Kyle was careful, utterly attentive for clues, and reluctant to risk Mr. Spizer's wrath. Being invisible wasn't one of Kyle's infamous skills, so masquerading as a model student was akin to skinning the president, wearing the gory, dripping mess, and attempting to deliver a State of the Union address without drawing horrified screams from the audience. Kyle wasn't sure why he felt nervous, but occasionally he'd scan the room, convinced someone would decipher the truth of his flimsy facade. Then they'd all point and laugh. Hey, look at Kyle. You tryin' to get on Spizer's good side? He ain't got one, Scruff.

But nobody did, not even the teacher himself, probably distracted by his own rant concerning the second of these unlikely wars that became a worldwide affair. Not really history, but Spizer knew all the tricks. Relate America's position with effete intellectuals that argued and waxed philosophically while Greece lay ripe for the plucking by Rome, or the lazy citizens of late Rome before the Visigoths sacked the already whimpering remains of that once expansive empire. To this History teacher, the United States was constantly on the decline; it was a den of disrespect, self-satisfaction, and worst of all, complacency.

Kyle felt Mr. Spizer had missed his calling. A man with a sour attitude backed by brimstone and impending doom would have made a much better preacher, droning on about sin, vice, and damnation—the kind that promised a fiery inferno of endless torments and infernally shattered sanity. Much to Kyle's increasing mortification, Eric Spizer had instead chosen to directly abuse children before they could escape into something more pleasurable, such as being constantly disemboweled for all eternity. I gotta listen to this guy until June!? No f'ing way.

"You may leave, class. Remember, I want each of you to bring an example of History, and what kind of positive influence it could provide to us as a nation. The best defence against complacency and even tyranny is constant vigilance!" he said firmly as the bell rang, having dropped his chalk in the chalkboard's retaining tray mere seconds before it sounded. He's a damn automaton, that guy!

But at least now he was an unoccupied automaton.

Kyle fumbled clumsily with his books while the class crowded through the door in palpable relief to abscond with their sanity intact. He longed to be among them. Instead, he gulped hard and rehearsed several awkward phrases in his head, trying to choose the least inflammatory. And then, there was nothing but the jump.

Before Kyle could walk to Mr. Spizer's desk, something odd happened. He saw through the bluster and almost laughed aloud at the ridiculous pomposity the unsmiling man wore like a repellent shroud. Saw through him, figuratively and literally—twisting welcome insight to wracking fear—as the man and his desk flickered and faded from Kyle's vision. Kyle steadied himself with a hasty, uneven grab at a nearby desk, as a wave of incapacitating nausea rippled through him, sending his stomach to his throat, and his eyes rolling back into his head.

It wasn't enough. One steady hand, but an entire body lacking equilibrium sent Kyle sideways to the floor while he instinctively yanked on the desk to catch himself. He only succeeded in hauling it atop him as he fell, trapped embarrassingly beneath its cumbersome mass. He groaned in combined agony and humiliation, imagining the lecture Dr. Spizer was already preparing.

"Oh my God!" Spizer shouted. "Kyle, are you alright?" The last few words weren't entirely audible or even decipherable, as the rotund teacher hurried around his desk to assess Kyle's injuries before calling for help. "Oh, no..." he mumbled, seeing half of Kyle's chest pinned by the sharp cherry tabletop, though unable to comprehend how it happened.

But no matter. The desk wasn't really too heavy, though to Kyle it probably felt like taking a nap under an anvil; his contorted position made it basically impossible to dislodge himself without help. Spizer provided that help, grabbing the sides of the desk and celebrating his low center of mass, practically hurling the table to skid on its legs a few feet behind its original position.

With the weight suddenly gone, Kyle grabbed his left side and curled into a fetal position, cradling his formerly compressed ribs and bruised torso, coughing and moaning all the while. Spizer wiped his brow with an equally wet hand, unaccustomed to such exertion, but glad Kyle seemed mostly alright. But he couldn't help asking anyway. "Kyle, is anything broken? Can you get up?" Voice full of concern.

"... fine," he sputtered. He turned onto his hands and knees and crawled to Spizer's desk, gripping its edge and laboriously struggling to stand, shaking with effort. Spizer made it there in time to steady Kyle with a left hand at his back, and his other cradling the boy's shoulder.

"I think we should go to see Mrs. Bewnik in the nurse's office anyway, son. Just to make sure."

Was that concern Kyle just heard? Unbelievable. Not from this man. Kyle was certain Spizer would rather bathe in a pool of scorpions than show sympathy for a student. But there it was; he nodded, confused.

Spizer responded with his own curt nod, and turned toward the door, mindful to keep his left hand on Kyle's shoulder to prevent another fall. And together they left the room and traveled the halls, Kyle bent slightly to the left, favoring his ribs, and Spizer literally providing a helping hand.

Now's your chance! "Sir, do you think Japan would really never surrender?" he asked, expecting a sardonic series of biting remarks, regardless of his vulnerable state.

But it never came. The man laughed—true, not a deep belly laugh, but sincere—patting Kyle on the shoulder with his free hand. "Of course I believe it, Kyle. You have to understand, they attacked us to clear out shipping lanes so they can continue conquering China. China! Do you realize tiny Japan is attempting to subjugate a nation boasting half a billion? And succeeding? Would you surrender, having tasted such conquest?" He shook his head, ending a concise and anger-free answer.

It was almost enough to stun him into falling again. Spizer was being cordial, even downright friendly to a student that capped an evening of destroying his classroom by asking a stupid question. He'd have to think about that later. Either way, he had his answer. Kyle knew America retaliated viciously against Japan, using weapons so overwhelming, even the mighty Japan, in the midst of its greatest triumph, begged for reprieve. Wherever or whenever Tammond Dale was, that hadn't happened.

Considering his odd dreams, repeating journal, and Spizer's newfound human decency, this new discovery was the worst yet—a diarrhea frosting on a shit cake. Good or bad, each revelation solidly embedded him in an increasingly soupy miasma. Tammond Dale, city of the damned.

Great, he thought. Just great.