Walking up to my dorm, the first thing I noticed was the lack of a handle on the outside of the metal door. However, there was a scanning panel of some sort next to it, along with a button that looked like a doorbell or buzzer. There also appeared to be a peephole in the door, as well.
I put my E-Handbook up to the scanner...thing, and after a beep, a red light on it went green, and I heard a click from the door. Somewhat eager and very curious, I opened the door to my dorm.
The light was off in my room, so I had to turn it on at the door. There was a closet directly to my left, its sliding door shut. Opening it, I saw my bed across the room, and noticed a closet directly to my left. Walking in further, I found the bathroom, the door open. There was also a desk and a nightstand, with some kind of picture frame on it, but I couldn't see if there was a picture inside or not.
Checking out the bathroom, there was a rather deep bathtub and a detachable shower head (one of those wand types). There was also a nice sink, bath towels and wash rags for bathing, and a mirror that folded outwards on the sides, revealing a medicine cabinet behind it. It was empty, save for...
My eyes went wide. Several packages, labeled with my Masculinizing Hormone Therapy injection needles, were inside.
But still, how could anyone have known? My blood ran cold, and I saw my eyes widen in the mirror.
At my current dosage, I take one shot a week, but my doctor had discussed cutting back to once every two weeks soon. But first, I would need to start developing more muscle mass, and some facial hair would have to start growing in as well.
I heard a knock on my door. Still nervous, I walked to my dorm room door and opened it.
Monorakun was standing outside, holding a small red box with a clear lid.
"Forgot this earlier. Here's your sharps container." Monorakun handed it to me, sitting back on his haunches.
Not fully processing what was going on, I took the container from the robotic raccoon.
"Uhhmmm...Thanks? But how do you-"
Monorakun interrupted me. "Hey, small secret, kid? Don't ask questions you don't want answered, alright?" He then looked down the hallway, his ears perked forward, before scurrying off on all fours, leaving me in my doorway with the sharps container.
Returning to my bathroom, I put the sharps container against the corner of the sink, and put the injection needle boxes in a small fridge, which was in a corner next to my bed. The boxes were still somewhat cold (possibly due to a cooling pack inside, I guess?), but I wanted to take no chances.
Next, I decided to look over my bed. It was a queen-sized bed, rather large for someone like me. It had a red pillow, with blue trim, and the top sheet appeared quilt-like, with red, blue, dark blue, and black patches sewn together on it randomly. However, upon feeling it, it was all one piece, and no stitching could be felt between the random-sized pieces of multiple colors.
I then glanced at the picture frame, and I felt my soul freeze within my body.
There was a young girl, with shoulder-length red hair and blue eyes, wearing a pink knee-length dress with a jewel neckline. She also wore white tights and pink Mary Janes. She was smiling, standing up straight for the camera.
An older man was standing behind her, his hand on her back. He was dressed in a two-piece navy blue suit with white pinstripes, and black dress shoes. Despite his smile, his icy blue eyes seemed to bore right through the soul of anyone he looked at.
I gulped, my hands starting to tremble. This...was a picture of me and my dad...from when I was...still...a girl.
Still...her.
Almost without even thinking, I calmly took the picture out of the frame, ripped it into a dozen or so small pieces, and put them in the trash can underneath my desk. I then took the picture frame in my hand. It was half-pink and sparkly, half-blue and...patchworky, for lack of better words.
Deciding against throwing it away, but not wanting to see it, I tucked it into the single desk drawer, which had paper, colored pencils, markers, and a small measuring tape. The measuring tape went up to 30', which seemed standard.
Closing the drawer, I took a look along the back wall, and jumped in fright. There were two...tall things...standing there, that I didn't notice before!
After I gathered my wits, I realized they were just two mannequins; one male, one female, for making clothing. There was a cabinet next to them, which I assumed had various materials for making clothing with. Upon opening the cabinet, I was correct; along with my tailoring kit I carried in here, there were black and blue denim fabric, various types of fabrics (all separated by type), bags of cotton stuffing, threads of various colors, dyes for changing colors of fabrics, an iron and ironing board, and a few other useful things I could make use of.
Returning my attention to my E-Handbook, I woke it up from Sleep Mode (it apparently blacks out the screen after a set period of inactivity). A display showed up, reading "Bera Haikiko: Ultimate Tailor", and then disappeared, revealing the menus along the top, with TUTEC's logo as the background. The menus were listed in the following order: Yearbook, Map, Rules, Chat, Games, Music, Notepad, and Settings.
Opening the Yearbook menu, I could see everyone's first and last name, their Ultimate talent, their height/weight, and a brief description of that particular student. It looked rather interesting, and I decided I would have to look this over later, when I had more time.
The Map menu had a map of the first floor and dorms area, and also showed me where I was. Currently, it had a green dot for me inside my dorm room. I figured the E-Handbook must have some sort of tracking device, which fed this information to whatever Map program was being used.
Checking out the Games menu, I was mildly disappointed. It just had some of your typical generic games (Snake, Solitaire, Hearts, Minesweeper, Pinball, and a couple others), with two Top 5 Scores for each game (one for Overall and one for Personal). I was hoping it might have "The Eternal Scrolls: Blades" or "Satan: Immortal" (which fills in the storyline between Satan II and Satan III), but unfortunately not. This was a bit of a letdown for me, as only Solitaire, Pinball, and maybe Hearts seemed even mildly interesting.
Closing out the Games menu Chat had two settings, Private Chat and Group Chat. Opening the Private Chat, I could select any Student, and send them a private message, and they could send me one back. It somewhat resembled my social media chat I had on my phone, which my father chided me for forgetting to bring here. "You'd forget your own eyes if they weren't lodged into your fucking skull!" he had loudly muttered at me, his voice low, but angry, but he made no attempt to go back for it.
The Group Chat, however, appeared to be a public chat room, where everyone could see what anyone typed. A few people had typed into the Group Chat already, it seemed.
*Bera Haikiko has entered the chat.
Kenchikka Kowareta: Greetings, everyone. Hopefully this thing works. Could be useful.
Kaede Akamatsu: Yep, it works! Got your message just now! A shame it doesn't leave a timestamp, though...
Angie Yonaga: Atua watch over you all!
Kenchikka Kowareta: Messages received. Can confirm chat works. Great! But must be careful, perhaps. Could be monitored.
Kaito Momota: Not to worry, Kenchikka! I, Kaito Momota, Luminary of the Stars, shall keep everyone safe as we find our way out of this place, even if I've gotta be a bit reckless!
Sonia Nevermind: Nobody needs to do anything reckless, nor do we need to fight amongst ourselves. We are all friends here, remember?
*Bera Haikiko has left the chat.
I had nothing to say to anyone yet, so I just remained silent, remaining in my room, and checked out the rest of the E-Handbook menus.
The Music section had a music library, with quite a few songs I liked, and many I had never heard of. Being a bit of a music lover, this was really interesting to me.
Notepad had sections where you could write notes, make checklists, or draw with the stylus that was inserted into the E-Handbook itself. You could even separate entries via color coding, making different sections if you pleased.
And finally, Settings had your usual stuff: Contrast, Brightness, Volume, stuff like that. It also had an Alarm option, but I wasn't too concerned with that tonight. Other than that, there was nothing else too interesting in there.
I laid back on my rather comfortable bed after taking off my boots and putting them at the foot of my bed, and stared at the ceiling. While the place itself wasn't too bad, these "Rules" were downright insane! And what of this Monorakun thing that claims to be our Headmaster? What did it have in store for me? For us? And why did it trap us all here?
I would find out the answers to my questions in the days to come, and nothing would prepare us for the reality that would sink in.