Laying on his bed, Vincent stared at his mouldy ceiling. Yellowish stains had been growing over the white paint ever since the rain had infiltrated years ago. Whenever he stomped on the creaky wooden floor, the paint would detach and fall like snowflakes.
This game had with time, and against his family nagging, become a usual hobby of his, he just loved seeing the thin paint flakes flutter down slowly. The slow deterioration of his ceiling reminded him of himself.
When young, he had been diagnosed with a rare neurological disease that had been slowly killing him; paraphrasing what the doctors said:" Vincent's brain was too active for its own good.". In the beginning, the condition hadn't been severe, occasional headaches and some photo sensibility, nothing a painkiller couldn't solve, however, as time passed it gradually got worse.
Weakness, constant migraine and seizures were only some of the severe symptoms. The only bright side he could find of his condition was his innate brightness. He would need only one read to understand even the most complex topics and everything he saw, he would never forget.
Had it not been for the soon to come fatal last symptom, probably a stroke, he would have become a world-changing genius. Instead, he laid on his bed, only fifteen years old, reflecting on the fickleness of fate. Being born able to change the world, and not living old enough to actually do it.
He wasn't angry, though. Between being born with a short expiration date and not being born at all, he definitely preferred the former. He actually considered himself pretty lucky, seeing the world for a short period meant being able to discover something new and exciting every day while being spared of eventually growing old and bored.
His only regret was not leaving a trace of his passage over the world, maybe someone would call his disease after him, or by experimenting on his brain they would find a cure, but both were unrelated to him as far as he was concerned. He dreaded not living up to his own potential.
Closing his eyes, he felt darkness surrounding him, and he wondered whether that was what death felt like, slowly falling asleep in silence and everything becoming faint.
*TOC TOC TOC*
Startled awake from his dreamless sleep Vincent looked first to the door and then to the window on his right. Before sleeping, the sun had been setting, but now the moon was already high in the sky. With a quick calculation based on its position, he deduced it was 11:30.
'Why would someone knock on my door at this time?' he wondered slowly getting up with a yawn.
*TOC TOC TOC* came once again rhythmically. In the moonlit darkness of his room he stared at the door, he couldn't see any light from under the door, that meant that the hall lights were off, this only caused his brows to furrow further. He didn't know what was going on, but whoever was knocking had low chances of being a member of his family. Why else would they walk around in the dark at this time?
With a quick glance to his digital clock on the table, he confirmed that there was no power outage. His mind shifted and considered an intruder had come knocking, but why would a thief knock so insistently?
All these thoughts swirled in his head at the same time it took him to yawn. Not able to come to conclusions he stepped forward approaching the door. An odd sensation suggested his brain to be calm and that there was no need to be afraid as if someone was hypnotizing him towards opening the door.
While rejecting those ideas as not his, he still placed his hand on the doorknob, in a moment hesitation before turning the knob he encouraged himself up with a: "death is still coming for me, I would rather live the rest of my life to my fullest by answering questions rather than running away to earn one more hour or one more day."
The knob turned, and suddenly a bright white light shone from behind the door, brighter than the sun and so thick he almost felt he could grab on it. He slowly pulled the door, and the light pierced the penumbra of his room. The sudden flood of light blinded Vincent eyes that left the knob to cover his eyes.
Blinded, he took one step back, the light strong enough to pierce even through the gap in his fingers. Suddenly, in front of him, he heard footsteps thumping on the wooden floor. He tried to open his eyes, but all he could see was a tall, dark silhouette against the light.
"Who are you?" he asked in a pained voice, still overwhelmed by the copious amounts of light. The silent silhouette came closer, Vincent could recognize it as a man due to the size. "WHO ARE YOU?!" he repeated stressing every word and taking a stand. He would not retreat any further.
A low chuckle came from the man in front of him, Vincent saw the man's right hand come closer, but he didn't move, the hand landed gently on his shoulder, and finally, he heard the man speak. "Relax freshman," he said in a warm voice," I'm just your bus driver, you don't want to be late on your first day, do you?" he added with a light chuckle.
'freshman, bus driver, the first day? Has my stroke finally come?' He wondered in front of the surreal scene in front of him. His resistance lessened as the man gently pushed him from behind. Little by little his eyes got used to the light, the man that came for him had light blue hair to his shoulder and a ponytail on the back; his olive skin and black eyes gave a warm brotherly feeling.
On the other side of the door, he could finally see where the light was coming from. A massive castle lying on top of clouds appeared somehow in front of his room, images of what the kingdom of heaven looked like appeared in his mind, however, what stood before him was many times better.
Ten milk-white towers reached for the sky, almost to where the eyes couldn't follow them any more, they culminated in coloured spires; from where he was, he could see blue, white and golden spires. A festival air could be felt as rainbow confetti rained down transported from the wind, suddenly they all conglomerated together and took the shape of an eagle that soared the sky and then exploded in another rain of confetti.
Music and cheers echoed from the rectangular windows of the towers and from the buildings at their base; from the right and left, he could see groups of people flying on golden clouds holding up banners like "Welcome to the Augusta Accademia" or "Join the opulentes for a 10% discount at the store! :D".
Vincent mind swirled with a hundred thoughts as even he, that had hailed as a never seen before genius, couldn't understand what was going on. Even as he stared jaw slacked at everything, the guide beside him didn't stop and pushed him forward. "you can make friends later. First, we have to get to the opening ceremony."
They quickly made their way through the cheering masses and the half-modern half-medieval buildings. The architecture was simply dumbfounding, the walls were not made of many bricks, they seemed to be cut from single slabs of marble with richly decorated windows and doors. The wooden door on his right, for example, had a knight on his horse charging against a dragon, and on the wall, the same scene had been painted with bright colours all the way from the floor to the roof.
Everywhere he turned his head, he would get startled by artworks. Finally, the guide reached where he wanted to go, a square with a hendecagonal cathedral on the one side and a fountain in the middle.
The cathedral, made of the same marble-like materials, had been painted in sky blue and gold. A 4 meters pentagonal door sculpted out of a diamond seemed to be the only entrance, above it, an oval window made of all kinds of gems shone its rainbow light on the plaza. Vincent could see that every angle of the cathedral had one of the never-ending towers except one that had the door.
In the middle of the plaza, turned rainbow by the cathedral windows, stood a fountain made of azurite, from its water fishes jumped out glimmering against the sun. As Vincent got closer, he noticed that the fishes were actually see trough, entirely made out of water.
"tell me the truth, I'm dead right now?" He asked a little dazed. The guide slapped his back to help him recover and with an amused voice retorted: "If you were dead, why would they send such a handsome guide for you?"
The idiotic answer actually made Vincent feel a little better. They arrived at the entrance of the cathedral, and like magic, it opened without anyone touching it. Opening on the outside, it felt like one corner of the whole building was opening up.
The insides didn't lose at all to the outside, red marble floors, columns and more gem windows shining rainbows inside. Vincent was brought to join a line leading to the middle of the building. The people in line were kids around his age, all accompanied by older men wearing the same set of robes as the man that brought him in, the only difference was the colour of the said robes.
While he wondered why was he there, and why did the line stop in the middle of the place, he saw the first in line step forward and disappear in a shower of sparkles. He couldn't believe his eyes, then it happened again and again. Soon it was his turn.
"I'm not going in until you tell me what is going on here!" he demanded answers from the guide, the man looked at him with an amused expression and winked once before giving him a push, the unexpected force had him step forward, and suddenly his surroundings changed.
From the inside of the cathedral, he suddenly found himself in the middle of an old Roman coliseum, people sat all around him, cheering and clapping their hands.
A mature woman voice echoed out of nowhere, "Welcome Vincent, this is the Augusta Accademia's admission exam," she announced with a cheerful voice,, "if you manage to pass it, we will teach you how to reach the Aletheia, the truth of the world, and control the magical forces surrounding us," suddenly her voice turned sombre, "otherwise we will send you back home, and you will wake up thinking this is just a dream." she concluded, causing Vincent to gulp once.
A hint of fear surfaced in his mind, what would he have to do? Would he be able to pass the exam? However, after one moment, his self-confidence came back and under the enticement of magic, as improbable as it was, everything disappeared. With his unflinching confidence, he yelled, "I will undergo your test!"
A booming cheer exploded from the bleachers as delirium spread amongst the spectators. And, while he couldn't see the woman that challenged him, he somehow felt she was smiling at his cockiness.
"So be it, first test, elemental aptitude, speak the name of the elements and control them!"
Blowing winds suddenly came from behind, almost tripping him, water gushed on his left and fire blazed from his right, and in front of him, the ground remained simple sand.
He stared hard and tried to move them with his mind and suddenly! Nothing happened.
'huh? How do I control the elements?' he asked, causing the colosseum to go silent and then laugh.