The story was very interesting and would catch anyone’s attention, only if it were being told by someone other than Mr. Gilbert. In Mr. Gilbert’s delivery, the mythological story became a slow-moving swamp made of beige. The kind where excitement has no chance of survival. He paced back and forth at the front like a metronome, his voice droning at a single note that sounded like a fan running on low power.

"In the... ah... early confrontation of the eastern Peloponnesian conflicts..." he continued, his tone carrying the raw, unfiltered energy of a lullaby read by an exhausted accountant. And Silas’s eyes drooped again.

He was on doze number... what, fifteen? Seventeen? At this point, he could probably fall asleep standing up. Around the room, various students displayed their own contributions to the art of staying conscious under very extreme conditions. Morgan, in the third row, sat up perfectly straight with wide eyes, but her pupils were dilated in that "I have left my body and am watching from the ceiling" kind of way.

Jace and Naomi were passing notes behind their textbooks with the precision and secrecy of professional spies. Jace’s shoulders shook with silent laughter every few seconds. Emma, who normally adored history, was doodling Spartans with speech bubbles that read:

"Help! We’re dying!"

"Why is he still talking?!"

One guy at the back had actually propped his forehead against the cool window pane, absorbing salvation through temperature conduction. Even Reyna, the class topper, was genuinely trying to stay alive. Her head bobbed every few seconds like a sleepy pigeon, causing her to jerk upright, blink rapidly as if something had fallen into her eyes, refocus on Mr. Gilbert, and slide back into dreamland, forming a perfect cycle of survival and death as the instructor was telling.

Mr. Gilbert, oblivious to the academic carnage he was causing, raised a hand to adjust his glasses and continued in that perfectly flat intonation.

"Now... ah... if we refer to documented accounts of the battle... We note that the Spartans’ strategic placement on the ridge... uh... significantly hindered the enemy’s advance..." He tapped on the board with his chalk, and each tap was somehow more boring and torturous than the last. In this advanced world, Mr. Gilbert was the only instructor who preferred a chalkboard to projectors, and it seemed this was his reason. To torture the living daylight out of his students.

Silas felt his soul exit his body, perch on the fluorescent light above, and debate whether to return. This was beyond torture... He slumped down even further down his chair as Mr. Gilbert continued, his voice droning like a dying lawnmower.

"And thus... the Spartan resistance exemplifies... ah... perseverance in the face of overwhelming opposition..."

Silas’s brain muttered one last desperate plea before short-circuiting:

’If someone doesn’t open a rift in this room right now, I might.’

The lesson marched on, steady and relentless, and the class marched along with it, dragging their sanity behind them like a broken wheelbarrow. The universe clearly wasn’t planning to save them anytime soon.

Then out of nowhere, a massive boner appeared in his trousers. Well, technically, it wasn’t from nowhere, but now wasn’t the time for biological semantics. His body jolted as if someone had plugged him into an outlet. He slapped his notebook onto his lap so fast that it made a sharp whap, earning a side-eye from Morgan.

’Seriousl? Now? WHY?!’ His thoughts spiraled while his blood felt as though it was trying to relocate into a single location. His soul whimpered as his dignity filed for temporary leave. He scooted his chair in and hunched forward to hide it. That should have saved him, but the universe was a comedian with no moral restraint.

Mr. Gilbert paused, turned, and said in that eternally dry tone.

"Silas... ah... Kindly stand and answer the question."

The entire class turned towards the frozen Silas. Every neuron in his brain was screaming in seventeen different dialects.

’No. NO. NOPE. I can’t stand! I physically CAN’T! Why today?! Why THIS classroom?! Why this stupid, heroic Spartan lecture?!’

His palms went clammy as sweat pricked at his forehead. His notebook might as well have been a shield at this point.

"Silas...? The question." Mr. Gilbert raised a brow, monotone as ever.

Silas swallowed hard. He couldn’t stand, so he pulled the oldest student maneuver in history: the lean-forward-act-engaged-so-the-teacher-forgets-you’re-sitting pose, and lifted a trembling hand.

"I–I can answer from here, s-sir!"

A rippling wave of snickers passed through the class. He could practically feel the gossip engines revving.

"Very well. In that case... what tactical advantage did the Spartans secure by taking the ridge?" Mr. Gilbert adjusted his glasses, wholly uninterested in teenage suffering.

Silas’s brain spun like a washing machine on high. ’Ridge. Ridge. Spartans. Capes. Spears. Something something uphill advantage. COME ON, THINK!’

He managed a voice that sounded halfway between a croak and a strangled yelp.

"Th–they, uh... they held the high ground. W-which... um... s-slowed the enemy’s m-movement and made it harder to breach their formation."

"Acceptable answer," Mr. Gilbert nodded with a smile, while Silas almost cried in relief.

He slumped back down, clutching his notebook as though it were the last thread holding his dignity together. His soul wanted to escape its vessel and apologize to every ancestor witnessing this from the spirit realm.

Morgan whispered from the side, barely hiding a grin, "Dude... you good?"

"Never been worse," he muttered under his breath.

"It’s huge though..." The girl said with a strange twinkle in her eyes that made Silas regret ever leaving his room. Mr. Gilbert resumed lecturing as if nothing catastrophic had transpired.

Silas, meanwhile, quietly prayed for the bell to ring, the rift apocalypse to start early, or for the ground to swallow him whole, whichever came first.

The final twenty minutes of class crawled by like a wounded snail. Silas didn’t learn a single thing about Spartans, Syrians, or heroic capes. When the bell rang, he felt spiritual deliverance.

Mr. Gilbert dismissed them with his usual lifeless drone, "Class is adjourned," but Silas was already halfway out the door, his backpack clutched tightly against his hips like a life-preserving flotation device.