He waves his arm across the school. I never realized it before but the academy was really beautiful. It was prestigious looking but at the same time had an old-time charm that didn't exist in modern colleges. It was rustic yet it was strange among all the green trees and forest wildlife. The building we were dropped at looked like the main school building, it looked like a rundown schoolhouse but had modern lighting. On the right were two separate buildings, that were identical in size so I could only assume it was the dorms. On the left, a little further past the main building was an idyllic church that looked white but it was only because the evening light hid most of the mistakes that could be seen under the sunlight. On the same side, there was a huge field that looked like an obstacle course, though I wasn't too sure since I saw long sticks and random pieces of netting.
"Our little school is quite a sight, isn't it?" Erik continues, "We'll let you settle into your rooms. We have already assigned roommates and so if they are any objections, then please see me or Cerix over there." Erik gestured to Cerix, and everyone turned to him. Immediately, I could see some hearts form in some of the girls' eyes.
"Come on," Liz says, excitedly, as she pulls me to where the dorms were. I held fast to my suitcases as she dragged me over, behind us was the crowd of the rest of the accepted students. A bunch of papers was placed on the table in between the two tables and I grabbed the one that had my name assigned on it.
Flipping the paper on, I was happy to find that my roommate was Elizabeth. Elizabeth turns to me with a smile, "Hi, roommate!"
I laugh, "Hi, I don't think we met before. My name's Mila."
Elizabeth struggles to hold in her laughter as she musters a tight grin and holds out her hand, "Elizabeth, nice to meet you."
We shake hands once but once we meet eyes, we both burst out laughing. Disgusted students look at our way since we were making so much noise. I shrug in innocence as Elizabeth and I enter the girl dorms.
"It's like they never saw humor," remarks Liz.
We find the room that was written on the paper, and I was glad that they had elevators. Imagine they didn't?! It would mean that we would have to manually walk up 5 flights of stairs with all our luggage. I can just imagine my broken back, which would be bad because it was before my first class at the academy.
"This is a bit…" Elizabeth says, looking at the large wooden door that looked like it wanted to break from a single touch, "..old."
"I mean, can't be that bad, right?" I try, trying to optimistic for a change. I turn the turn knob to hear a creak, and a shiver goes down my back. I had the tendency to get freaked out from scary stuff when I'm alone but when I'm watching an extremely scary movie with a group of people, I'm suddenly completely fine. It was so bizarre, I know.
"I think it might be broken," Liz says, as she peers over my shoulder. I can't reply in shock and utter surprise. The room was completely different from what I was thinking. It wasn't a total mess or old, or have a bunch of cobwebs hanging from the ceiling-- it was relatively clean and completely modern.
The beds that were set up in the room were both queens size and in the color of pale pink. There was a huge bay window right in the middle of the two beds, and just slightly above that window was this huge glass chandelier. It looked relatively sturdy but still, I had my doubts that it might fall on us (though that's because I'm highly irrational). There were two separate closets, one for Liz and one for me. And the bathroom was shared space with the other girls that were already living or just moving into the dorms. The room color was a light gray, but it matched the fabric on the bed and the curtains.
"This is.." I say, lacking the words to describe the room.
"Perfect," Liz finishes, before rushing toward the big window. She pushed the windows open and immediately sticks her head out, with a big smile on her face.
"Careful," I warn her as I take a seat on the bed. Immediately, I melt into its softness and it's inviting hand as I leaned back and close my eyes in bliss.
"I got sleep forever with a bed like this," I say, sleepily.
Liz kicks me in the knee and I jolt awake, and sit up, "What was that?"
"Didn't you forget?" she says, with a serious face on.
"Forget what?"
"We have a mandatory tour later on, so you can't sleep," she reminds, shoving our papers in my face.
I groan, "But I'm so sleepy."
"Sleepy?!" she says, unconvinced, "You slept on the bus for so long, and wouldn't get up. I think you slept enough."
"Okay, okay," I say. There was no way to talk back to her when she was in model-student-mom mode.
Liz lets out a deep breath, "We should probably unpack."
"Can't argue with that," I say, looking over to our pile of luggage, "This should be fun."
The next few hours we focused on unpacking, well, I was done pretty early. After an hour, my stuff was all tuck away in the appropriate places and I decided to help Liz unpack. "What are we supposed to do with all your kitchenware?" I say, lifting up a tea set.
"We can see if there is a common area kitchen?" Liz suggests.
"And if there is, do you really want to put all your stuff there where it's easy to take and you wouldn't the difference?" I say, unsure.
A malicious glint invaded her gaze as she looked at me, "Oh, I would know."
Feeling unsafe, I shuffle a few steps back as she resumed doing her unpacking. A timer rings among the silence and Liz takes out her phone to shut it off. "Well, it's time for the mandatory tour," she announces, getting up and patting her hands.
"Very punctual," I comment, surprised she was tracking the time this whole time.
"Thank you."
-
Like the other accepted students from the girl dorms, we all went down to meet our guides for the tour. As we stepped outside, there were 3 guys that were already there, one of them was Cerix and unfortunately Erik. The last guy I wasn't familiar with but he had dark eyes that matched his slightly lighter hair. You could tell from his stance, that he was more on the reserved side with his arms crossed and his eyes disinterested.
"Welcome, newcomers," Erik says enthusiastically, even though it was evening, "We will split into three different groups. The people in front of me are with me."
"My name's Ronan," the stoic guy introduces himself, and pointed to where Liz was standing all the way to another student, "You guys are with me."
The two groups left in different directions, leaving the rest of the 5 or 6 students with Cerix.
As usual, Cerix looked like he was frowning, "The last group is us. We will be going to the cafeteria first. Follow me."
He walked ahead of us, without looking back and the remaining girls scrambled to catch up. The rest of the boys, though less interested, also started following Cerix. Sighing, I quickly followed the rest of the group.
I really wished I was in Liz's group, at least then I'd have someone to talk to.
We entered a side of the main building, where the lighting wasn't as bright as the dorms, but still comfortable. "This is the main dining hall. It has dishes that accommodate to every culture and ethnic background, all you have to do is order it," Cerix explains, waving his hand over the massive dining hall which looked like a fully equipped 5-star restaurant, "Our chefs are employed far and wide, so it rarely disappoints."
"That's so cool, Cerix," a girl commented, latching onto his arm.
"It really is," another girl replied, walking next to him.
Cerix doesn't say anything but his arm tensed, and it seemed his frown deepened. Pretty boy problems huh?
"Next, we're going to the art hall. It supposedly holds paintings that are over a thousand years old," Cerix says, opening another door and indiscreetly shrugging the girl's arm off. Though she didn't notice as she excitedly walked into another room with her friend right behind her.
"Hey," Cerix stops me, "Are you okay?"
"Huh, what do you mean?" I say, confused.
"The bus. It wasn't something serious?" he asks, his gold eye seemed to try to pull answers out of me.
"Ah, no," I say, laughing it off, "I'm fine, just that I was really exhausted. Thanks for your concern."
He nods, and opens his mouth to say something but closes it when the arm-latching girl comes over and jumps in between us. "Cerix, can you explain these paintings? They are so pretty," she exclaims, dragging him over to the paintings while giving me an evil glare behind his shoulder.
My mouth drops open. This was something out of a Wattpad novel, I think I just made my first enemy at this school! And it hasn't even been a day!
"The paintings were imported from Europe and has been on these walls since the school opened. There is a myth in the school that if a person studies here during finals week, that they will remember it easily since these paintings are themselves relics of a different time," Cerix says, "Though, it seems that it happens less and less."
"That's so cool, but I don't think I would need some dumb myth since I prefer studying on my own," the arm-latching girl says, as her friend high-fived her behind her back.
"Oh?" Cerix smirks, "Well, I believe this myth myself and it has worked for me a few times."
The arm-latching girl stares in disbelief as her friend comforts her. The rest of us look at each other, grinning. He took her off a peg or two.
"Next, we have the gymnasium," he says, entering another part of the school.
"It's okay, Patty," the friend reassures her, "He's just playing to get."
"Yeah," Patty says, "But you know, Lindsey, it'd be better if you gave me better advice so I don't sound stupid."
I walk past them as they bicker, and again Patty glares at me. After leaving the hall of paintings, the gymnasium was a bit of a walk. However, like the art hall and dining room, it was huge. There were rows of bleachers, and a large area filled with all sorts of activities like a space for soccer, badminton, basketball and so on. "We also have a pool, through that door," Cerix says, pointing to a door that had the word POOL on it.
"This is state of the art construction and it was pretty expensive for the school, but it's upheld by our highly competitive sports team," Cerix comments, "In other words, we like to win."
"Moving on is the classrooms where obviously your classes will take place. They are situated on the upper levels and are split between the different classes we offer at this academy," he continues on as we wait for an elevator to bring us up.
The elevators in this school were really strange, it moved like a modern one where it easily went up and down but looked like someone didn't care for it for over a decade. It was a rusted green and had one of those bars that held you inside so you wouldn't fall and die an unfortunate death. The buttons were platinum but on a peeling control board, and it really didn't match the rest of the school, to be honest. It was straight out of a 90's horror film.
"Careful," Cerix warns, "the elevators aren't used anymore as much but it still works."
Then why not fix them, I think to myself.
"Well, Ms. Ellis, many of the students have outgrown using elevators and have found alternate routes to get to their classes," Cerix says, with a knowing smile, "Like the rest of you, all of you will find your own way and will eventually stop needing to rely on the elevator." Crap, he heard me!
"By what instead?" I pressed, "Like teleporting to their classes?"
"Perhaps," he responds, "This way is the science and language classrooms."
Perhaps? What in the hell does that mean?
As I peeked my head in one of the classrooms, I noticed that the classroom was completely dark but I could definitely see students sitting at the desk. They were talking in some foreign tongue which I couldn't understand and I was sure it wasn't a romance language. A quiet hiss permeated the classroom, and I quickly shut the door in fear. A trickle of sweat dripped down my back. Please, don't tell me I just saw a class full of ghosts.
"Being nosy, are we?" a familiar voice whispered in my ear. I spun around to face Cerix and the rest of the group. My heart was pounding as Cerix grabbed my arm and pulled me up to the front.
"I think it's best if you stay up here, where I can watch you," he suggests, as we continue with the tour.
"What was that?" I whisper to him.
"The night class," he answers simply, "they prefer being taught at night and prefer it with the lights off so they don't doze."
"Oh," I say stupidly, so it wasn't poltergeists after all, "And that hissing sound?"
"A desk maybe even a projector," Cerix shrugs, "We still use those."
"Oh," I say, dumbfounded.
As we walk further to reach the history and miscellaneous classes, a loud shriek makes the group pause. "Ghosts," I mumble, the words tumbling out of my mouth as I feel myself become petrified with fear.
"Not quite," Cerix confirms, going towards where the scream was heard.
"Cerix, come back here," Patty begs, her eyes watering, "Don't leave me." Her friend, Lindsey, rubs her shoulder. Cerix ignores her and keeps walking.
"The rest of you stay here while I investigate," he insists, walking off by himself. Something uncomfortable stirs in my stomach, something doesn't feel right.
Standing up on shaky legs, I decide to follow him. And yes this is the perfect opportunity for the girl to die in a typical horror movie. The male lead says stay and the female decides to follow, and then the female lead ends up with her head chopped off or something like that.
I reach a lit hallway, where another tour group was. Ronan's group. His group was circled around something, and someone was sobbing. I elbow my way through people to see Liz, hands over her mouth as she looks on the floor. The horrible stench that finally enters my nose makes me reluctant to see what she's looking at but I do anyway. I look down to find a stone, covered in a red liquid, with the words DIE written on it. And the most gruesome part was that a student was holding the stone as if he caught it. His hands were completely bloody, and it started to steam as if the liquid was deteriorating his hands.
"Nobody touch the stone," Ronan demands, as we all watch the poor boy scream in agony, unable to move the stone which seemed to suck out his energy by the second.
"Call the Headmaster," Cerix says, quietly, "And tell Erik to get his ass over here."
"Noted," Ronan says, as he orders his group to follow him. Some do willingly, but some are unwilling to move from their frozen spots.
"Now," Ronan stays with a certain edge in his voice, and soon his entire group including Liz is following him to the end of the hall.
Cerix grabs my arm, "What did I tell you? Stay with the group."
"I'm sorry but," I say, finally tearing my eyes away from the agonized boy.
"But nothing," he says, firmly, "go back."
I rip my arm out of his grip, "No way! I'm not gonna leave this student screaming in pain." I dropped to my knees, and he huffs in frustration.
"What are you gonna do? Take the stone from him," he says, "It'll kill you."
"It hasn't killed him," I say, trying to get the student's attention.
"Hey, can you drop the stone?" I asked cautiously, and he shakes his head, tears overflowing with tears.
"Here's what we're going to do. I'm going to use my sweater to grab it from you and you try your best to move away, okay?" I tell him, and he vaguely nods. I grip the edge of my sweater as I quickly wrap it around the stone and jolt it out of his grasp and he scrambles back. The stone drops to the floor with a plunk, and simultaneous starts to disintegrate my poor sweater. I quickly take it off and dump it to the ground.
"See, it worked," I say, smugly in Cerix's direction.
Cerix looked at me blankly, and then the student. The student looked at me once, before passing out. "That was dangerous," Cerix says, kneeling to inspect gym injuries.
"And what was I supposed to do, stand back and wait for help to arrive?" I say, snappily.
"Yes," he says, getting his teeth, "As a human with no proper preparations, you think you can really withstand that poison liquid?"
He helps me get up, "Once you attend the orientation tomorrow morning, everything will start to make sense."
"Make sense? A poisonous stone got thrown into the school and a student's hand started to disintegrate because of the liquid on the stone," I say, "How is that normal?"
"Cerix!" Patty yells as she body clams into Cerix, grabbing him into a hug and knocking into me, "You never came back."
My balance shifted as I fell onto the ground, and my vision started to blur. Cerix shoved Patty aside, eyes filled with worry as he said something I couldn't comprehend. I lifted my arm, which was dripping with red liquid.
Sh*t-