A Different Frequency

Just some snippets for my first chapter

My first day at the new school feels like stepping into a play where everyone else knows their lines except me. The hallways buzzes with the kind of noisy chaos that most people probably find exciting, but for me, it is like being inside a beehive, surrounded by a constant, overwhelming hum. Each footstep on the crowded, echoing corridors is a drumbeat to the rhythm of a new and unfamiliar territory.

I clutch my schedule like a lifeline, each class number and room a code I need to decipher quickly. The sharp smell of industrial cleaners mingles with the faint scent of hundreds of different lunches packed in hundreds of different backpacks. 

The sheer number of new faces is daunting. Everywhere I look, groups of kids cluster together, animated with the easy camaraderie that comes from long-shared histories and inside jokes—codes I can't crack and languages I don't  speak.

 Each classroom entry feels like stepping onto a stage under a spotlight, my every move potentially a misstep, observable and critiqued by dozens of eyes.

What if I say something odd? What if their facial expressions are hard to read and I miss a cue? It's like I'm tuning into a radio station and the signal isn't quite clear. I have to focus, really focus, not just on what they're saying but on how they say it, their body language, and those unwritten social rules that everyone but me seems to instinctively understand.

It is total sensory overload, but I focus on taking it one step at a time.