Jessie. Jessie Aarons. Jess. Jazz. Usually people call me messy errands.

Doesn’t make much

sense but the world’s gonna be cruel. So, uh, here goes nothing. What should I call this story?

Code Break.

Code Break?

Code Break.

Code Break. Yeah, okay. Code Break. So, here’s my story, Code Brea-

Yeah, we get the point.

Alright umm, enjoy?

Yeah have a jolly good time reading this book, who knows, Santa might come over and gift ya a
present or two. Who says enjoy?

Fine, just, go ahead and read it.

Yeah go read “IT.” I’ve always loved that book.

Just, stop, okay?

Why? What am I doing?

Ignore her.

You assumed my gender.

I’ve known you for 3 years.

Yeah but what if-

That’s it, we’re not having this conversation. Go ahead and read the book ‘cause you won’t get
anything good out of this.

Yeah, enjo-
Chapter 1
Not Half Bad, Eh?

Hurry up, I ushered myself. Running through the crowded pack of bodies in the hall, I
heard voices calling from behind me. I couldn’t figure out which person matched with which
voice.

“Messy, come back!”

“Jessie, quit running!”

And some other mean insults I won’t bother to include.

Of course, I had to bump into someone. I mean, a healthy dose of drama is always vital in a
chase. Right? Only 2 of my notebooks had fallen out of my High Sierra backpack. Technology
and Music. Will I really need them? I thought briefly before almost breaking into a run and
abandoning those notebooks to be crushed under someone’s feet.

“Oh my god, I’m so sorry! I can help,” this was the voice of the girl who I had bumped
into. Well she’s awfully nice, isn’t she? She quickly grabbed my two notebooks from the floor
and handed them to me. I only had time to give her possibly the most genuine smile I’ve made
all day before running again. I was pretty sure I’d lost them, but you could never be too careful. I
did, however get a quick glance at her face. I was always jealous of the pretty girls, but this one
had a strange glow to her face. She almost looked angelic. I could’ve sworn she had a halo over
her head. Her hair framed her face perfectly and was dyed a graceful grey color and her eyes
matched it. Grey eyes, that’s a first, I thought to myself whilst running. I almost bumped into a
teacher from another academy before I brought my focus back to the situation. I was practically
trampling over my own feet trying to run from no one. I stopped and pushed myself to the side of
the hallway that was starting to empty out so that I could check behind me. All clear. I hadn’t
realized how thirsty I was until this break. It’s not everyday you get chased down by pretty much
the most popular girls in the school - unless you’re me.

I reached to the side of my purple backpack with wheels at the bottom and a handle at
the top that could extend to roll it all proper and fancy like Mary Poppins. My hand took a while
to try and find my bottle so I just swung my bag down in front of me, almost hitting a short kid’s
leg. He seemed pretty scared, because he said sorry to me when I did that. He probably had
some presentation soon or forgot to do an assignment. The hallway was practically empty. It
suddenly seemed much more huge than when I was running. I returned my focus to my bag,
only to find that my bottle was missing from its net pocket at the side of my back. Great. I got
chased down, dropped 2 notebooks, which were picked back up by that angel girl, and lost my
water bottle. My black water bottle was metal and had white triangular shapes going across it,
each one bigger than the other, until you reached the beginning and followed the pattern all over
again. It was basically my best buddy. It had a couple of scratches on it’s top; it’s been through
some stuff. My middle school was ordinary, except for the fact that we were all supposedly
“Gifted and Talented.” False title for our sort. I didn’t think school bullies could exist until this
year. 8th grade’s harder than I thought. A proper headache and a half, it is.

I wasn’t at all pretty. Well, I did have some crazy moments where I thought to myself that
I actually was pretty. My jaw wasn’t that bad, nor were my light brown eyes, or nose, or full-ish
lips. I did have a mole on my left side of my face and a smaller mole on the bottom left of it.
Acne comes and goes on my face. Luckily for me, it’s rarely extreme acne, unless I touch it.
Unluckily, I try to tamper with my acne a lot. Now that I imagine those grey eyes that girl had, I
kind of want to buy grey contacts. Oh, who am I kidding, I can barely bring my own finger close
to my eye without flinching. My parents would kill me if I even asked for a penny. But, being an
only child isn’t half bad.

“Not half bad, eh,” said a voice unfamiliar to me. Slightly hoarse.

Did I say that out loud, I wondered while flipping my head around and trying to find the source of
the voice. Then I felt someone tug on my short, wavy, black/brown hair that was cut in layers. It
was whatever it wanted to be, depending on the light present. I turned my head around, pulling
up a disgusted look on my face, until it suddenly changed to a frightened and confused one. The
face before me shouldn’t legally be counted as a face at all. It was a floating human head with
flesh that was burned through. I wasn’t even able to tell whether it was female or male. I could
see its nose bones and I broke into a run, for the second time today. For some odd reason my
facial expression had dropped and I was running, not even bothering to scream for help. It
wasn’t long before I was stopped by a teacher of whom I didn’t recognize exiting her room. She
held out an arm which wasn’t needed because I stopped myself before she could touch me.

“Young lady, why are you running in the halls? Is that your backpack over there,” she inquired in
a I’m-disappointed-in-you tone while nodding her head towards where I left that poor excuse for
an organism. I hadn’t even fully taken in the whole situation before I realized that the oddest
thing just happened.

I struggled to say, “It’s a thing! Back there! Really ugly, and uh, look!” I turned back and pointed
to the spot where it tugged my hair. Now that I think about it, it had no arms, let alone a body,
how’d it tug my hair?

But there was nothing there. Just a kid who’d probably been standing there the whole time. An
innocent boy with pure terror written all over his face, some 6th grader. Kind of tall, Asian, had
glasses. Was I hallucinating? Did that boy pull my hair? No. He wouldn’t. Would he?

“That’s enough, young lady! How rude of you! Principal’s office. Now,” she ordered, pointing the
other way and rushing towards the boy she thought I was insulting.
Chapter 2
An Ugly Thing

The Principal’s office was right down the hall, tucked into a comfy corner right next to a
room that had a mini little hall all to itself, with lockers lining the sides. I’d never been in trouble
like this before. My head felt cold and my brain was thumping more than my heart, which I didn’t
know was possible. I counted my footsteps and prayed for the floor to swallow me whole and
end all of my pain and this pitiful life I was given. I took my sweet time, which I hoped I would
have none of in a second with the floor using me as a snack. It was lunch time, after all. I almost
laughed at my pathetic joke but then I remembered the horror of the whole scene all too quickly.
The patterned floor was pretty, now that I thought of it. The peach diamonds and blue and green
squares hugging them were tiled like checkers. I looked back up and was right in front of the
huge door of doom. It was still wallpapered with a sparkly red paper from Christmas; they hadn’t
bothered to take it down. It was basically February now, the very end of January. I squeezed my
eyes shut and opened them again, which kind of calmed me down. I rolled my head in a circle
and shook myself a bit before turning the once golden, now rusty doorknob.

The door was surprisingly sensitive and slammed all the way towards the wall.

“Careful there,” said the voice of our Principal.

“Sorry,” I mumbled, bringing my head down and walking into the room slowly. If I had any hope
of getting into my dream high school, I could kiss it bye-bye now.

Our Principal was male, in his mid-40’s, I think. He always wore some strange tie to school; it
was as if his life depended on it. He kind of reminded me of Albus Dumbledore, he had a huge
sink in the corner of his room, for some reason, that reminded me of a Pensieve. He also had
these candies that he never even touched.

It must’ve been a special day because he picked up a candy and shoved it between his lips that
seemed to disappear between his black beard and mustache. It wasn’t that long. Is he even
gonna talk, I wondered.

As if on cue, he asked, “What brings you here?”

“Uh, well,” I cleared my throat, which I didn’t do very often since I usually hated it when people
did that, and continued, “a teacher sent me here.”

“A teacher?”

“A teacher. She, uh, didn’t really see the situation from my perspective. She jumped to a
conclusion becau-”

“So, tell me what happened.”

I almost looked up from my lap to raise my eyebrows at him but I remembered that he was the
oh-so-glorious Principal. “I, um, put my bag down in the hallway. It’s still there. I was searching
for my water bottle and it kind of wasn’t in its usual spot. Then I felt something pull on my hair
from behind me,” I began, deciding to skip the part about me thinking out loud. “You probably
won’t believe me, but I turned around and I saw this thing that was…,” I paused, thinking about
how to put this. “It was a human, but only a head. Floating. A floating, human head with flesh
that was burned through, it didn’t even have a proper nose. And I ran, fast. But, this…,” I
stopped myself before I called the teacher something I might regret, and continued, “teacher.
This teacher, she stopped me and asked me what was wrong. I said that I ran from an … ugly
thing and, um, I turned back to show her but it was gone. A boy was there instead. I think he
was a 6th grader, actually maybe a 7th grader. Tall and Asian with glasses. She thought that I
was calling the kid ugly. So, she sent me here. You won’t believe me, but I swear, the thing was
there! I felt it tug at my hair and-”

“Head to the nurse,” he said, cutting me off.

For the first time, I looked up from my lap, to see that he had his feet up on the desk, pointing to
the right of me, opposite the door that belonged to the Principal’s office. I daringly said, “Excuse
me?”

“Just a normal hallucination. 8th graders, you know. You guys are like that. Goodbye,” he said
absently while picking at his teeth for, presumably, some sticky toffee he put in his mouth.

“Bye,” I said, stunned by his response. Maybe he was right, I thought while walking out of the
room and quickly shuffling down the hall as fast as I could to grab my bag. Thank goodness it
was still there. No way I was gonna go see the nurse now. She was farther on in age and was
slowly losing her mind. She drank way too much coffee. I hated coffee. Smelled the best, tasted
the worst. I loved tea, but I would be lucky to ever get to taste it again. I was hungry so I ran
down to lunch. There were 10 minutes of the period left. I was only on the 2nd floor so I ran down
with all the strength I had left in my legs, which wasn’t very much. I was lucky to be in shape
from all of the running I did basically 24/7. I told my parents that I took the train home, but I lost
my card and it would cost $20.00 to get another one. I always had to run home, too, with this
heavy bag which I was afraid had already stunted my growth. I was 5”3 and I was so scared that
I would stay that height.
Chapter 3
Not A Joke

I reached the cafeteria, which wasn’t so big. It was 1.5 times the size of a normal classroom.
The front of the cafeteria connected with the hallways that led to the actual cluster of rectangular
tables that held each class and grade. I held my head down and avoided the tables with my
enemies on them. I could’ve put my favorite red hoodie’s hood over my head but then some
teacher watching us during lunch would come and lecture me for that, making me noticeable to
everyone. My life really went downwards today, let alone in the last year. I missed the last 8th
graders, so much. They were nice to me, which was a surprise at first until I got used to it. They
even stood up for me. Now, if anyone even tries to talk to those popular girls that pick on me, I
try to tell them to back off because I always feel selfish for letting someone else step into my
situation. I always feel like I deserve this for some reason. Blaming myself for everything is my
first instinct. I quickly entered the cafeteria and went off to the other doorway on the right that led
to the hallway that looped around to the front of the cafeteria again. I peeked in the bathroom to
check if anyone was there before I entered. I tiptoed around the corner of the first stall which
was enveloped with walls that seemed like a marble notebook’s cover and looked around. No
one was there so I took the opportunity to drop my bag into the stall all the way at the right
corner. No one went there because they’d either be freaked out by my bag or because they
didn’t wanna use the bathroom anyways. There was a row of stalls lining each wall and a huge
walkway in between them. The front of the bathroom had sinks and mirrors that started next to
the door and continued until it got to the first stall on the right side.

I ran to the lunchroom and ignored a rather violent tap on my shoulder so that I could walk to the
lunch lady before she closed down the food stall.

“Late again,” she said in an almost pitiful tone. She probably knew about the girls that bullied
me; she was always aware of what was going on. As for the teachers that took the lunch period
as monitors and hung out towards the front of the cafeteria, they barely knew if anything was
going on. Unless a kid was committing the smallest of a crime in their book, like standing up and
not being in line; they had an eye for that kind of stuff. This cafeteria lady’s name was Maria.
Latina, in her early 30’s, which was considerably young since most of the teachers in our school
were well in their 40’s or 50’s.

“Sorry. If I told you what happened, you wouldn’t believe me,” I shrugged it off and asked
desperately, “Is there anything left?”

“There sure is, niña,” she smiled as she said this, giving me a cardboard textured plate of
carrots and rice with green mush at the side. Food never looked this good to me.

I returned her smile and said, “Thank you 500 times over and over again!”
“Anything for you, Jazz.”

I smiled again and grabbed a plastic bag with a spork made out of the same material and
napkins inside of it. I went to my table, the second one from the food stall, and opened my spork
desperately and gobbled up my food. I sat next to probably the weirdest kid in my class, who
was always rambling off random words and smiling and crying for no reason but boredom,
perhaps. He did, however have the neatest handwriting in my class, but it took him so long to
write. He, Philip Bonsborg, always wore the same outfit and was somehow best friends with
probably the smartest girl in my class, Violet Freeman. Violet was nice to me, but she didn’t
bother having full-on conversations with me. If I were her, I wouldn’t either. I threw out my tray in
the garbage can in the hallway tucked at the right of the food stall. There was also one at the
left, but that was closer to the girls who didn’t exactly favor me. As I dropped my tray into the
trash can, I felt kind of dizzy. Was it the lack of water? It was replaced by one sharp shooting
pain throughout my spinal cord and I almost fell. I felt my knees buckle but I held myself up and
walked back to my table. But as soon as I turned around something strange caught my
attention. Men dressed in black, heavy armor entered the lunchroom, with, no. It couldn’t be.
Guns?

“Clear the room, soldiers,” the first man, who’s face was barely visible through his black stained
glass helmet, said, “WE DON’T WANT TO SHOOT! GET DOWN! HANDS UP!”

Cries and silence all filled the room at once, making my head hurt again. I immediately followed
orders, along with everybody else. It was kind of awkward being in this hallway while everyone
else was at their tables, but I wasn’t about to take the risk to scooch over there. What did we
do?, I wondered, slowly feeling myself losing consciousness. I couldn’t even take in the whole
scene before my eyes fluttered shut and opened back up again. Today’s pretty weird. I opened
my eyes again to see a soldier kneeling down in front of me. This woke me up completely. I
almost punched him but I realized that it would go down very, very badly if I did that. I was
shaking all over and he started talking to me.

“Name, age, gender.”

“Jessie Aarons, 13, uh, female,” I almost repeated gender instead of saying female because I
was scared out of my proper sense of mind.

“Are you female or uh female?”

“Female, sir,” I felt the need to say sir. Then the shooting pain came back and I winced but didn’t
dare move, which took me everything to do.

“Guys,” he said, looking back, “we got her, let’s go.”

I panicked and questioned, me, why would they want me?

“Because you’re a special one, now get up,” he replied.

I was confused until I realized that I said it out loud.

Again.

Then I spotted my water bottle on a shelf painted blue just like the walls.

Blue, that’s a funny word. Not only a color, but also a feeling. My name should be blue. I should
paint my water bottle blue. No, I can’t even afford proper shoes. Am I falling asleep?

Before I could fall and hit the floor I felt a punch across the face, mainly hitting my jaw, which
sent me flying across the floor. I didn’t even respond. I felt something broken in my jaw when I
tried to reach up and put it back in place. I looked around and everyone disappeared. The
punch hadn’t awoken me in the slightest bit. I just closed my eyes and rolled up on the floor.

What’s actually going on? Eh, can’t get worse than it already is, right?

It’s about to get a whole lot worse.

Wait, did I just think that?

No, I did. This is a dream. Wake up.

You make it sound easy, stranger.

You’re in a coma. You’ve been in a coma for a while.

Ooh, how long.

You sound drunk.

I’m underage. And I’m a good child, I don’t drink.

Alright I tried to punch ya awake but my iron fists aren’t good enough.

What’re you gonna try now?

You’ll see.

I’m in a coma. I can’t see.

This is NOT A JOKE.

Those last three words felt like they ripped through my skull and cracked my ear drums.
Chapter 4
Lies

I woke up. That’s about it. Nothing special.

I woke up.

Except for the fact that I was in a hospital.

My eyes hurt when I tried to open them, but I managed to see enough to make out the
room. The hospital bed I lay on was in the center of the room against the wall. There was an
even space of about 15 feet that separated my bed from the right, left, and front wall. The right
wall was nothing special, just a window that was shut by blinds that basically failed at their job.
The blinds let in too much light, telling me that it was around morning. The wall in front of me
had a simple table that hugged a chair, which was empty.