Lesson One - A Monster School Fic

Chapter Five - Athletics Class

In a turn of events that didn't surprise you at all, Cray couldn't read.

You learned this at the beginning of language arts class, which was your first class on Wednesday. He wasn't the only one who couldn't read, though. The zombie, the husk, and Silvia couldn't read either. Herobrine took it in stride, simply assigning a partner to each of them to help them work through the first few lessons. Cray was assigned Fade, the enderman, probably because he was the one most equipped to deal with the creeper's chaos. Silvia's cousin Isabelle volunteered to help her, and the zombie and husk were assigned the blaze and Soot, respectively.

You, of course, could read, so you focused on your own work and tried to drown out the sounds of Fade yelling at Cray to stop eating the pencils.

From how Herobrine described it, 'language arts' seemed to be a catch-all for anything involving words- reading, grammar, creative writing, essay writing, reading analysis, everything that was split into multiple classes back at home. Since not everyone knew how to read, much less write, the first assignment was going to be analyzing some myth that was apparently native to phantom society. The phantom in your class, Morpheus, had absolutely no reaction to any of it.

You dutifully copied down the story that Herobrine was telling, something about a sleep curse that plagued the players a long time ago. Apparently the phantoms had tried to save them from it by waking them up, but the players blamed them for the curse and as such gained their wrath as a species. Players had bad blood with a lot of the monster races, it seemed.

At least the phantom in your class didn't seem to care. You snuck a glance at him, easy to do since he was at the desk beside yours. Morpheus was spinning his pencil between his fingers, not writing, looking bored out of his mind. He'd probably heard this story a hundred times before.

"Now," Herobrine clapped his hands, making you jump and look up. "Now that you've heard the story, I want you to pick out the central theme. The central theme is a crucial part of the story that has a large impact on its conclusion." He glanced at Clay and Fade. "If you have a partner, you may discuss this together. If not, go over it on your own and write down your answer. We will discuss it as a class once everyone is finished." A few quiet voices started up as the pairs started to talk, and you skimmed over what you had written down. It kinda seemed like the central theme was 'players are bad and selfish'.

"Hey." A quiet voice came from your left, and you lifted your head to see Morpheus leaning over towards you. "You haven't been sleeping, have you?" You blinked, unnerved by his eerily glowing eyes.

"...I have." You argued, keeping your voice low to avoid being called out by Herobrine.

"Not enough." Morpheus leaned his chin into his hand, his lax expression never changing. "I would say not more than four hours a night." You clenched your jaw.

"Yeah, and?"

"Oh, I don't mean anything by it." Morpheus leaned back, lifting his hands in a gesture of surrender. "Just an observation. Everything alright?" He tilted his head, green eyes still boring into yours. "Players are supposed to get eight hours of sleep per night, last time I checked."

"Are you trying to creep me out??" You hissed. "Because if you are, it's working."

"No, I..." Morpheus's small smile died, and he looked back down at his blank paper. "Never mind." You felt a small pang of guilt, but turned back to your own assignment.

Eventually, you wrote down 'miscommunication causes strife' as the central theme and pushed your paper back, subtly watching your classmates work. Fade was doing an impressive job keeping Cray under control, and Isabelle and Silvia were giggling to each other at the latter's desk. Most of the others were mulling quietly over their papers. Morpheus still didn't write anything down.