Unseen

Chapter 2

"Now to the King eternal, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever." (1 Timothy 1:17)

Ashim stared at his paper.  He was taking a history test and the fifth question had already stumped him.   He placed down his pencil in frustration, his mind racing as he tried to think of the answer.  The teacher, Mrs. Gray, passed by his desk.  She stopped short and stared at him.  But she wasn't staring exactly at him.

"Where did Ashim go?" she asked.

At first, Ashim was confused.  The other students started looking around the classroom.

Mrs. Gray shrugged.  "I must have let him go to the bathroom.  I can't remember doing it though."

"She must be joking," Ashim thought.  "And the whole class must be onto it too."

He picked up his pencil again and went back to doing his test.  He was sitting at the back of the classroom in the corner.  None of the students looked back at him since Mrs. Gray was walking around the room slowly.  If they had looked in his direction, they would have seen a pencil in midair, writing down the answers to the test.

Once the bell rang, all the students cleared their stuff and raced out the door.  It was lunchtime.

After Ashim had gotten his lunch from the cafeteria, he joined his best friend Xale, who was wolfing down a sandwich.

"I've had the strangest day today," Ashim said as he sat down next to Xale.

"Every single day of my life is strange," Xale replied between bites.  Ashim rolled his eyes.

"Where's Kayta?" he asked.

Xale swallowed. "Uhh, I don't know."  He looked around the room.  "Over there I think," he motioned towards the lunch line.

Ashim quickly found Kayta's auburn hair amongst the dozens of kids who crowded the lunch room.  He waved her over to their table.  Ashim and Kayta had known each other since birth and their families were very close.  High school was tough for both of them but they had always helped each other out.

Kayta slid into the seat across from them.

"Hi," she said.

"Sup." Ashim nodded at her.

"Mphhm," Xale said, his mouth full of sandwich.

Kayta smiled.  "You know the weirdest thing happened to me the other day...."

"I was just about to say that!" Ashim interrupted.

"Really?"  Kayta's bright green eyes became wide with surprise.  "What happened?"

"Today in class, Mrs. Gray came by my desk and she was like, "Where's Ashim?""

"Okayyy...."

"But I was sitting right there!  And then she's like "Oh, I must have let him go to the bathroom.""

"Okaayyy...."

"And I was there the whole time!  It's almost like I was invisible or something!"

Xale almost choked on his sandwich.  "EHHH! EHHH!"

"Yo, buddy, are you okay?"

Xale gulped down some water from his cup.

"You can't be invisible!" he finally gasped.  "That only happens in movies."

"Maybe it was a joke or something?" Kayta suggested.

"That's what I thought," Ashim exclaimed.  "But Mrs. Gray isn't a... 'play jokes on people' kind of person."

Kayta shrugged.  "Well anyway, that's not as weird as what happened to me yesterday...."

"What happened?" Xale said, taking another bite out of his sandwich.

"I was working on that super boring reading project Mr. Giles gave us last week, and I found a dime in my pocket, so I started spinning it."

"And then?" Xale asked, intrigued.

"So I was spinning it, and it wouldn't stop spinning!"

"What do you mean?"

"Whenever I stared at it, the dime would keep spinning.  But then when I stopped staring, it'd stop spinning."

"That is really weird!" Xale said.

"When did this start happening?" Ashim asked.

"After I started having nightmares...."

"Nightmares?  About what?"

"Well, I dreamed about this ghostly shadow creature with red glowing eyes.  I was trapped in a giant room, but I couldn't move, or do anything, and it kept hissing at me, and coming closer and closer to me-"

"And then?"

"And then I woke up and I realized it was a dream."

"Whoa," Xale breathed.  "Creepy."

"It felt so real," Kayta shuddered.

"Well, it was just a dream, right?" Ashim said.

"Yeah..." Kayta replied.  "Just a dream.

Rinnnnnnggggggg!!!!!!!  The final bell rang, and all the students made a beeline for the hallway.  Ashim managed to elbow his way through the crowd and get to his locker.  Once he had grabbed his stuff, he made his way to the school courtyard.  On his way there, he bumped into Mrs. Gray.

"Hi there Ashim!"  She was smiling that big kind of smile.

"Oh!  Uhhh, hi, Mrs. Gray," Ashim stammered.

"I'm glad you found time to finish the history test."

"Uhhh, sure...."   Ashim had no idea what Mrs. Gray was talking about.

"Did you finish it during lunch?"

"No, I finished it in class."

"In class?" Mrs. Gray was surprised.  "But you weren't there!"

"She's really good at acting," Ashim thought.

"Ha ha ha, very funny, Mrs. Gray," he said.

"What's so funny?" she asked.

"I know it's a joke.  I didn't know you were so good at acting."

"Ashim," Mrs. Gray's voice became serious.  "This is not a joke. You weren't in class half of the time today."

Ashim looked up in surprise.  "But I thought...." his voice trailed off.  "Does that mean I was actually invisible?"

"Sorry Mrs. Gray," he said.   He walked away as fast as he could so she couldn't ask him any more questions.

He walked down to the bathrooms, even though he didn't have to go.  He just needed to clear his head.

"If she didn't see me in class, and I was actually there..." Ashim stopped his train of thought.  It was too much for his brain to handle.

Ashim washed his hands, still trying to untangle the mess in his brain.  He looked up at the mirror... and saw a long dark shadow cast along the bathroom door.  It wasn't his shadow, and there wasn't anyone else in the room.  Suddenly, red glowing eyes appeared on the shadow.  It stared at him.

Ashim turned around and looked back at the bathroom door.  There was no shadow, just a normal door.  When he looked back at the mirror, the shadow was gone.