Field Day came with all the fanfare such a day deserved. Cancelled classes blessed my peers with endless energy. Pop-up bleachers offered parents places to recline as the children they were keen to see prepped on the playground. Matronly Ms. Bergr spoke smartly on a stage, prompting our few dozen viewers for polite applause. I observed our principal with bleary, bloodshot eyes. I was sure I saw a tendril slither through her smile.

“Hey!” Rachel whispered harshly at my side. “You look like you’re dying. Are you up for this?”

I responded to my rival with a caustic glare. Rachel glowered in reply and readied in her row.

At Ms. Bergr’s signal, we in line to graduate led our lessers in procession to the fateful field. Other students groaned behind me as their parents cheered. I despised their shunning of the sweetness I desired.

I despised more deeply the persistence of the pressure present in my chest since my suffering the night before. Memories a-slither in my muscles haunted me. I felt stiffened by the stillness forced on me in sleep.

Even so, I took on the tests without complaint, desperate as I ever was to put the mess behind. I made every effort to make good on Rachel’s bet, but I struggled with the threat of OhmN on my mind.

I competed in the sack race capably at first. I tripped at the touch of something shifting in my bag.

I toughed out the tree climb at the border of the woods. I retreated from a sullied starfix at the top.

I displeased a daunting team to run the relay race. Slimy feeling racked my fingers when I held the rod.

I performed passably upon the pull-up bar. Shadows slinging insults as my sibling made me fall.

I endured disturbance of my senses through the day. I had lost what little grip on reason I’d retained. I grew slower and sicklier with each passing test. And I suffered doubly in the absence of my friend.

Salvador defied himself in failing to appear. Stress pressed me powerfully, but he didn’t show. I could hardly handle all the illusions without him; his perspective guided me in gaming out the real.

The grim gauntlet I weathered unwitnessed wore on me. Focus failed me as I faced a twenty-meter dash. I recall a quiver as I prayed that I would pass. I blacked out before the Brother signaled us to start.