~Dahlia~
Dahlia awoke before any of the other girls, as usual. She climbed down her top bunk; Connie was sleeping peacefully on the bottom. Dahlia walked past Imogen and Aliya the other two girls in their dorm. Dahlia crept out of the room, and into the hallway. She walked down the stairs and into the common room.
She made her way to the other side of the room and opened the window. The cold wind stung her body, she wished she'd brought a jumper.
She climbed out of the window. She landed on wet grass; it had been freshly cut. Dahlia listened for a moment. No gardener. No footsteps. She began running on the gravel path that ran along the outside of the school. It wasn't outside school grounds, just outside the building. She'd been doing it for a while now, whenever she'd had a nightmare. She'd gone running. But now she'd seen hallucinations as well. Great. Life's just great.
When she was little she would think about her Grandmother and the nightmares would go away. But now she was the main reason she had nightmares. Dahlia would've laughed if the tears weren't threatening to spill. She ran along the ground, the wind lashing at her face, and she moved into a sort of rhythm. It was dark and silent. She couldn't see anything, except for the dark figures of the trees. It was very late at night. Or very early in the morning.
The moon wasn't shining, but neither was the sun. It was the eerie time between night and day. Her breathing, her footsteps, her heartbeat. That's what she liked about running. She did a lot of running. Running around the school. Running from her problems. Running from herself. From reality.
But when she ran, she left it all behind. The dark shadow was behind her, just right now. And she closed her eyes. Everything was behind her.
And then she was down. She was rolling on the ground. Someone was on top of her. She screamed.
"Shut up! They'll hear us!" It was a girls voice.
Dahlia went still. "You aren't meant to be here."
She snorted, "Yeah, well, neither are you."
Dahlia inwardly groaned. Why couldn't you pay attention? Why couldn't you hear her coming? Dahlia stood up and helped the girl up. She could see her dark figure.
"Are we lost?" Dahlia whispered.
"It's okay I have a flashlight, and a bobby pin."
It wasn't a flashlight. It was her phone. But it worked. She shone it on Dahlia.
Dahlia could see her now. She had dark brown hair piled up in a bun on top of her head, she had bright blue eyes and a birthmark on her jaw. Dahlia looked down at herself. She was still wearing her pyjamas, and her hair was a mess.
"And a bobby pin?" Dahlia asked cutting through the silence.
"A flashlight, and a bobby pin, and maybe some rope, it's basic necessities of life."
"Right and food and water are completely unnecessary?"
The girl smiled, "Here take this bobby pin, if you ever get locked out of your dorm. All you have to do is stick the flat end of the pin into the top of the lock and bend it, push the pin in, then fold the rest the bobby pin, and just give it a wiggle."
"Or just be smart enough to have an extra key."
"Don't go all high and mighty on me."
Dahlia laughed, "I'm Dahlia, from Dalton house."
"Ahhh," She smiled, "Gabrielle, from Cuthbert."
The houses were named after the four friends who built the boarding school in 1963, Adelaide Dalton, Josephine Cuthbert, Briar Farrier and Esther Harrison. They were in each corners of the school, Dalton in the north, Cuthbert in the east, Farrier in the south, and Esther in the west.
They began walking back to the school.
"Were you running that fast on purpose?" Dahlia asked,
"Who runs fast because they want to?"
Dahlia stopped, "So you weren't running fast on purpose?" She whispered urgently. "Is someone after you?"
"If you're knew what I was going to say why did you even ask?" She said, her voice carrying a hint of amusement.
"Because I was trying to be polite and-"
"I think we skipped the politeness when you ran into me."
"You ran into me!" Dahlia said catching up with her.
"Teacher! Teacher! Teacher!" Gabrielle hissed ducking down behind a bush.
Dahlia didn't recognise the teacher. It was too dark to make out anything. It was a man. Tall. Broad shoulders. Maybe he was in security?
He paused a few feet away from the bush they were hiding in. Dahlia was afraid to breathe. Her heart was racing.
He took another step closer. She felt Gabrielle shift from beside her. Dahlia wanted to kick her. He took another step forward and flicked his torch on in front of him.
"Is anyone there?" He called out. He swung his torch behind him and started moving the other way.
Dahlia waited until he was far away before turning to Gabrielle. "That was close," she whispered, "Let's go back."
And Dahlia went straight back into her bed, but she couldn't go to sleep. Dahlia didn't pay attention in class. Connie, her best friend, elbowed her. "What is up with you today?"
Connie had been her best friend since they both started at the boarding school when they were just little kids. But now Dahlia had stopped sharing everything with Connie. Dahlia didn't talk to her anymore; she didn't talk to anyone anymore.
Dahlia painted a smile on her face and turned to her, 'I'm fine.' was all she said.
The next day, when she finally came back to her dorm room, both her and Connie had changed into their pyjamas and started their English homework sitting on top of Connie's bed.
But Dahlia couldn't think about her essay, she could only think about the mirror.
Dahlia doubted that it had actually happened, she thought it could've been a dream. It must have been a dream. She thought about it every moment; pondering over the mirror. But if it was a dream why could she not find her diary anywhere?
"This again?" Dahlia looked up to see Connie analysing her.
"I'm fine." Dahlia lied and avoided Connie's eyes. She seemed to be saying that a lot lately. I'm fine.
Connie shrugged, "Fine."
"I'm going to go to the bathroom," Dahlia said.
Connie didn't look up from the novel as she mumbled an incoherent reply.
Dahlia walked into the bathroom she locked the door behind her, and she found herself walking to the mirror. Wanting answers, needing answers. Sure enough, in the mirror at her feet was her diary. She glanced down at her feet, it wasn't there. It wasn't here.
She stared at the clear reflection, at the swirling edges, the golden paint peeling away. Subconsciously, she picked at it and instead of revealing a silver undercoat, the golden paint slowly moved in sweeping through the edges like wet paint. She touched it again and the gold paint coloured her fingertip. Not like paint but instead like a birthmark. A gold birthmark. She spat on her finger and rubbed it wanting to get rid of it. Wanting to have nothing to do with the mirror.
But it wouldn't get off. It was like it was part of her. She heard loud banging. She didn't care and she didn't pay attention.
Small vibrations shook her finger. It was living. It was magic. The vibrations began to become consistent forming a pattern like a pulse, like a heartbeat. Then the gold paint on her finger began to spread, it spread to her palm and up her forearm, it went past elbow and reached her neck.
She wanted to scream. "Stop."
but it came out as a raspy whisper. She leaned against the wall feeling weakness overcome her. Dahlia struggled to breathe and gasped for air. It was choking her. The paint was choking her. Air. She needed air! Black spots began to cloud her vision until she couldn't see. She collapsed to the ground.
~Mishal~
Mishal woke to the sound of a soft rapping on the door. She groaned. She stood up; her roommate was out. The entire room was painted black. The bedsheets and the tables were a dark red. Her roommate had left clothes everywhere. She didn't mind it really, it's not like she was the neatest person. But it was annoying when she had to jump over clothes to get to the door.
Mishal knew who it was before she opened it. Auretta, she had been her best friend since Mishal could remember. Her platinum blond hair was perfectly set, she wore a plain white dress, with a sparkling white cloak over it. "Auri," Mishal grumbled, "It's Sunday!"
Auretta gave her a half smile, that was the thing with Auretta, she was always proper. And Mishal could never be that, as much as she loved her best friend, at tiny part of her hated how perfect she was. How stark the contrast was between them.
"We have to go-"
"Another brunch?" Mishal hated anything like that. Auretta was the prefect. She was always being invited to brunches and dinner parties and council meetings. And she was always allowed to bring a guest. Somehow that guest always turned out to be Mishal. It was torture.
Auretta laughed, but even that sounded half-hearted. Mishal noticed the dark rings under her friend's eyes and prominent cheekbones that made her seem ten years older. Before Mishal could think about that any longer Auretta was already handing her a cloak. It was her favourite one, it was a mahogany red colour that reached the ground. She barely had time to wear it over her black dress, before Auretta was dragging her out of the room.
Auretta did fit in well at these events but she was never excited, and she had never before came to her dorm, it was against the rules. Which Mishal never really cared about but Auretta never broke them. Except now.
"Where are we going? What's the hurry?"
Auretta turned to look at her, and Mishal saw her eyes were shining. "Oh come on, spill!"
"The council is in a meeting, so I've been told to give the news to Azalea."
Azalea was the head of the life spirits, she was kind enough, but Mishal always thought she was stuck up and pretty dull.
"Azalea? Seriously Auri? That's why you're excited? Oh god, you've gone mad!" Mishal teased.
"Shhhh! Mish! The council was requested because there's been a new girl."
"A what?"
"A new girl, she was found just outside the castle grounds. Conleth found her."
Mishal winced. Conleth was her combat teacher, he was known for being ruthless and just plain mean sometimes.
"The girl's with Nawra now."
"A new girl? You mean never before seen?"
"I know everyone at the academy, Mish."
Mishal bit her lip, "A rebel, then."
Rebels were rare but not unheard of. They were stories told about them. They were dangerous. Most had gone mad. The students of the academy were special, the rebels attacked the village, the academy. Mostly they were jealous.
"I don't think so, Mish," She lowered her voice now. They were walking down the hallway towards the council room. "I think- I think she's from the soul's world."
Mishal stopped walking. Her eyes widened. "The souls world?"
It seemed so hard to imagine. The soul's world was just a myth to them. A legend. A bedtime story.
Auretta nodded. "I heard Azalea and Nawra talking."
"And you think-"
"I think she's dangerous, we have to keep an eye on her."
Mishal snorted, sometimes her friend was just too dramatic. "They'll probably just send her back."
"No, I don't think."
"She's a soul, from the soul's world, Auri," Mishal said putting emphasis on soul.
Auretta gave a smile, that might have been a smirk if she hadn't known that Auretta never smirked.
"Except she's not."