Chapter 2- Thoughts (8.17.07)
Why am I having these dreams? Ulrich thought. Am I going insane? Or am I like Aelita, and really have lost some part of me?
“Who can tell me the use of the Pythagorean Theorem?”
Mrs. Meyer’s voice jolted Ulrich back to the present. She stopped writing on the board, and turned to look at the class. She spotted Ulrich looking dazed and surprised. “Ulrich?”
Ulrich jolted. “Uhh…the use of the Pythagorean Theorem is that it…theorizes…pythons?” he lamely answered.
The whole class erupted into laughter. Odd turned around and gave Ulrich a fake frown. “Come on, even I could have guessed better than that!”
Mrs. Meyer, smiling, replied, “No, Ulrich, as a matter of fact the Pythagorean Theorem does not theorize pythons. Who can give me another answer? Jeremie?”
Jeremie answered, but Ulrich didn’t hear him, even though Jeremie was sitting right next to him. His thoughts floated back to the dream, and suddenly, it came back to him: where he had heard the voice. But before he could ask Jeremie or Aelita what it meant, the classroom disappeared. Ulrich was in the white tunnel again, but instead of hearing Be prepared, he heard:
This is what I have warned you of. It was the last thing Ulrich heard.
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Meanwhile, in the science building, Yumi was in science with Mrs. Hertz. Mrs. Hertz was drawing a diagram on the board of the Sun and Earth, but Yumi wasn’t really paying attention.
“So if Kepler’s second law of planetary motion is correct, then we can assume-”
Suddenly, there was a scream, followed by some shouts. Mrs. Hertz stopped writing, and stepped out into the hallway. “What was that?”
It took a few seconds for Yumi to recognize the scream as Ulrich’s. She had never heard him scream before, and definitely not like that.
Yumi rushed out of the classroom, pushing past Mrs. Hertz out of the way.
“Yumi?” she heard Mrs. Hertz call, surprised. “Where are you going?”
Yumi didn’t bother to answer. She only had one goal in mind: find out what happened to Ulrich. It could be a XANA attack, for all she knew.
Finally, she reached the math room. Everyone was crowded around a desk toward the back of the room. Yumi pushed her way toward the middle of the crowd.
“Aelita!” Yumi said when she spotted the pink-haired girl. Aelita was staring at the desk in shock. Yumi started to look toward the thing Aelita and the others were staring at. “I came as soon as I heard Ulrich-”
Her voice broke off. She saw what everyone was staring at. It wasn’t what was on the desk, it was what was below it.
Ulrich was lying unconscious on the floor.