A man wearing a mechanized suit of armor came in front of the car, inquiring about their purpose.
"It's a drop-off."
Storm said flashing his ID card. The man collected it, heavily scrutinizing it before returning it to him.
" You know the rules, unauthorized vehicles aren't allowed inside. You're going to have to drop them here."
" Yeah, yeah. Give me a moment."
Storm said to the man, who in turn moved back.
" Well, I guess this is where we part ways. What I told you guys is common knowledge for cursed. But it's pretty priceless for people from not-so-well-off families. So you lot better not die on me."
The card doors slid open, allowing Grey and Ember to step out.
Storm was about to start reversing before he stopped the car
" I presume you've both filled the tabs I gave you yesterday."
Ember nodded her head in response, while Grey facepalmed.
It completely slipped by him yesterday. Well, in all honesty, he couldn't be blamed. Between almost committing suicide, talking to a Broken Cursed, and attending his parent's cremation, he couldn't bother remembering about an academy he wasn't even planning on going to in the first place.
Storm sighed, bringing out a new tab.
" I thought something like this would happen, trust me, it's not my first time dealing with forgetful kids like yourself."
Grey collected the tab, quickly filling it with his info. It was really basic, Though the Academy awarded extra credits for giving details about your curse.
Grey felt it was probably best not to do so, after all, there were no free lunches here. Giving up your curse's information had to put you at some sort of disadvantage, for the number of extra credits given to be that huge.
He returned the tab to Storm after submitting his details.
" Well, I guess this is goodbye. If you survive, come buy me lunch sometime. You both at least owe me that for the selfless advice, I gave you."
The vehicle started reversing before Grey raised his hands stopping it again.
His face seemed to struggle before he finally spoke, giving a smile.
" Thank you, Mr. Storm. For everything."
Ember looked at him, before turning and doing the same.
" Same here, Thank you."
Storm looked at them for a little, before chuckling.
" It's alright kids, just doing my job, ... just doing my job."
His car quickly did a U-turn, before zooming away silently.
He watched the hills quickly moving past him, as the "morning sun" shone calmly on the autumn-weathered trees.
He remembered the slightly heavy but still youthful smile Ember gave and even though he couldn't see Grey's face, he felt the kid was smiling.
Sighing, he couldn't help but wonder if the kids would still be able to do the same after coming back, that was of course if they ever did come back.
Well, it wasn't like they were the first kids he'd dropped there before. So he was pretty much already an expert on handling the deaths of those children.
He turned on the radio, humming to music, as he let the soulful ambiance permeate his car.
---------------------
Grey found himself sitting opposite Ember on a silent tram.
After Storm dropped them off, the soldiers led them both into the gates. The school was so big that it could only be navigated using cars and trams. Currently, they were heading to the dorms.
Admission into the ranking institute was quite easy, all one needed to do so was just the confirmation of being cursed and fill in their basic info on the tab. There wasn't even a need to pay school fees, it made sense though, as adding school fees would make it impossible for a lot of newly cursed to get admission, and right now humanity needed as many of those as they could get.
Grey rested calmly on the soft seat of the car, marveling at the architecture of the school.
Most structures in the school were high-rise buildings surrounded by a neat and organized compound that looked like a perfect fusion of nature and technology. That wasn't strange in and of itself, what was however was that the buildings all had numerous curves on them making them look like standing waves, even stranger was the fact that the surface of the building which were of numerous different colors, heights, and shapes seemed to shift, giving them an almost living quality. What tied the entire piece together was the central building, it was taller than the rest and designed like a flame, with red solid segments that carried the same shifting properties as the buildings representing tongues of flame. With the design of the building, one would almost think it was a burning flame.
Grey knew what it represented, after all, who wouldn't be able to recognize the greatest piece of modern art ever created, the buildings represented people of different tribes and cultures coming around a fire, disregarding their differences to sit around it. After all, why would they fight over the only thing protecting them from the dreaded darkness.
The piece was termed the flame of civilization, it was meant to represent unity and brotherhood among man.
He had seen it before, but that was only on holographic programs. It was far more beautiful in person.
Suddenly, Ember's voice sounded out bringing Grey back to his senses.
He had a really bad habit of getting lost in his environment.
" So..., Your Grey, right."
Grey looked at her, a bit puzzled. Before nodding his head
"You heard what Storm told us didn't you, nobody can face the curse and the Limbo alone."
Grey nodded his head, seeing where she was going.
"So you want us to form a team?"
" Well, that wouldn't be exactly possible currently. The curse drops people in random locations once in the Limbo."
Grey nodded, the chances of meeting her in that place were extremely small. Although the curse dropped people close to strongholds in the Limbo, the probability of meeting a person you know on your first dive was highly insignificant.
" But even so, we can act as acquaintances, If we see each other in the Limbo. We can help each other out, after all, we did spend a night together.... Wait, that came out wrong. Either way, you get the point."
Her voice sounded like a feminine artificially produced voice, compared to her croaky voice from yesterday. Grey looked at her weirdly for some time before nodding.
" I agree, making more friends is never a bad idea."
Grey already took Storm's words to heart, if there was any hope of surviving the Limbo. He had to be as prepared as possible.
Ember gave a quick smile, before continuing.
" So now that we have that out of the way, let's start this over again. My name is Ember. I come from the slums."
She put her gloved hands towards Grey, offering a handshake.
" I'm Grey, Grey Ash. From the extreme outskirts of the second ring. Nice to meet you, partner."
He was impressed, her confidence now and what she displayed yesterday were completely different. He wondered what changed her.
Grey shook her gloved hands with his, sealing the deal.
Just in time, the tram stopped moving.
With the sweet voice of a lady announcing that they had reached their dropoff point.