Chương 2: The New Students

My name is Robert Ryan. There's nothing special about me; I'm just a typical high-school student struggling with the increasing demands of high school. Nothing else. You can consider everything about me to be normal. Five feet nine inches tall, neither extremely fat nor extremely skinny, healthy weight. Just your average teenage boy. But then there's my social awkwardness. Social situations have always been alien to me. I have no friends, and I've never had friends for as long as I can remember.

I've never been into making new friends. At school, I sit at the back of the room for all of my classes, and I usually sit by myself. At home, it's a completely different story. I spend pretty much all of my time reading online novels. I have no friends to hang out with, and I would not voluntarily leave the house. That's basically my life. I sit on my bed reading words on my phone screen like my life depends on it. Nothing else. Who needs friends when they have web novels? It's like I'm living in my own world.

A world that's not Planet Earth. It's like there's an invisible bubble separating me from the rest of the world that I don't know of. And in my opinion, that feels great. Out of all the novels I've read, there's this novel that I really like called "Night Hoppers". It's probably my favourite novel of all time. It's currently on hiatus, and the author, DND, hasn't posted any messages on when the series would continue again. It's like they don't want to be disturbed.

In Earth language, DND usually means 'Do not disturb'. It's like they want to be left alone, like me. Because of that, during these past three years I must've read the entire thing like ten times already. I've definitely lost count. 570 chapters of pure action and adventure. Two adventurers travelling to different dimensions searching for one thing: salvation. Freedom from their social restraints. Freedom from the chains of their world. Pure entertainment.

This novel isn't the most popular novel out there, but at least it has a fan base. It's not like I'm the only reader. At least I'm not the only one leaving comments on the chapters saying they want the story to continue. I'm just one of the many impatient readers that do it. That pretty much sums me up. Robert Ryan, 17 years old, introvert. A boy who just wants to be alone and escape reality. My story starts one day at school, when my maths class was introduced to two new students.

When they walked through the door, no one thought much about it. Two students, dressed in my school's uniform, walked right in, one looking like they had just been insulted, the other looking like they had just been traumatised.

"Class," the teacher announced.

"We have two new students joining us as of today. Their names are Cayman and Ellie Grace." I flinched, sending my mind back to the real world. My heart skipped a beat. Cayman Grace and Ellie Grace? I swear I've heard these names before...

"Why don't you two take a seat at the back?" the teacher asked the two.

"Take a seat next to Robert." What? Next to me? Why? When I wanted peace and quiet as well. Cayman and Ellie made their way down the main aisle separating the two sides of the classroom. It seemed like all eyes were on them. The other students all turned their heads to look as if a celebrity or VIP had just entered the classroom; they were in awe, dumbstruck.

"Look at him! He looks so handsome. I wonder if he already has a girlfriend."

"I want his number so bad!"

"The girl is looking cute today. I like how she feels almost no emotion."

"Go and ask for her number at break then." Girls and boys alike couldn't take their eyes away from them. Cayman and Ellie walked the length of the classroom until they reached my desk. I watched, astonished as Cayman and Ellie dropped their bags on the floor next to me. If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Are these seats free?" the boy, Cayman, asked me, pointing at the seats. At that moment, social interaction, my biggest nemesis in life, was beginning to act up. I froze. I didn't know what to do. I wanted to say yes because that was what the teacher said. But to me, it felt like I was talking to someone more than a celebrity. It felt like talking to royalty.

It must've been awkward for the people watching since they would've at least had some sort of experience of social interaction before, unlike me, who just spent all day reading web novels, not having a care about the world.

"Robert!" the teacher shouted.

"You're wasting the precious time of my lesson. Just let them sit there!" Several kids around me started laughing, albeit silently.

"His social awkwardness is acting up like always."

"He should start talking to some of us."

"Why does he like to isolate himself from us?" The subject of the room quickly switched from Cayman and Ellie's appearances to my social awkwardness. This was starting to get embarrassing.

"Y-yes, these seats are free," I said in a monotonous tone. I could feel my cheeks going red. I should have said that a few minutes ago. I knew that those two weren't ordinary people, unlike what everyone else in the classroom thought. It's because I have knowledge about the situation that they don't. Knowledge of this novel called Night Hoppers. Those two sitting next to me, Cayman and Ellie Grace, were the main characters of my favourite web novel, Night Hoppers. What were they doing in my school?

I thought long and hard about the situation. The two main characters decided to appear in front of me at school unannounced. Was the world slowly turning into the world of Night Hoppers? Surely not, since I had never read about Cayman and Ellie appearing inside a school, and definitely not in Woking. Definitely not in this country. Definitely not on Earth. From what I know about Night Hoppers, those two were not even from this planet.

They were from another planet in another universe, and I was pretty sure it was something called Planet Zero. So what were they doing millions, no, maybe even billions or trillions, of light years away on Earth? What sort of ludicrous plot twist was this? Was I inside my favourite novel ever? There was only one way to know. I had to face my fear of social situations.

"H-hey," I said, trying to get Cayman's attention.

"How are you doing?" Cayman turned his head to look at me. I flinched; I never remembered Cayman's appearance to be so ominous and condescending. His appearance was never really described in the story, and the only reason I vaguely knew of his appearance was from fan art. But even then, the fans drew him as a smiling, likeable protagonist and not like the person I was looking at.

"What?" Cayman asked ominously. At that point I worried that he might just be another bully, and that he would find me at break and punch me until I was flat on the floor waiting for the nurse. I had already got the conversation started, and all I needed to do was finish it. But my lack of social skills had to kick in. So frustrating.

"S-so," I stuttered, lost for words. This was my favourite protagonist I was talking to, but the feeling was like meeting your celebrity crush in person for the first time.

"I was going to say..." Damn. I ran out of words.

"What were you going to say?" Cayman asked me.

"If you really have nothing to say to me then get out of my face. Only talk to me when you have something you want to say." Jeez, I didn't expect Cayman to be like this. Well, he did have a serious side to him, but I never expected him to act like a bully.

"N-nothing," I mumbled, embarrassed. My mind went blank like a slate.

"Forget I said anything."

"Hey! You three at the back," the teacher shouted from the front of the room.

"Get out your textbooks and turn to page fifty-nine! Are you even listening?"

"Yes we are," Cayman replied confidently, which was something I lacked. Turning to me, he said, "if we meet another time, just know you'll be getting a beating if you act clueless like this again." So he was acting like a bully. He was acting out of character, if you ask me. Cayman had an extremely strong desire for revenge in Night Hoppers, but in the novel, he never acted like a bully to someone weaker than him. I found it strange that he was acting like this.

I turned my attention to Ellie, who had been staring lifelessly into space. There was no emotion in her lifeless eyes, and she was like a person with no soul. A walking corpse. A ghost in a human body. Just like how Night Hoppers described her to be. At least someone was like themselves for once. Maybe it would be easier to start a conversation with her. But Cayman was in my way, and from my knowledge of Night Hoppers, Ellie was not really a person who liked talking.

I turned my textbook to the correct page and pretended to listen to the teacher. Then, when I zoned out and entered my own world, I tried to understand the situation. This was not a scene in the novel. Nothing from the start of the novel was happening. The novel didn't have any school settings. It was just the protagonists who have appeared so far. I spent the rest of the lesson trying to make conclusions, but I kept running into contradictions.

Whenever I thought this world was going to get sucked up into the world of Night Hoppers, I then thought about the plot of the story and how there was never a school setting in the novel. Whenever I thought that only I had been sucked into the Night Hoppers plot, I looked out of the window and continuously told myself I was still in Woking. Nothing was adding up. So what was going on then? Were these just ordinary people with no connection to the characters in the novel who just happened to have the same names?

If that was the case then I might have just made a new enemy. My head was spinning. My frustration began to build up. I thought I was delusional. What was going on?