He died on the spot. Went splat in the grass, with the javelin sticking out of his forehead like the sword of King Arthur. According to St. Clair lore, a few people were screaming “LOOK OUT!” even as his hand unraveled like the legs of a dead crab and his portable speaker rolled slowly from his grip. Woodbead is dead, but I can still see him, bursting into light when the javelin lands.

Steven is deader than dead, and he died before I was even born. His PE uniform—white crop top and blue shorts—doesn’t match the all-red uniforms we wear today and definitely wouldn’t be considered “normal” by the academy’s current standards. Any dude wearing a shirt that doesn’t cover his belly button would have their face shoved into an unflushed toilet. So I assume Steven died in the eighties. All I can see is the moment his soul split from his body—when his shirt knifed open and firecrackers burst like bees from his chest. His body dispersed in a siege of glowing embers, disintegrating into the air around the rugby post. There’s this moment afterward when that spot is silent, and at first I wondered if that was his final loop, if Steven had finally passed on. But then he pixelates back into shape, short shorts to retro windbreaker. His smile is empty, his eyes are white, and he’s dancing all over again.

“Jake!” Grady’s voice whistles through the air like a firework behind me. “Wait up!”

Can’t talk right now. Too busy watching Woodbead blow up, hoping he’ll be done with that awful business soon. In the year I’ve been at this school, I’ve noticed his body parts slowly fading. Three fingers of his left hand have already dissolved, and his right leg ends just below the knee.

The ancient brick castle of my school fades into view. We’re passing the tennis courts and running toward the start line, where the wide steps lead back to campus. Turning the corner ahead of us are our top athletes—Chad Roberts and Laura Pearson, who, in their all-red uniforms, look like moving blood cells with pale appendages.

“Jake!” Grady falls in line next to me, head all sweaty. “Um, earth to Jake?”

“Oh. Hi, Grady.”

He’s the only friend I have here, for better or worse. He’s three inches shorter than me, with a white face and bushy orange hair. “You trying to ditch me, man? I’ve been calling you for twenty minutes!”

“Have you?”

“You’re always so damned zoned out.”

Our voices are pitched so differently. Mine is subdued and so quiet you can barely hear it. His is nasal and shrill—too loud to tune out.