[Alex's POV]
That morning, Alex had difficulty talking to his friends. He was feeling really awful and he simply couldn't bring himself to engage in the seemingly useless discussions his friends were having. If he'd thought the after-effects of his flashback to Ancient Egypt had been bad, it was nothing to how he was feeling now.
Why he was feeling awful? Easy. The power multiplying inside him was growing faster than he could spend it and the large quantity inside of him was starting to become restless. It was trying to find a way out, making him feel feverish in the progress, but he refused to release his power into the galaxy. The risk of Grace noticing was simply too high. He could only hope it would die down soon.
"We going?" Jasper's innocent question drew Alex's focus to him. Alex dazedly turned his head to look at Jasper, his eyes needing a moment to focus.
"Huh?" he asked a heartbeat later. Jasper laughed, obviously itching to correct him for his lack of vocabulary like Alex himself had done countless times to him.
"The bell rang," Jasper said, his amusement slowly turning to worry as he observed Alex. "Are you ok?"
"I've been better," he said as he rubbed a hand over his face and gently shook his head to get rid of the fog in his head. "But I'll manage."
"Are you sure? You don't look so fly."
"I'm fine!" Alex insisted, doing his best to look a little livelier, but failed.
"If you say so," Jasper mumbled and started moving towards the classroom, but kept asking stupid questions. "Did you eat something wrong? Do you need to go to the loo?"
"STOP IT!" Alex said annoyedly, but immediately got hit by a dizzy spell. It was totally worth it though, since it seemed to have shut Jasper up. They walked the rest of the length to their desks in silence.
Alex forced himself to concentrate on unpacking his stuff from his backpack; agenda, pencil case, book, another book. It wasn't until he'd ran out of things to unpack, that he noticed Otto had been staring at him.
She just stood there, staring, next to her desk, blocking the way for Jessy who clearly still wanted to go to hers. Her stare sent a welcome chill running down his spine. He couldn't fool her. She knew something was wrong. What now? Attempt to reassure her? Against the odds of failing? Was it worth it?
"You look terrible," she said while holding his gaze. Well, that was it then. The words that broke his last bit of resolve to simply keep going. He felt like laughing, but couldn't bring himself to do so. The fire inside him was burning too hot, quickly consuming all the air in the room. He couldn't breathe, his head was spinning, and he was losing strength in his limbs fast.
"Call my dad," was the last thing he managed to say before he crumbled to the ground. He saw Otto reach out to catch him, but before she'd reached him, his vision had gone black. The painful collision with the floor he'd anticipated never came though. Had somebody caught him? Or had he lost all senses. No, not all senses. He could feel a soft caress, a voice calling out to him. He wanted to answer, but he couldn't find his voice. There was only the all-consuming fire that kept burning hotter and hotter inside him.