no spoilers for anything in the series, it’s just somewhere during season 1
Ryan is a Walker and Walkers do not get sick. So when Ryan goes to school with a high fever and his powers in turmoil, what else can happen than something bad?
A common cold was not something the Ryan Walker could have. He didn’t get sick. That was his whole thing.
…Apart from the whole “controlling technology with his mind" of course. That was still an important thing.
Oh, and the fact that he was one of the pilots of Mech X4…
Yeah, he actually had a couple of things, but that was beside the point. The point was, he didn’t get sick, so now that his nose was a little runny and his brain was a little slow as he woke up from the infuriatingly loud blaring of his alarm clock, he was fine. It didn’t matter that he swayed a bit as he stood from his bed, or that he didn’t feel like eating his mom’s newest experimental breakfast food. Everything was totally–
Ryan and Mark were seated at the kitchen table as their mom was preparing the batter for her food truck’s famous pancakes. She eyed Ryan with her scanning motherly eyes as her spatula was frozen mid-spin in the bowl. She didn’t look convinced in the slightest.
Ryan quickly grabbed his fork to stuff his mouth with eggs. He looked her in the eyes as he chewed. See? he tried to show his mom, I’m totally fine.
She sighed and set about mixing her batter again, seemingly content enough that he was at least eating now. He was glad her motherly instincts didn’t mean she could actually read minds. He really didn’t want her to know just how hard it was to swallow even the smallest bite. His stomach turned even as he thought about it.
He shuffled his food around on his plate with his fork for a bit, making it seem as if he had touched more of it than just that one bite, and then quickly left the kitchen table. He grabbed his bag just as Mark scraped his plate clean. Show off.
“Come on, we’re going to be late,” Ryan said, already heading out of the door. He couldn’t actually go to school without Mark, since he was his ride, but acting like he was leaving without him helped with the pressure to get Mark to follow. He wanted this day to be over as quickly as possible. Mark gave a quick goodbye smile to mom and dashed off after Ryan, his own bag sloppily thrown over one shoulder.
School was dreaded for a reason, but when you were definitely not sick, it was even worse. The first half of the day went by slow, like really slow, but manageable. Lessons were boring, teachers were not too terrible and the low buzz of the school board, the computers, smartphones and lamps were not too distracting.
No, if only lessons had been his school day, he would have survived it.
But he hadn’t thought about lunch time. The canteen was filled with chaos and noise. His mind felt like it was being crushed little by little with every yell and every time someone laughed. All the phones of all the students were buzzing and ringing and going off at the same time, or at least it felt like it. Nails tapped on screens and batteries hummed in disharmony. The constant noises pained his ear drums and filled his head with a hundred stabbing needles.