Translucent (4 page)

Karena started kindergarten at the age of 5, just like she had before. Pretending to be at the same level of education as all the other kids was a source of constant annoyance for
her, since although she was at
the same
level of
physical ability, she far exceeded them intellectually. Karena fought the urge to roll her eyes constantly in class when the teacher made the kids recite the alphabet, or when they tried to learn to count to ten. Occasionally, she was tempted to go up to the board and write
some complicated equation just to
show that she was in a grade far
too young for her, but she resisted.
Tempting as it might be, she would keep her word to her parents not to reveal to anyone what had happened to her.
It was the least she could do, for her parents and for herself.

By this point she was having the deja-vu feeling practically every other day at some time or another. While much of what was happening still seemed new to her, much of it was familiar to her as well. She distinctly remembered “circle time” for instance, where everyone in her class got out small little mats and sat cross legged on the floor in an oval-ish formation as the teacher read to them some realistic fiction story that was rather dull in a very slow voice, emphasizing each word
so that the kids understood her. When she’d done this before, of course, she’d found this time riveting as her neurons were still at the very early stages of making connections within her brain, however
,
now it was a terrible waste of time.

When she got home from school each day, she would
immediately begin doing things that were more on her
mental
level. Back in her old life, she wasn’t one to do research at home purely for fun very often, but here she realized it was of absolute necessity that she did this. She had to do something to keep her mind active with things that she found interesting. So she would
go on a computer and simply do research about whatever she felt like. This kept her mind busy and away from the boredom of the day, and this was what she
most looked forward to during the long hours at kindergarten.
She read about science, history, literature,
and all sorts of things that she never would have found particularly interesting
in her past life.

It wasn’t like there was much else for her to do anyway.
Being a toddler who was
of far greater intelligence than all the other toddlers
, she didn’t really have any friends. It would have been str
ange to have friends who were 5—
year olds when at this point she was a
20—
year old. And since she couldn’t do very many interesting things physically, she stuck to research for entertainment,
determi
ned not to fall behind other 20—
year olds, even though there wasn’t really any danger if that happened.

In a year kindergarten was over and Karena went into first grade, where she began to actually get grades from small quizzes on simple math and reading exercises. Keeping her grades at an average level was difficult for her, as she was afraid that if she did too well and aced everything, then people would begin to suspect that she was some sort of a genius and would eventually find out everything. But if her grades were too low then, well, she wouldn’t have good grades, and failing 1
st
grade as a 21-year old wouldn’t look very good on her personal resume. So she strived hard to
be as much like everyone else as possible and not to stick out like a sore thumb.

She grew weary of her situation, though.
Every day she went to school and learned nothing, and was constantly nervous because of the great secret she was hiding from everyone at all times. It was like carrying an enormous burden that didn’t allow her to have any real friends and didn’t let her have fun at school like a normal 1
st
grader might.
It seemed like its pressure grew greater each day.

However, she soon realized that it couldn’t go on like this. She couldn’t just endure school, she had to actually be a part of it in order to fit in. That meant she had to make friends, and be actively speaking up,
and participating in everything, something that until this point she’d never really considered doing.
If she was always separated from anyone else, then people would begin to suspect that something was wrong with her, and then she’d be forced to tell about her situation.

And s
o she merged with her class. She became exactly like a 1
st
grade student. She made friends and participated in class and was akin to everyone else in almost every way. The scary thing was that at times she almost forgot who she really was. Sh
e forgot that she was 21-years old, that this
was the second time she’d lived through her life, and that everything she was going through she’d been through before.

In some ways this was scary, but in other ways it helped her to stay happy at times in a situation
where
it practica
lly impossible to do so.

It was a while before anything significant
which was
directly connected to Karena’s
problem happened. I
t didn’t happen until she was in
third grade, as a matter of fact, and by that
point she had grown used to everything. She’d grown used to knowing all the material being taught, and was now an expert at getting average grades on quizzes. But she was also used to being friendly and playing like a child and growing up at the same rate as everyone else. In this sense it was as if her past life had never existed.

But it had, and she was reminded of this very strongly on the first day of third grade. She was 8 years old at this point, though really she was 23. She and everyone else walked into the classroom, looking for a seat that they liked, trying to sit with friends even though they knew the teacher already had a seating plan for them
and would separate them into an irritating boy-girl alternating pattern
. The teacher stood at the front of the room, smiling at everyone warmly. But in the corner there was another person who looked to be in their early twenties, far younger than the teacher. The best way she could describe the look on his face was a look of utter fatigue.
It wasn’t that he looked tired or sleepy, it was more like a crushing weariness that made his features sag and
his s
mile seem half-hearted and weak, despite his youth.

Everyone sat down, and the teacher began telling them about how they were going to have a great year together and starting introducing herself and
going through
all the
usual procedures that happen
at the beginning
of a school year.
And then she introduced the man who’d been sitting in the background.

“This is
Mr. Ryker,” she said. “He’s a teacher in training who’s going to be your secondary teacher this year.”

Politely, all the students said in a sort of semi-unison, “Hi, Mr. Ryker.” Mr. Ryker gave a half-hearted smile and a half-hearted wave, which seem to satisfy the kids who turned their attention back to the teacher.

Karena suspected at first
that the man was simply just a person who
wasn’t very happy with their job, or with their life, or with something in general. There were always those pe
ople who seemed extremely
sad
for no
legitimate reason, simply because they had a small thing in their life that needed filling, or at least that they thought need filling, though they could easily ignore it if they tried.
K
arena had heard of such a thing;
it was
called the missing tile syndrome.
But Mr. Ryker was not like this at all, and Karena soon began to suspect something about him that nobody else did.

For one thing, a person who just didn’t have the right job wouldn’t act like this.
This man act
ed
like he was actually depressed, not just disappointed with his occupation. The fact that he trie
d to smile
but could only do so
half-heartedly proved this. A person who was just disappointed wouldn’t even try to smile, but a person who was depressed would be so used to being depressed that he’d see no reason not to.

But there was something else about him that was perhaps even more important.
She could see it in his eyes. His eyes, though he was young, were full of wisdom and knowledge, as if
he
were really much older than twenty but still looked young on the outside. Karena couldn’t explain how she saw this, especially since no one else seemed to notice it.
There was something about him that was simply…different.

And as the days passed and Mr. Ryker continued to sit there in the class, helping out the teacher and being a substitute if she wasn’t there, Karena became more and more certain that Mr. Ryker was not what he seemed. He was not twenty years old, in fact, he was much older, and she knew, though she couldn’t explain why, that he’d been through the exact same thing that she’d been through. Maybe it was something in her blood that
allowed
her
to know
this for sure, or maybe it was just
a strong suspicion she had which
happened to be correct, but it was as certain to
her as…well…she couldn’t really think of a good analogy for that since she wasn’t really certain of much these days, but she was certain about this, and that’s what mattered.

Karena knew that she had to speak with him privately, and she began formulating a plan for how she could do this in secret. She had no fear that she would approach him and find out that her suspicion was false, and so she decided
that she’d be very bold and simply
find a time when there was no one around to talk. She noticed that every day, after everyone left class, he was always the last one to leave, even after the teacher. So she decided one day that she would just walk up and start talking.
She didn’t tell her parents about Mr. Ryker. She saw no need to, at least for the time being.

On Wednesday, Karena was counting down the hours until the bell rang and everyone was released fr
om class. There were just minute
s left on the clock, but time seemed to drag on infinitely as the teacher rambled on about some absurdly easy math problem
which involved carrying across zeros
, when the bell finally rang, and all the kids cheered and grab their bags and were out the door in a flash, running and trampling over each oth
er in a most disorderly fashion as the teacher tried to get their attention and say something about homework they were supposed to do but no one would because they were already gone before she could finish.

Karena slowly packed up her stuff as she waited for the teacher to leave. She gathered up all her
writing
utensils and put them in her case, and then put the case in her bag. But when she looked up, no one was there.

Confused, Karena blinked and looked for the teacher, but she was nowhere to be seen. She was just getting ready to turn around when she felt a hand on her shoulder and
she heard Mr. Ryker’s voice.
“Karena. A moment please.”

Karena slowly turned around in her chair to see Mr. Ryker looming o
ver her as all adults did to children in the third grade
. His eyes had the same knowing, wise look that t
hey’d always had since she’d first seen
him.

“Yes?” she asked. Then, realizing what she’d been meaning to do, she said: “Actually, I’d been meaning to come talk to you, so…”

“Yes, that’s what I suspected,” Mr. Ryker said, sitting down in a chair adjacent to hers.

Karena blinked. Did he know everything that had happened to her as well as she knew everything that had happened to him? That would make sense, after all, as she was sure a person who’d been through the same experience would recogn
ize when another person had too, which was
after all
the only explanation
she had
for her knowing what he’d been through.

Mr. Ryker pulled out a piece of paper and a pencil and began writing something
on the next desk over
, though Karena couldn’t see what it was from her position. When he finished, he handed the paper and pencil to her and said: “Solve it.”

Karena looked down at what he’d thrust in front of her. It read:

Solve
sin
(
x
) + 3 = 2
for
0
<
x
< 2


Karena’s heart leapt. He knew! Mr. Ryker knew that she wasn’t really a third grader, otherwise there’s no way he’d ask her to do a trigonometry problem
in third grade
. She may not know how to do it, or at least
not
very well, but she was sure now that he knew what she really was, and that’s all that really mattered.

“I’m not very good with these sort of problems,” Karena admitted, a smile growing on her face. “I was only 15 when I
woke up in this body
, and so-”

“Shut up!
” Mr. Ryker hastily interrupted, surprising Karena with the urgency in his voice.
Then, in a quiet whisper he said: “We c
an’t let anyone overhear us;
this isn’t a safe place. Come with me.”

Bewildered, Karena
stood up as Mr. Ryker hurriedly hustled across the room and exited through the door. After standing still for a moment in surprise, she
figured out what she was meant to do
and hurried after
him
, walking through the same door and leaving all her school supplies behind. She looked both ways in the hallway, which was now abandoned, and saw him turning a corner
to her right. She quickly broke into a run, sprinting across the corridor as fast as her legs coul
d carry her. She practiced running
regularly these days, so she was quite fast coming
around the bend in the corridor, or at least as fast as she could be in her third-grade body.

But when she turned the corner, she saw to her dismay that there was nobody there. Mr. Ryker was nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless, she walked along the hallway slowly, trying to peek through the little windows on the doors but
failing due to her height. She hoped that he hadn’t left the hallway completely, because then he would be far away by now and she’d have to find another time to talk to him, and she wasn’t sure that she could bear waiting any longer.
And anyway, why would he disappear if he wanted to talk to her too?
Maybe he’d just gone into one of the rooms…

No sooner had the thought crossed her mind when a hand reached out from a doorway and grabbed her shoulder, before pulling her into the room a
nd shutting the door behind her.

Startled, Karena looked around to see what had happened. She was in a small classroom, probably for 1
st
graders by the looks of it. The man who’d grabbed her, who she could see was Mr. Ryker, had already left her and was walking across the classroom to the window.

“Could you please hold on for a second?” Karena called desperately. “I’m not nearly as fast as you are.”

“Just keep following me, but from a little bit of a distance,” he said.
“You’re doing great.”

Exasperated, Kar
ena jogged
to catch up with him. He was opening the window and no sooner had he done so when he jumped out
and landed in a cluster
of bushes.
He hardly stopped before he leapt out and ran away.

“Oh, for goodness sake,” Karena said. S
he climbed onto the window sill
which, luckily for he
r, was quite near to the ground,
and, taking a deep breath, fell and landed in
the bushes. The fall was
long
er
for her
then it had been for Mr. Ryker
, and the landing was far from pleasant, but she knew she didn’t have time to sit there with all her scratches and bruises. She stood up and clumsily crawled out of the bushes
, though not without a great deal of trouble,
before she began running once again in the direction Mr. Ryker had.

O
nce again,
however, he
was nowhere to be seen. Karena was standing in a parking lot with scarcely any cars, and with a small park in the background, but she didn’t see him anywhere. She figured that he couldn’t have gone straight forward, since she’d still be able to see him even if he had sprinted, so he must have gone around the building. Consulting her memory, Karena thought she remembered him going to the right, so she headed that way. She ran around the corner and saw a glimpse of him up ahead, turning onto a road going to the left. Quickly, she broke into a sprint and ran to the road, before going in the same direction he had. She saw him about 100 meters ahead, running straight down the street she was on. The thing that worried her, however, was the fact that since his legs were much longer, she was going to fall far behin
d, farther than she already was
.

Karena ran faster when she saw Mr. Ryker take another turn up ahead to the left. And so for the next 10 minutes or so it went on like this, with Mr. Ryker constantly far ahead and Karena barely catching glimpse of him before he turned another corner. Sometimes she would lose him and would have to quickly try looking down multiple paths before she could find him and start chasing him again. By the time she finally saw him go inside a house and shut the door, Karena, despite her cardio training, was exhausted.

She wal
ked up to the house in which he’d gone
and peeked in the window. He was nowhere to be seen. She wondered if she should knock, but decided against it. It would be far too suspicious to anyone who happened to be watching to let a young girl walk right in your front door. So the obvious solution was to go around the back of the house. Just as she’d thought, there was a back door with a small hatch on the bottom presumably for pets to go through. Though it was strange that he had no fence around his back yard, she walked right in it before approaching the door and crawling through the small hatch at the bottom.

She stood up, brushed o
ff her pants, and looked around, still breathing heavily from the run.
She appeared to be in a kitchen. Mr. Ryker wasn’t anywhere to be seen. But before she
could start
looking around the house for him, she heard his voice from an adjacent room.

“You made it
.”