I hate being a shadow witch. And the shadows hate that I am one. Other students glance at the long shadow of a tree at sunset, and it weaves into beautiful patterns and trips their enemies. If I look at the shadow, it forms into a realistic representation of somebody giving me the middle finger. And then it trips me. You would not believe how many sparkly Band-Aids I have on because of malevolent shadows. They never stay sparkly for long though. Working in close quarters with shadows will do that. Everything around you starts getting this washed out look to it... from your eyebrows to your hair ribbons.

Mother once told me that she was born with beautiful blue eyes. She's worked with shadows so long, now they're more devoid of color than your most horrifying nightmare. It makes her happy because they match her personality better that way. I asked her what I looked like as a baby, but all she said was, "Just as scrawny and disappointing as you do now. Only now you know how to cry quietly." That's when she shadow-pushed me back into the basement to keep practicing my spells. Mother has always had high hopes for us kids.

Okay, okay. No more ruminating on the past. I've got my dorm, I've got my schedule, it's time to get back into school. I'm probably way behind in my shadow studies, and let's just say that Alra Mist is no natural intellect. Procrastination is over for now.

At least my schedule this year has some diversity. Instead of only classes in darkness, I've been put into Empathy for Your Empathy, Mind Reading Etiquette, and oddly enough Temporal Fluxes for Dummies. Thank goodness for those first two additions. The Heart of Psyhigh seems to have left its mark on me. I've had a very nice senior assigned to me since my reawakening at the dance that's been keeping tabs on my reintegration with the conscious populous, and he's come to the conclusion that the flashes of intense emotion and disconnected voices I keep experiencing is not just part of the recovery phase. He -- his name is Bennivo -- said that the heart as permanently linked me with every heart that has entered Psychic High School or connected with a student's heart. If Bennivo is right, this might explain why it's been so hard to really feel awake again. When you share head space with an huge group of teenagers' emotions, it's easy to get disoriented.

Oh no, I've just realized that there's no way I'm going to get from my secluded little dorm to my tutor's mindscape in time! And I still haven't contacted mother about my return... my room is still a mess... ugh, the failures just pile up, don't they? Wait, I have an idea! I remember... uh... if I do /this/ with the shadows and say the right word it'll let me... sink through... the floor?-- EEK! *slurping scraping shadowing noises*

Great success today. I've located my dorm room! Thanks to @Nobody's map I was able to muddle my way back to Hall of Twilight. Or at least what's left of it. I had to crawl through a cat door and use some old wall-phasing dust to get here, but I certainly think it was worth it. It feels so nice to be back in room Number 1366613 again, and it's one of the few things in this school that hasn't changed.

Here's my fifteen identical full-length robes... the shadow box project I got a C+ on... there's the stuffed animal cat I obviously don't sleep with at night... oh, here's my favorite book, "The Late Bloomer"! The Self-Aware Library is going to be miffed when I go to return it... and here still on the dresser is the carnation Anderson gave me before the-- well, I don't want to talk about that.

I wonder why the Dean has let this hall become so neglected though. There are more dust bunnies than tortured shadows! Hall of Twilight used to be the best of the three shadow halls, Madame Crawler always reminded me of that when she screamed at me about my poor grades. So why has it been abandoned? How many epic psychic battles did I miss?

...did so much change in only 365 moon rotations?

Psychic High School is never stagnant, is it? I was only asleep a year, and everything is different! For one, I don't recognize a lot of the students here anymore. Even the weird exchange student Carlos the Devourer is gone. And anyone could find him if they followed the bite marks for long enough.

Luckily, the deeper I delve into school the nicer people I meet. @Nobody sent a cat with a handy dandy map to me, which was really nice. I found the boiler room, and I'm planning on visiting that kid who's in the walls sometime this weekend. Hopefully the furnace doesn't remember that time I... well, never mind. Hey, maybe now I can actually find my dorm room! I'll have to write Nobody a thank-you note. And an apology note for the cat. He looked rather upset about being a delivery animal, but I don't speak enough cat to be sure... Another thing mother is always disappointed by.

Something else that has been bothering me is the dress code. What happened to the uniform policy? I feel so out of place in my full length robe, people keep stepping on it when I go down the stairs. I've fallen a couple times. I tried using that one trick where you gather shadows to cushion your fall, but I could only muster up about a teacup's worth. Which is better than usual!

Wow, everything is so bright, isn't it? Or maybe my eyes still haven't adjusted to being open....

Anyways, hi again everyone. You probably don't remember me, but that's okay. I know I've been gone a really long time. Once you become a Caretaker of the Heart of Psyhigh, you kind of fade from people's memory. But not their hearts.

Alra Mist, Psyhigh fre-- er, wait, I guess I'm a sophomore now. Okay, Alra Mist, Psyhigh sophomore, remedial Shadow Witch, Heart of Psyhigh Caretaker 2014-2015.

Being out of my pod is really disorienting, so this reality is going to take some getting used to. Don't be alarmed if I attempt heart integration instead of a hello, it's been a year since I spoke to people. You'll probably see me lost in the halls for the next few days, the school has been completely reorganized since I last walked through it. But if I find the boiler room @Walls, be prepared. I'm the best Othello player that Gremenna City ever produced!

Huh. The school looks different since I was last awake. I'm pretty sure there's an extra hallway or two, and I think I saw a kid's body and soul embedded in the walls. Weird.