“So Dr. Zelman caught you reading under a desk.” Aerek concluded with a chuckle.

“Well, it wasn’t really under a desk. Besides, I wasn’t even reading then. I only read while he was discussing his other classes.” Danyana defended herself.

“You were still reading in his class.” Aerek insisted.

Danyana glared at him jokingly, “He wouldn’t have caught me if I wasn’t putting my book away just then. He noticed me as I was picking up my bookmark from the floor.”

“You still landed a detention,” replied Iasmin, “Even if he was off on a tangent.”

“A sine over cosine, you mean?” Danyana brought up the old joke.

“Nah, he doesn’t go off on tangents. Everything he says somehow winds up being related to chem. They’re more like secants.”

“Why do I hang out with you two!?” Iasmin exclaimed, stood up, and left, presumably getting something to drink. The noisy party was finally speeding up, and she disappeared in the crowd quickly, helped by her petite build and plain brown hair.

After a moment, Danyana said, “I guess we are nerds, aren’t we.”

“Of course we’re not. We just go to a magnet boarding school and act socially awkward for the heck of it.” Aerek responded.

“Well, at least there’s two of us” Danyana replied, relieved.

“So.. what now?”

“I don’t know. We wait for your sister to come back?”

“She’s probably off dancing with someone.” He listened for a moment, noticing that the music was slower. After a short pause he asked, “Would you like to go dance, Dani?”

“Sure.” She replied, and they joined the many couples already dancing. They stood out, since Aerek could practically rest his chin on her head. The song was nearly over, and when it ended, they walked over to a faded red couch to wait for Iasmin. Despite their usual habit of talking non-stop, neither one could find a suitable topic to breach the silence. Danyana looked off, not really focusing on anything, and Aerek traced a pattern on the armrest with his finger.

Several minutes later, he leaned over to Danyana, and hissed into her ear, “Hey, let’s spook Ias. Come on. There’s plenty of room behind this couch.” She grinned and climbed over the back behind him.

“Umm... look at this. Um, Dani?”

“What is it? I don’t see any—” she started. “Wait. You mean that fuzziness?”

“Yeah.” He replied, “Any idea what it is?”

“No.” then she hypothesized, “Maybe some kind of air current blurring the image?”

“It isn’t moving. It’s more like the wall is soft over there” He rationalized.

“It’s probably just an optical illusion” She continued, “But who would have put it there?”

Aerek said nothing at first. Then he started, “Do you think anyone else knows ab--”

Right then, a face popped out over the couch. Iasmin had a look of both glee and worry on her face, “Phew, I was afraid you two left without me. What were you doing here? Making out?” Then she saw their serious faces, and realized that her joke was neither welcome nor appropriate at the moment. “Knows about what?”

As Aerek was filling her in on what she had missed, Danyana continued to examine the shimmer. When she moved her head slowly, it was visible, because of the way it diffused the light differently, but when she jerked her head to the side, she could barely see it, since it matched the wallpaper perfectly. It seemed to her less shadowy than the rest of the corner, as if there was a light behind it.

Iasmin squeezed in next to her to observe it. Aerek took off his tennis shoe and started prodding the wall next to it. It was solid, just as they expected. As he got closer, the shoe touched the undefined corners of the spot, and he gasped, trying to hide his reaction. “It did not touch the wall. It’s going into it.”

They passed the shoe around. Danyana laughed at herself as she prodded the wall. “Poking is the most scientifically accepted practice to identify the nature of this kind of anomaly.”

Aerek rolled his eyes. “Which one of us was denying being a nerd again?”

“Umm... that was you.” Danyana replied.

“I’m sorry to interrupt, but do you think someone knows about this?” Iasmin said.

“Whoever lives here, most likely,” Aerek responded.

“Why would they have a party and not hide it?” Danyana countered.

“Can you go find him and somehow see if he knows, Ias?” Aerek said.

“Sure,” she slipped around the edge of the couch again.

In the meantime, Aerek stared at the shimmer and pondered its nature. “Dani, do you have any theories on what it is?”

“Not any good ones. It could be some holographic cover-up of a hidden room or something, I guess.” She shrugged.

“What about a Window?” Even in the noisy room, she heard the different way he said “Window.”

“A window to where?”

“I don’t know. A different universe. Like the whole doughnut theory of the universe, and this is covering the shortcut?”

“Rek, I don’t think such a tunnel would be as peaceful at the end.”

“True. I would imagine something more like explosions and ripping up matter and whirlwinds for that. Our best hope for figuring it out is to wait for Ias to get the guy who owns this place.”

“Do you think it would show up on a camera?”

“It’s worth a shot, but I doubt it,” he said. Danyana chuckled.

“What?”

“Nothing.”

“What is it?” he insisted.

“It’s work a shot. Get it Rek? A shot? Like with a camera?”

“It’s late. You really need some sleep if you are laughing at such a stupid pun, Dani. I swear it was unintentional.”

“I’m sorry.” She said, “You know, we should probably go find Iasmin. It looks like she’s not coming back soon.”

They pushed the couch a little closer to the wall on their way out and then pushed through dancing people, searching for Iasmin. In the time they had been debating the Window, the music had sped up, and even more people had arrived to the party. The harder they tried to get through, the more sweaty bodies blocked their way. Eventually, they gave up planning their way, and began to move along with the crowd, not really dancing, but flowing with them. They saw Iasmin doing the same thing a little ways away, while trying to shout a conversation with someone.

It cost them several elbows to the head, but they managed to push over to where she stood. By that time, the person she was talking to was gone, but they agreed to move out of the dancing crowd so they could talk.

“Did you find out anything?” Aerek asked Iasmin.

“No. Turns out that nobody seems to know who planned this thing. Alex just told me that he heard about it from Mia.”

Danyana added, “Mia got the invite from Jonathan. She was talking about it in lit class.”

“Well, that’s a great help. Does anyone even know who lives here?” Aerek said.

Danyana tapped a girl with a Celtic knot tattoo on the shoulder and shouted, although they were pretty far from the speakers, “Hey, do you know whose apartment this is?’

“No. Who cares? Are the cops here or something?” she responded.

“Nah, don’t worry. I was just wondering.” Danyana screamed back, but the girl was already not listening. “We’re not going to find out anything from these people.

“Yeah.” Aerek agreed, “Let’s just go home. It’s getting late.”

“It’s only like 11:30.” Iasmin said.

“Well, your slacker brother pulled an all-nighter with his precious roommate Kevin ‘studying’ for the physics exam.” Danyana explained.

“Heh, knowing him, they were studying the physics of video games.” Iasmin replied.

“Probably. But I stayed up late, too, and you will wake me up early. Let’s go.” Danyana gestured at the front hall.

“Oh fine.” Iasmin sighed.

“Hey, I’ll ask people tomorrow. And maybe Kevin will know.” Aerek comforted her.

“Guys? We’re not mentioning the Window to anyone. Okay?” Danyana checked.

“I wasn’t planning on it.” Aerek replied.

“Neither was I.” Iasmin said, “No one would believe us.”

~.~.~.~.~