a daydreamer was just how she was, though. She couldn’t change that, she concluded. Even if she wanted to.

You could tell that this girl was rather unsure of herself. Oh, she told herself that she was confident, that she most definitely was sure of herself, but then again, there was the choice of words- told. Truthfully, if she looked further inside, she would realize she didn’t know at all. Realize that that feeble telling wasn’t true.

Sara Lindscott never gave herself much observation, though. It was mostly for the outside. She would cling to the beauty of outside that she could never witness inside. Her daydreaming had the usual excuse like most daydreamers- to escape. To plunge into what wasn’t reality, and soak herself in it for as long as she could.

Because reality had never been pleasant. And who would want to stay in what wasn’t pleasant?

The windows shattered, and she jerked back in surprise and fear.

She sat still, frozen, as the moments went by. Nothing else happened, nothing came or left. Wide eyed, she didn’t even dare to look around for the cause of the shattering. She just waited.

Finally, trembling, Sara stood and made her way towards an empty window frame. There was something daunting about the huge expanse of nothingness, the giant opening in the wall you could just slip through and outside.

The glass had just disappeared.

Sara had simply been sitting there, alone in the classroom, at her desk. It was late afternoon, and she had been staying behind to make up for the test she hadn’t taken that morning- because she had been daydreaming, looking out the windows.

She had started the first couple problems, but her gaze nevertheless couldn’t help slide to the windows on the left side of the classroom. Chin propped on a fist, Sara had been contentedly watching the outside when the windows…shattered. The glass split in flying pieces with a screeching, terrifying sound, the shards strangely only soaring outside.

Needless to say, Sara was terrified. She wondered if it was something the teacher had set up, to punish her for daydreaming all the time, and to frighten her into paying attention to what she should, more. She then decided it was a ridiculous idea, and pushed it away, now standing by an empty window frame and peering cautiously outside.

That the glass pieces, which she deduced had to be lying glittering on the grass by the window frames, had simply disappeared unnerved her.

Panic began to settle in. She wasn’t panicking about how or why the windows shattered, but if she’d get it trouble because of it. Would the teachers blame her for it? Oddly enough, no teachers had come rushing into the classroom when the ear-splitting event had occurred.

The next thing Sara did was very foolhardy and random. It took some amount of courage to do it, but she did it anyway.

She hoisted herself over a windowsill and outside, her feet planting themselves nervously upon grass.

The next thing after this she decided to do was also very foolhardy and random.

She looked for the vanished glass shards.

“Yeh’ wont find ‘em,” a voice interrupted her search, clearly stifling a yawn. Sara whirled around, facing a figure leaning against the windowsill she had crossed. What was even more peculiar was that he was leaning from inside the classroom, gazing out at her.

“What…what do you mean?” She answered warily. A person who suddenly appeared without her noticing was suspicious for her, since one of the few things she prided upon was noticing things, no matter how subtle or small.

“I mean,” he repeated, raising an brow, “that yeh’ wont find those pieces that felled out. They’ve gone.”

He was a strange boy, she concluded. He looked around her age, with dark tousled hair that seemed almost purposely combed to flop in front of his eyes, which were an unusual gray color. He was tall and pale, with a sort of gangly, thin build that many teenage boys acquired awkwardly as they became adolescents.

The boy was currently looking at her with an almost practiced laziness- every feature of him seemed to be exaggerated towards the notion of being uncaring and idle, as if he had all the time in the world to spend, as lackadaisically as he wanted. And very so.

“O…kay,” she replied finally, slightly shaken. “How…how did you know? And what are you doing here- who are you?”

“S’not my place to tell yeh’,” he yawned again, stretching. He was clearly bored of the entire situation, and it irritated her, even if only slightly. Why was he hanging around then?

“Then…who’s place is it?” She dared, more boldly. He viewed her some more, the lazy gaze of his seeming to evaluate her.

“Thas’ good, there. Yeh’m letting out more feelings and stuff. This makes it easier for me.”

“What do you mean, ‘easier’?”

“Well, yeh’ wanna look for the pieces, right? I’m to help yeh’. Well, maybe not help, but guide yeh’. I guess.”

She looked distrustfully at the boy. The entire thing was unsettling for her, and she was severely terrified, however hard she tried not to show it. The…peculiarness of the entire situation had her mind paranoid and frozen in places and whirring madly around in others. It wasn’t a good combination.

Had her daydreams gotten out of hand? Was this some strange form of schizophrenia introducing itself to her? Reason and logic weren’t exactly things she was familiar with, but she realized how dearly she needed them now.

“…Can you explain?” She asked timidly. The boy surveyed her through heavy-lidded eyes.

“’Not really sure how,” he began. He shifted, propping his elbows on the windowsill and cupping his chin in his palms. “This doesn’t happen tha’ much, see, but when it does…well, I ‘onno, but I s’pose it would be important. They say it’s sumsing-sumsing metophorifical.”

It was her turn to raise a brow.

“Metaphorical, you mean,” she revised. Sara frowned- she still didn’t understand- in fact, she was even more confused now- but it was obvious that the boy wouldn’t care to explain any further.

“Ya’. That,” he replied, waving his hand carelessly. Suddenly his demeanor changed, and he straightened, gazing with an almost questioning expression at her.

“Yeh’ comin’, then?”

She blinked. “What?” The boy hoisted himself over the windowsill, landing beside her. He looked towards the sky, as if searching for something. Glancing back at her, he asked,

“Yeh’ not comin’? I guess yeh’ wouldn’t…most of ‘em come, though.” Now his gaze seemed to be uneasy, as if unsure if he’d done the right thing.

“Comin’…I mean, coming- I mean, going, where?”

“To keep lookin’ for the pieces, of course,” the boy replied slowly, as if she were dense enough to ask such a redundant question.

“I…How long does it take to look?” She asked stupidly.

He looked thoughtful now. “Actually, I really dunno…maybe a couple weeks, maybe a couple yea’s. For yeh’, though, I’m not sure. Time doesn’t really count when yeh’re looking.”

Sara thought. The test paper still lay forlornly on the desk inside the classroom. She shifted her gaze to the woods behind the field that lay surrounding that side of the school.

The last thing she did was the most foolhardy and random of all.

Sara followed the now walking boy away from the school, and wondered if her uncle would miss her.