It was not an easy night for Jack.

Fortunately for him, there was to be no repeat of the vicious, sickening nightmare that had caused him to throw himself out of bed, but in its place was an unsatisfying, uneasy wait through the small hours and into the rising dawn.

He must’ve dropped off countless times, only to awaken what felt like moments later in a tangle of arms, legs and cover. No position felt comfortable for more than a few minutes, and rolling over and over provided his only method of finding temporary reprieve.

He knew he had to rest, but his body was far more preoccupied with testing out various doses of adrenaline. Time and time again his body reacted to the knowledge that he would be back in the fray once more, churning his stomach, spasming his arms as if he was about to be hit, his nerves reacting to countless invisible body blows and unseen enemies.

He did not lose consciousness often enough, or long enough, to pull together anything like enough real sleep.

After what felt like hours and hours he belatedly started checking his laptop through the gloom, and counted the hours and minutes as they bled away, waiting until it would be too late to realistically run away and join any passing circuses, and he’d just have to deal with it.

The backlit sky slowly trickled into being, it was cloudless and serene; a dazzling expanse of blue.

His mother came in to check on him a little earlier than usual, and he looked at her with tired eyes. She offered encouragement, a little kindness, and her usual mini-lecture on education, as his mind worried about other things entirely. He got up, had a quick wash, and dressed himself in as unobtrusive an outfit as he could throw together.

Grey t-shirt, black hoodie, jeans, scruffy trainers, rucksack.

He picked at a cereal bar and drained a large glass of juice. His parents were having a ‘discussion’ about something meaningless in the utility room, something to do with ties or shirt collars, and the sheer mind-numbing mediocrity of it put him at unease.

His mood was sour, and a thousand-yard stare and a trembling leg did not help either. Each time his mind attempted to tackle the day ahead, his heart rate would shoot up and his palms began to perspire, so he preferred to cocoon himself from the reality of the situation via adolescent disillusionment. Focusing on his parents’ foibles at least took his mind off the impending plank-walk he would have to undergo.

Rinsing the glass and leaving it by the sink, he threw a load of crap from the fridge into a tupperware box for lunch (an apple, some ham, a yoghurt…) though he doubted if he would even have the stomach to eat it when the time came.

He trudged back to his room to have a little alone time before the big plunge, and sat on his bed, whipping out his phone and staring at the clock until he definitely had to leave. His leg was really developing a tremor by now, and he had bitten his nails right down on both hands without really giving it a second thought.

His parents gave him a quick hug as he went to go, they must have known something was up, but the tedium of their own lives took precedence for now. Jack was not a cheerful kid, so they’d long since decided it was better to be passively supportive than to try and figure out what had put him in a mood lately, and in some small way, he didn’t blame them for their lack of concern as much as he perhaps should’ve done.

His mother asked about his glasses as he went to leave, and he feigned forgetfulness, saying he’d get them from his bedroom in a second, which she paid no heed to, turning to her husband and continuing their conversation.

He left without bothering to embellish the lie, a sense of pointlessness overwhelming what little compulsion he had to try and keep up the act in front of his parents. He hadn’t been this disillusioned with them in quite a while. It’s not that he wanted to tell them what had happened particularly – he was very wary of Caitlin’s family’s supposed influence and he knew there would be some revelations he didn’t want to put them through – but he did feel like they just expected him to manage his own unhappiness at times, that because they had a Beta community to fall back on that he would be in the same boat. They were so blind to the reality…

It was not far to the bus stop. The two kids he’d seen last time were already running around on the grassy verge, playing boisterously in the crisp morning air.

The Alpha bus arrived within 5 minutes, and after letting the pair embark, he stepped up himself.

“Hey lad,” said the driver, giving him an approving nod. He responded as politely as he felt, smiling at the man, before turning to the interior of the enormous bus. His stomach was rocking on the high seas by now, but there was to be no turning back.

Yet again, there were no seats immediately visible with his slightly fuzzy vision, but he could make out the pig-tailed girl who had been so bratty with him last time was busy gossiping to one of her friends and had not spotted him.

Taking advantage of her preoccupation, he opportunistically slunk past her and walked a little further down the bus, holding onto the massive metal bars as the driver jammed the thing into gear and clunkily lurched back out onto the residential road.

“Can I sit here?” he asked a young Alpha boy who was probably only about 8 or 9, staring out of the window on his own, occupying the window side of a large double seat.

“Sure,” he said dismissively, turning to look at Jack briefly, apparently uninterested in what he saw, and then turned his attention back to the world outside. The kid was close to 7 feet in height, so not incomparably tall, but proportionally much larger and stockier than any Beta adult would realistically be – a literal overgrown child.

Jack hauled himself up to the seat, sitting next to him, and stared straight ahead like a zombie, ignoring the shrill yells of glee, anger and chaos all around him.

It didn’t take long for the bus to reach the school, there weren’t many more stops on the journey between his neighbourhood and Oakwood High due to the route it ran, and as his anxiety crescendoed, the school bus rounded one final corner and came to halt behind the others.

Jack waited patiently for most of the other kids to exit the bus, before making his own way off. The young lad who’d been sat next to him trudged down the steps behind him carelessly, seemingly in a world of his own.

As Jack dropped to the ground from the last step, he looked around for Delon, spying his outline about 20 feet away by one of the trees that lined the road. He was instantly recognisable as a gangly, Beta-sized silhouette in baggy shorts and a baseball cap.

Looking both ways to make sure he wasn’t broadsided by an onrushing giant, he hastily walked over to his friend, who gave him a firm embrace and a knowing, familiar smile.

“Nice to see you, man,” the lanky Beta said, “Stick with me, stay strong.”

He felt like he was about to puke, heading into a building where Caitlin would also be right now. The nerves were frankly obscene, it was actually hard to concentrate on putting one foot in front of the other.

Delon stayed just in front of him, guiding him, obscuring him somewhat from view with his superior height. As they stayed close to the sides of the corridors, Jack looked down, following Delon’s footsteps. He kept resisting the urge to raise his head, he didn’t want his face to be seen by the Alphas above, neither did he want to accidentally lock eyes with the person he feared above all others. Sod’s law dictated that if he so much as looked up once, she would be the one to spot him.

They reached the first classroom of the day and he sat himself down at his Beta-sized desk nervously, the urge to vomit at the forefront of his mind. His peripheral awareness slowly bled in, a little like when you raise your head from underwater and your senses gradually return.

Alphas essentially surrounded him on all sides except in front, Delon was sort-of diagonal off to one side, not far away, but not close enough to feel the benefit of his presence.

Glancing to his left, he recognised the brand of sneakers as belonging to Alex, and very cautiously raised his eyes to look at her, almost afraid to.

The girl was wearing tight grey shorts that showed off her athletic legs and a slightly baggy red hoodie, but her attention appeared to be glued on something at the front of the class, her head fixed forward, not looking his way.

He looked up at her, gripped by his own feelings of panic and turmoil at once more being in the presence of enormous people who could belittle him whenever they fancied. Her eyes briefly flitted in his direction before her gaze shot forward, as if she was avoiding looking over at him.

The class went as normal, and Jack tried to maintain his focus and not give in to the gut-wrenching anxiety that bubbled away. It was a strain to see the board clearly without his glasses, but as long as he looked in the right direction and paid some attention, he almost looked like he wasn’t a complete wreck. Almost.

As the bell rang out, and those around him packed away, Delon approached him, checking if he was alright. He practically shivered as the long legs of Alex strode off to the side of him as she left, stealing a quick glance at the back of her as she exited the classroom.

Delon seemed to be fully aware of what was on his mind.

“She said she can’t talk to us, remember?” he reminded sagely, which provided literally no comfort to the jumpy teen at all.

The next couple of classes were a blur of overwrought, restless panic. He kept his nose in his books and tried his best to concentrate on what was being taught, but he felt increasingly faint and uneasy. He began to worry that even if it were to be a completely event-free day, he would still have a breakdown by the end of it.

Delon led him around like a sick puppy; they waited the short morning break in a corner of the library where people rarely ventured before the next stretch of lessons began. Delon did not share the two classes before lunchtime, and was unsure how to proceed. It was agreed that Jack didn’t have much choice but to be quick, inconspicuous and keep his head down.

The thought of having to traverse the cavernous corridors without a wingman watching out for him filled him with dread.

Penny, too, was notable by her absence thus far in the school day, which added to the floundering feeling of Jack being out of his depth. She’d said she would see him, but without a way of contacting her directly, how would that even work?

Lesson #4 passed without incident, but then Delon had to part ways. Jack kept his eyes to the floor and made his way to his class as swiftly as he could, reaching his desk and sitting down with a thud, exhaling a wobbly stream of air as he successfully completed another gruelling mini-odyssey. He saw the familiar grey shorts and toned legs a little way off to the left, but daren’t look over. He didn’t want to look at any of the Alphas in the eye any more in case it might push him over the edge – he arguably felt as vulnerable as he had at any point in the day.

It was one thing to see the occasional giant, but to be surrounded by them, all of them his peers, and to be constantly reminded of their physical superiority, was bad enough on a normal school day, but with the added reminder of Caitlin, and the stress of roaming the same halls, it was unbearable. The only bright light on his horizon was Penny, the only person who had ever made the idea of ‘giant’ signify anything other than dominance, humiliation and inferiority.

As the fifth lesson finished up, he hurried to pack his books away into his rucksack but conspired to tip the contents onto the floor; the strap catching on the chair in his haste, scattering his books and papers over a localised area. A hot wave of shame passed over him as he scrambled onto his hands and knees to sweep them all back into a pile and stow them away. He didn’t have time to lose – he simply had to get to the next class as soon as possible to blend into the crowds.

A few of the Alphas laughed and cat-called at him as they left, and he was quickly left behind, stuffing everything into his bag carelessly, not a second to spare.

There was a slight squeak of sneaker on floor beside him, and he turned to see the cause of the noise. Alex was stooped down, one of his books in her oversized hand.

He froze, a look of embarrassment and fear on his face, and her impassive expression melted into something between guilt and sorrow.

“Hey,” she said, softly, her big, dark chestnut eyes glancing over at the classroom door to make sure she wasn’t being observed.

“Hey,” he said back, feeling an enormous wave of emotion rise up within him from absolutely nowhere as his eyes started to water inadvertently. He wiped at them with his sleeve, not wanting to cry in front of her. Seeing her brought back a vision of him clutching his shoulder by the poolside, and begging her to help him.

“Oh god,” she said softly, reaching out to put her large hand on his shoulder to try and comfort the tiny boy. He gasped slightly, sniffing back the tears.

She slid her bag off her shoulder next to her and reached inside the front pocket, producing a small bundle of fabric, like a handkerchief. Unwrapping it gently, she revealed a Beta pair of glasses, the exact pair, in fact, that had been left at Caitlin’s place.

“Quick,” she said edgily, “What’s your next class?” looking again at the doorway.

“French,” he sniffed, taking the glasses from her large grasp and putting them in his pocket instinctively, composing himself.

“Thank you,” he said, his voice wavering, “You didn’t have t…”

“Are you in 3A or 3B?” she interrupted sharply, glancing down at her phone.

“Err… 3B,” he replied, looking on as she stood up to her full height.

“Go, quickly,” she encouraged, her face nodding forwards impatiently, not in an especially stern way, more… apprehensive.

He zipped up his bag, threw it over his shoulder, and rushed to the door, poking his head out and making his way along the corridor. There were still quite a few kids making their way between lessons, and as he hurried along, he realised that Alex was following him, a short distance behind.

It wasn’t the longest walk to 3B, but the school was at such a scale it took about a minute, all the while he could feel that Alex was behind, trying not to look like she was on escort duty, looking at her phone idly.

His heart rate was insanely elevated as he made his way round the last corner and got to the door, he paused as he went to enter and looked back to see the girl stood about 20 feet away. She looked back at him with a neutral expression on her face, but momentarily flashed him the tiniest little look that said ‘You’re ok now’, and turned on her heel, putting her phone away.

He went inside the classroom and sat down, puffing his cheeks out. He reached into his pocket and brought out the glasses Alex had recovered for him. He had expected them to be warped or broken in some way, but they were absolutely fine. It was his back-up pair after all, so the clarity wasn’t perfect and the prescription was slightly out, but as he slid them back on he couldn’t believe the difference it made.

The slightly fuzzy, scary world of towering, blurry people was gone, and he could see around himself properly once more. Turning his attention to the board, he was able to concentrate on what the teacher was saying without straining his eyes or pretending to see, and it freed him up to treat the lesson for what it was, which kept a little of the panic at bay for now. His leg still bounced relentlessly, and he still felt like he was one hard pat on the back away from spewing, but at least he could distract himself.

As for Alex, grabbing his glasses was something he would not have expected from her, especially because Caitlin would surely have noticed their absence and asked questions. He could only speculate that she had picked them up as soon as she left the pool, which meant that she had already made her mind up to help him in some way. Penny herself couldn’t find the glasses when she had rescued him, so it did check out.

During the lesson, he felt his phone vibrate a few times, but was unable to check until the class was over. At the bell, he quickly packed away his things and made his way to the library, his improved eyesight empowering him in a way that was startling in its simplicity. Previously it had been like tunnel vision, with a bewildering backdrop of peripheral movement that he couldn’t afford to concentrate on. The glasses enabled him to be that bit more aware of his surroundings; the leg speed and direction of the giants around him could also be judged more clearly so he could stay out of harm’s way that bit better.

Before long, he was in the library, and found the same corner that Delon and he had notifications from earlier.

As he went to swipe the screen, a very tall figure approached from off to one side, looming over him.

He turned to look as a wave of sandy-brown hair descended down towards him, the gorgeous face of Penny sinking down to his level, her eyes sparkling as no-one else’s seemed to do.

“Hi Jack,” she smiled, speaking extra quietly so no-one but him could hear.

“Hi Penny,” he said, his heart fluttering.