In a dark room lay a thin and frail girl on the floor. Her eyes were closed, and from time to time, her body would shake a little. She was thin to the point where her bones could be seen clearly. At this time, the darkroom door opened with a 'Bang!' and a male student dressed in a black uniform robe walked in.
"Wake up," the boy spoke with contempt, and his hand banged on the metal door, making loud noises.
Aiane jolted awake; the bright white light coming from the door blinded her, making her involuntarily close her eyes. In the last two months, she only exited the room at night to clean the school bathrooms. She rarely slept, and whenever she tried to fall asleep, she would have nightmares where people around her were trying to kill her. After hearing a banging noise, she covered her eyes with her hand blocking the extra light, and looked at the student standing at the door.
"Your two months of punishment are over, and teacher Witter Bone specially told me to inform you if you even had a thought of running again, then other school teachers will not be able to save you from hell he will make you go through," the boy spoke in colder voice, and with every sentence, his voice became colder to the point it caused the temperature to drop in the room by few degrees making Aiane body shiver. After giving the warning, the boy shut the door behind him and walked away.
Holding the wall behind her, Aiane slowly stood up. She was extremely malnourished and did not have much power in her body. Holding the small Die tightly, she walked to the door. Holding the door handle, she pulled it open with tremendous force. The outside hallway was dark. Staying in a closed room for the last two months made it hard for her to differentiate between day and night. However, the dark hallway suggested it was currently evening. Aiane slowly exited the room and walked toward the girl's dormitory.
The hallway was quiet, and as per the school rules, this was evening self-study time, and even in an emergency, students without permission were not allowed to walk out of their rooms. Because of that, right now, Aiane does not have to worry about other students looking at her with scrutiny and hungry eyes or making bad comments about her. Even if they said anything to current Aiane, who was in the dark part of her life, it did not matter.
She slowly made her way toward the room. The girl's dormitory was connected to the school, and by taking the stairs, it usually took students five minutes to travel between school and the dormitory. Aiane stood in front of the metal door. She was short on her breath, her right hand holding the door handle was trembling, and her left was on her knees, trying to keep her body straight. Holding herself, she slowly twisted the door handle, and the door opened. The room inside was small and made for only one person. Aiane's father was a rich man, so spending the extra money to get her daughter a quiet place to live was nothing much to him. He never showed, but whenever he thought of neglecting her daughter's childhood, he always felt guilt in his heart.
Aiane walked inside the room. The small room had one bed on the side wall, a study table by the window, and a personal washroom. Compared to other rooms in the dormitory, where two students lived in one room and had to share a washroom with ten other students, this room was the highest standard room academy provided, which most students wished they had.
Checking the time on the wall clock, Aiane walked into the washroom to take a bath first. Getting into the bathtub, she turned on the shower. The water was warm and soothing to the touch. It slowly slid down Aiane's body, making her skin breathe blissfully. This was Aiane's first time taking a bath in the last two months.
The warm water slowly poured from the shower on her body, washing all the dirt, smell, and blood stains on her body from the last two months. Standing still in warm water was the first time Aiane truly felt mentally calm. All the build-up stress in her mind and body from the last two months slowly started to pour out of her eyes, and she quietly sobbed while standing in the shower.
After finishing her bath, Aiane looked at herself in the mirror. She had a perfect carved face and almond-shaped violet eyes. Her skin was light in color with a golden undertone, and her light ash-brown wavy hairs were drenched in water. She was five foot seven inches tall and had long, slender legs. But right now, she was sickly thin; she had big dark circles under her eyes, and every bone of her body could be counted just by one look. After staring at herself in a mirror for a minute, Aiane took a towel from one of the mirror drawers and gently wrapped it around her body.
"Ting! Ting! Ting!" at 8'o clock, three bells resounded in the whole academy. The bell announced dinner time and informed students to make their way toward the school dining area.
Aiane was dressed in black witches' robes (not school dress). Hearing the bell, she stood up and exited the room, closing the door behind her. In the academy, students were not allowed to lock their rooms.
After the bell, the dead and silent hallways were immediately filled with hundreds of students of different classes and ages. Half of the students were younger than Aiane because Aiane was admitted to the academy after finishing high school; she wasted a lot of her prime time. To get admission into Ravenwood Magic Academy, students don't need to complete their high school education because the academy has a different curriculum.
Most young students' eyes looked empty as they walked in the hallway. They resembled brainless machines more than a human. While walking, they did not talk or make any noise, even just looking at them; Aiane felt fear in her heart. Their empty eyes made her remember the traumatic night she had experienced. Thinking of that night, Aiane shivered inwardly.
Soon they reached the dining hall. The hall was big and had multiple tables filled with food. Aiane chose one of the far tables and made her way toward the end of the table. She sat silently, picking up the food from big plates; she placed it in her place before starting to eat. Only the sound of cutlery and chewing followed. Surprisingly, with so many students in the dining hall, no one paid attention to Aiane sitting in the corner and eating her meal. It felt like no one remembered what had happened two months ago.
After finishing her meal, Aiane walked to her room. She turned her room light off and lay down in bed silently. She did not have much hope for herself; she was sure the school would do its best to brainwash her in the next three years. She will become one of those mindless puppets who do and follow whatever academy orders.
But there were still some things to look forward to. Tomorrow was the day when Aiane's third year of school would start, and it was the time when students were allowed to learn magic. And for Aiane, tomorrow will be the day when she finally steps into the new and exciting world of magic.
The night passed silently. Like before, Aiane's body would twitch every hour, and sometimes she would cry in sleep like she was living a bad dream before abruptly waking up. However, she could still sleep for five hours in eight hours of the night compared to the darkroom, where she could barely sleep for two hours.
At five o'clock, three loud bells rang in the academy, waking every student up. It was time to wake up and do morning study and other activities students were assigned. Aiane woke up, washed her face, and moved to her study table; she removed a book from her bag, which hung on the side of the table, and started studying. Even if she did not attend classes for two months, she still had to cover up for the missing two months. After the bell, when almost half an hour had passed, a young man suddenly swung open her room door and entered the room; he looked around for a few seconds before closing the door back again. There was no privacy in the academy, and these regular inspections were to check whether students were following the rules or not.
The same bell rang again at six o'clock for exercise, then at six thirty to take a bath, and at seven for breakfast. The classes started at eight o'clock. Aiane finished everything on time and waited for the bell to ring before going to her first class.
"Ting! Ting! Ting!" the bell rang for classes. Every student started moving out of their dorm rooms and toward their respective year classrooms. Today Aiane was going to be starting her third-year classes, and it was the time when the academy distributed meditation techniques to students.
Wearing her school dress Aiane picked up her handbag and moved out of the room. Like before exact scene followed in the hallway students were walking like puppets. All the students moved in order and lines without making any noise. Soon Aiane reached her third-year classroom.
The classroom looked bright; it had a big blackboard at the front, a table and chair for the teacher, and forty desks in the classroom for students to sit. The classroom was already half-filled, and students were still coming in.
After entering the classroom, Aiane started to walk at the back of the classroom, but in this class, most students did recognize her, and when they saw Aiane walking, some made bad comments, and some tried to make her fall on her steps. Even a few students pulled her hair from her back, making her almost scream in pain. Lowering her head, Aiane hastened her steps to move to the back. Things like this were common in this school, and the school did nothing to stop them. This was a common method to let students submit to schools and teachers.
Aiane took a seat at the back and sat in a corner away from everyone. After five minutes, a female teacher entered the room.
"Good morning, Teacher" all the students stood up and were greeted respectfully. The teacher nodded and walked to her table before sitting down. She rearranged her stuff on the table for five minutes before looking at the students. She called for one of the students sitting in the front seat and handed and handed him a stack of thin books after counting to distribute among the students.
"This is the starting of your third year in school," the teacher spoke calmly.
"And the books you see are the meditation techniques you will be practicing from today onward," She spoke and called another student before handing him another stack of papers to distribute.
"From today onward, you will be doing more experiments and less theory," The teacher explained and waited for the book and paper to be distributed in class.
Aiane received the book and the sheet of paper, the book contained the meditation technique, and the paper had the subjects listed on it with empty checkmarks and classroom locations at the front to choose from.
Receiving the paper, Aiane started to read through it. The sheet of paper had several fields, from Alchemy, Herbology, Artifact, Transfiguration, Enchanting, Transmutation, Abjuration, Necromancy, Divination, Charms & Illusions, and Elemental to dozens of other subjects, and every student was allowed to choose three subjects to study.
Aiane removed a pen from her bag and started to tick mark what she wanted to study. She had already thought about it when she was in the darkroom.
Alchemy, Aiane ticked her first option. Studying Alchemy required a lot of money because the ingredients for experiments were quite pricey, and not every student's family could afford to pay for it, but to Aiane, this was not a problem. Every month her father would deposit a good amount of pocket money into her bank account, and for the last two years, Aiane had collected a lot of savings in her account.
Divination, Aiane ticked her second option. She wanted to choose this subject more than any other subject on the list after what she had been going through. 'Maybe by learning divination, I will be able to prepare myself in advance,' she thought.
Charms & Illusions was the last subject she chose. There were still powerful subjects like Mind Magic, Spirit Magic, Offensive & Defensive magic, Hexes, Curses, Runes, Rituals, Beast Summoning, and Astronomy. But Aiane was not that stupid to choose these subjects, which will put her again on a stricter list in school.
'I could always learn them later,' she thought while reading through the list. After five minutes, when everyone was done choosing, the same student stood up from his seat and collected all the sheets of paper back before putting them on the teacher's desk.