Smudge marks float. Fingerprints hang in mid air showcasing all sides of grease crevice stains. A ghostly outline of a finger stares down at your lunch tray, praying that you won’t use a napkin before touching the invisible wall, and thusly breed a companion for this lonely smut amoeba.

The new glass wall that outlines the cafeteria has become something of an anomaly. Effluent rumors circulated the student body describing graphic scenes of young freshman falling to the tribulations of a secret boundary. Around Friday night bonfires, students no longer tell ghost stories, instead they tell the story of Johnny “No Nose” Smith, who lost his schnoz in the Great Migration of B lunch.

Though these stories of fallen soldiers have no real evidence behind it (there are too many stains upon the glass to identify them all), but every student has experienced the tight march through the double doors after lunch.

Two lunches worth of kids have to fit through three entrances.

Scalps smack, locked knee steps pull at the heels of shoes, we walk to class. Cacophonous lips on Propel tips, fingers grip the tie around cookies, we ask why? Shoulders shrug, not out of curiosity but of fear, fear of the kid next to us, because they are right next to us, the line between him and I is blurred, the mesh of adolescent limbs scares us, don’t touch me, why would you touch me with nacho cheese on your hands, we are forgetting which aztec cladded freshman is which, who is flipping that water bottle in the middle of this crowd, we are dodging random unexpected elbows materializing from the fourth quadrant, I will not pull anything out for an ape, we look upon the administrators who giggle as we drown without water, as we cry out without voices, as we march in our own Death.

Students suffer this every fourth and ninth period. At some point, one kid will decide to be the martyr. This kid will sacrifice him for I. This kid will give it all for us. This kid will break the glass wall with one solid bull charge.

This hero will save us all.