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After writing the three dots down on the page, Bernard knew that he had nothing else to say in his journal. Nothing else to write about now that he had written what he had been like before he sorted, there was nothing left to do but write about what the sorting experience was like; and make plans to conceal what he was going through to everyone else. Though Bernard hid the journal under his mattress, and crawled on top of it to sleep, he was not sleeping, he was thinking about how to hide his eyes.

There were special things, contacts, made to hide the color of a person’s eyes. Bernard had done an article on it, and how the nurse was keeping one of virtually every eye color in order to keep the true eye color of a Ligera hidden. He originally thought about asking the nurse for a pair, but realized that in asking he would raise suspicion and they would probably take him away somewhere special because of what he was sorting into. Instead, he would have to break into the nurse’s office and steal them, and a bunch of other stuff to make it look like that was not what he was really after.

Bernard fell asleep as he was thinking about how he was going to lure the nurse away from her station so that he could do what he needed to do. Not surprisingly that night he dreamt of students vomiting in the hallway and blood all over desks from noses that were still bleeding as kids held their hands to try and keep it from creating more of a mess. Having a weak stomach himself, Bernard found himself not in the mood to eat breakfast, and with the perfect excuse to go down to the nurse’s office before the day even started. Even if they were quizzing students all day about what was stolen, then Bernard would at least not worry about his new element being detected.

He told his roommate that he was not feeling well, and that he was going to go down to the nurse’s office and make sure that he did not have a temperature or anything. His buddy nodded, confirming that there was a flu going around, and allowed Bernard to go. It was funny how yesterday morning—last night even—Bernard practically worshipped the guy and he was starting to not careless about what he thought. He was only popular because he’d managed to sort first; and it was actually kind of annoying now that Bernard was sorting too.

When Bernard got down to the nurse’s office, he was told that she was gone, out to breakfast, and that she would be back probably in a few minutes so if he really was not feeling well he should just sit in her office and wait. Bernard was shocked at how poorly the place was guarded. Sure, it did not have any hard drugs, but kids could overdose on Advil if they were determined enough; and they were not doing anything to prevent it. Bernard found the nurse’s keys in her desk drawer, and quickly he set some bottles and stuff on the floor, and threw some out the window s that they would be missing. Then he took grey colored contacts—the closest to his steel colored eyes as he was likely to find—and stuffed them in his pocket before running out to the office again.

“I’m sorry,” Bernard said when he found her on the phone, she hung up the phone because he had apparently caught her at the tail end of the conversation. “I went in there and threw up…” she looked annoyed as she reached for the phone to call the janitor. “No, ma’am, I made it to the bathroom…but it looks like someone broke in to her office. There are pill bottles everywhere, and…”

“Oh no,” she said, getting up. “Not again…”

“Again, ma’am?” Bernard asked her raising an eyebrow.

“It happens every couple of years when a child sorts—” she interrupted herself. “When some children sort.” she edited herself to really drive home the fact that she had been about to say something entirely different. She looked Bernard in the eyes; and he realized what she was doing, she was checking him to make sure that they were the same color that they had been when he had gone in the office. “I’ve always loved your grey eyes Bernard,” she told him, shaking her head. “You’d best leave, you don’t want to be stuck here when they start cleaning stuff up. I suggest you go back to bed, I’ll make sure that the nurse writes a note to your teachers.”

It was amazing how easy that was. In fact, Bernard was still in shock that he had been able to pull it off; and what was even better was that the nurse and stuff expected kids sorting into the Oscuros element to do it. But if they knew it was coming, why did they not keep a closer eye on who was doing it?

That, Bernard told himself, is not important right now. He grinned as he went to the boy’s dormitory. He went up to the room that he shared with his roommate, and after the door was safely closed behind him he pulled out the contacts. He looked at himself in the mirror. In the light it was hard to tell the difference between the shades of grey that his eyes had been before and what they were now. But as Bernard looked himself in the mirror it was like a shade was pulled over them and they became darker still.

Bernard found himself wondering if he should put the contacts in now, or wait until he knew that he was going to need them. Of course, there was a chance that his roommate might come in and finally notice the change that was taking place in Bernard, and check his eyes to see if they were black. As a precautionary measure, Bernard put the contacts in and wondered what he should do as he waited for everyone else to get out of school. Being a goody-goody, he had his homework all finished so that was not an option. Bernard pulled out his journal again and wrote in it about how he had gotten his contacts.

The difference, Bernard wrote in the journal, between today and yesterday is so obvious to me that I cannot believe that no one else has realized what is happening. I must have been even more invisible to even my own friends than I ever wanted to believe before in order for them not to realize what his happening now. I wonder if that is why I invite the change so much; because I will no longer be invisible but instead everyone’s waking nightmare?