Aurum Academy rose like a monument in the skyline of Phoros Upper District. It had been built by creating a fusion of the past and the future, neoclassical architecture meets the innovation of the current day. The main building was the centerpiece of the campus, a towering structure of glass, steel, and marble, sleek reflective surfaces, and intricate carvings accompanying columns that remind people of temples built by civilizations long gone. At the entrance, a massive arch glows with holographic projections showing historical figures, scientific breakthroughs, and technological advancements that give the impression of coming to life. The upper part of the buildings glowed with neon accents that cast a cold light that contrasted with the warm golden tones of the marble below. Walking through that very entrance a young man, with pale skin, contrasted with his long, light blond hair that fell through his shoulders. his face was striking and symmetrical, and he had a sharp jawline and high cheekbones But his most striking feature, was his green eyes that seemed to shine just as bright as the neon lights.
The young man was wearing a plain white shirt under a tailored, high-collar blazer that seemed a couple sizes too big for the young man. The Blazer was midnight black but had a golden crest over the left part of the chest. It said the school motto: "To the stars through hardships". He was wearing midnight black trousers along with black polished shoes that seemed to have a thin shoe sole, which was a personal preference of the young man since the shoes could adapt as per the wearer's wishes.
"Sebas!" A scream was heard through the entrance. Sebastian turned to look where the scream had come from. A young woman was running towards him, she was dressed almost the same, the main difference being that she was wearing a pair of boots instead of normal shoes. She had a teasing smirk, she had long blue hair that ended in pink tips. Her hair framed her angular face, a detail that helped to emphasize her sharp features. She had each eye of a different color, each eye shined with quite an intensity one eye being pink and the other one blue Sebas had always thought that she picked her hair color to go with her eyes. well, he had paid an unusual amount of attention to her face that's how he had been able to see the faint freckles that were scattered across her nose and cheeks, a detail Lys had always appreciated since most people would only focus on her eyes and how weird they looked.
"Calm down Lys" Sebastian answered. "There is no need to scream".
"Lysandra" Someone else interrupted. The person in question had a commanding presence, she carried herself with grace, the grace characteristic of someone who has spent a lifetime training, Despite being in her early 40s, her athletic build was the best testament to the years she has spent training as well as her years of discipline. She had dark mocha skin but was almost entirely covered by her impeccably tailored dark suit. She was the dean of the academy's discipline, Astra Kane, her sharp, angular features, high cheekbones, strong jawline, and slightly aquiline nose were framed by neck-length hair, often pulled back into a sleek, professional style. Her piercing grey eyes made one feel as if she was looking straight through you and directly into your soul, her pair of white gloves finished her look with a touch of mystery that all the students of the Academy had asked themselves at least once. Why does she always wear the same things, doesn't she get hot?
"Miss Astra, we apologize," Sebastian said. "Lys was just excited since is Friday and tomorrow is my birthday"
"Oh right, tomorrow is your and Aura's seventeen birthday," Astra said relaxing a bit. "Lysandra, please stop causing so many problems, Sebastian here won't always be there to explain things for you"
Astra then continued walking, soon enough the rest of the students were going to be arriving at the Academy and she was responsible for making sure that there weren't any problems at the start of the day.
"Jeez," Lys said. "She is really annoying when she wants to"
"Relax Lys," Sebas told her. "With all the shit you do she could have gotten you expelled ages ago, and your mom and aunt would have killed you already"
"Not everyone can be "miss perfect" like your sister," Lys said crossing her arms "Living with her must be a nightmare"
Sebas saw how Lys rolled her eyes when speaking about Aura, the problem was, that she hadn't spoken much to him lately, after he failed to attune to a conduit, at least in his family's eyes, most of the family started to distance themselves from him, he had expected such a reaction from his father, or even his grandmother; he had to admit it had hurt, especially when his sister, started to distance herself too, now she spent most of her time with their adoptive brother Beck and her friends, completely ignoring him.
"It's not, she doesn't speak to me," Sebas said with a half smile.
"I never really understood that," Lys said. "Aren't twins supposed to be close?"
Sebas shrugged. "No, us then"
Lys looked at her friend and smiled. "Then be thankful you have such a nice friend like me"
Sebas looked at her. "Most of the time I'm grateful, but then, you go and do some shit that causes me trouble, so, please stop doing that and I'll be happier to have you as a friend"
"Oh, come on!" Lyz exclaimed grabbing her friend. "It isn't that bad"
Sebas simply stared at her.
Lys stared back at her friend.
Neither of them said anything.
"Fine" Lys relented after a while. "I'll try to keep it under control."
"Anyway, let's get this day over with, there is only one month left for vacation, and I don't want to have any more problems," Sebas said speeding up the pace and leaving behind Lys, who in turn started to run after him.
"Wait!" She screamed at him.
Sebas and Lys had been punished due to one of Lys' pranks a couple of days back, one of the teachers had been left a crying mess due to her messing with the doors, leaving the teacher unable to get out of the classroom, this particular teacher happened to be claustrophobic and Lys had done this due to the teacher saying something about her particular eyes, a delicate subject for her. So, Sebas who had been with her when she got caught, had taken the fall along with her, they had been tasked with prepping the classrooms on the first floor manually, and the classrooms had been turned off to allow them to do it. it was a tedious task, but today was the last day, the worst part was that they also had to fix the classrooms after classes were over.
The day went as normally as a day in school can go, boring classes, stupid students. harsh teachers chit-chat here and there. Sebas and Lys were bored as hell, both of them did fairly well in academics, the main problem was, that neither was interested in school, they were curious people by nature, they read, researched, and tried different things because they wanted to, not because people forced them too.
"We have to wait again for everyone to leave and then do the routine all over, right?" Lys asked Sebas.
Sebas who was focused on reading something while pretending to be paying attention to the class, didn't answer at first.
"Sebas" Lys insisted.
Lys got frustrated, Sebas had a table on his hands that had encrypted, thus only Sebas could read it, she had always been curious about what it said, but Sebas had always refused to answer, citing his family secrets and telling her the same phrase.
"If I tell you I would have to kill you"
The first time she had not taken the words seriously until she asked her mom about the Alaric family, then she realized, maybe he wasn't joking after all. In this situation, she had come up with the best course of action, blasting Sebas with text messages, thanks to the implant every person had to get when young, texts showed up on people's cornea, projected, along with who was calling and giving you the ability to answer calls without a separate device like humanity have had to do in the past.
"Sebas, here is your beautiful, genius best friend reaching out to you, would you mind paying attention to me?"
"I know that I'm unique, but, don't be ashamed, I know you are not as looking at me, but come on, just answer what I asked"
Sebas continued ignoring her. At least until she started to send emojis and stickers, it was harder to continue reading with all that flooding his field of vision, and, he had decided not to block Lys ability to contact him due to past incidents.
"Yes Lys" Sebas finally answered. "We have to wait and go through the whole process like this morning, next time please think more about how you'll get revenge on people"
"So you aren't mad that I got revenge, but that I got caught?" Lys asked.
"I don't mind that you want to get even with those who deserve it or say dumb crap, just don't let it affect me this much" Sebas answers.
"You know, I don't quite get your morals," Lys said. "I've known you for years, and I just don't get it, according to what you just said I could kill someone, and you wouldn't mind as long as it didn't affect you"
"I would help you hide the body" Sebas answered without skipping a bit.
"Wait, for real" Lys asked opening her eyes.
"Just let me know beforehand, I guess we will need either a shovel or a robot that can dig a hole big enough for a body," Sebas said.
Lys was left staring at Sebas, this was not the first time they had had a conversation like this, in fact, he always answered in the same way. She was just always astonished by his answers. That's why she liked to repeat that conversation she tended to repeat a lot of conversations, with a lot of people.
They usually get mad at me.
Lys thought, which was one of the reasons why she had grown to care so much for Sebas because he never seemed to get mad at her, it didn't matter how many times she repeated the same thing, or asked the same thing, he would always answer, never get frustrated and he was one of the few people that had never cared for her eyes.
Eventually, classes came to an end, teachers retreated to the teacher's launch, and Sebas and Lys started to go from classroom to classroom doing what they were supposed to do. The Corridor connecting the classrooms was long, and empty, with windows that allowed for the light of the outside world to come in. It was a strange mix of lights, on one part the lights of the street were starting to come on, and different rays of colors of neon lights were coming in, but what could be considered the most attractive were the natural lights coming. In Phoros natural light was a rare thing only witnessed by those who had the privilege of living in the correct zones, thus, seeing the orange, yellow, and red tones produced by the sunset at the moment, well, it was something special and beautiful.
"Sebas," Lys said. "Isn't that off?" She asked while pointing at a particular shadow.
Sebas turned to look, and he noticed that Lys was right. A shadow that was being cast by what seemed to be a pole the part that was off… Was that there was no pole in sight for the shadow to be cast… Or at least that was Sebas thought, both Lys and he looked around until they found it, it was a small piece of metal that had fallen from somewhere, where exactly was to be determined, or maybe it had always been there.
"Huh," Lys exclaimed.
"What happened?" Sebas asked.
"Nothing is just that, that thing has always been there, I overheard some students talking about it, it's a holographic projector that's used on special occasions," Lys said.
"Wait" Sebastian open his eyes. "That has always been there"
"Yeah, just that nobody ever stops to look at it" Lys answered.
That's when Sebas noticed it, the shadow was off for a reason, this was the perfect spot to enter a liminality, the middle of a long corridor, with something that nobody ever noticed or looked at, and the issue was, that, his instincts were telling him that they were already on the liminality. Thanks to the Gods, it was easy to get out of it, they simply needed to keep walking, and they would naturally get out of the liminality if they didn't dwell too much on how weird the situation was.
"Let's continue, we are almost done," Sebas said while running his hand through the back of his neck and doing a light stretch.
"Yeah, I wanna go grab something to eat," Lys said while stretching too. "What do you think about pizza?"
"Seven cheeses pizza?" Sebas asked while the both of them started walking.
"You really like cheese…"
"Well, yeah, who doesn't?"
The both of them continued talking and walking, but strangely enough, it was taking too long to get to the next classroom. Sebastian continued talking as if nothing was happening. But, after he counted a couple of minutes and they still hadn't reached the next classroom, he checked the windows, the neon lights seemed brighter, which was to be expected, but the problem was that the environment felt off.
"Isn't starting to get chilly" Lys said.
"Yeah, it is" Sebas answered. "Lys, do you notice anything else strange?"
Lys looked around. "Well yeah, the walls seemed off, they should be a tone or two grayer" Lys said pointing at the walls.
"It seems that we have been pulled to the liminality against our will" A voice echoed in Sebas mind.
"That shouldn't be possible" Sebas answered in his mind.
"Agreed" The voice answered.
"Mahvyr" Sebas spoke in his mind. "Can you sense something off?"
"I can" Mahvyr answered. "But I can't quite pinpoint what it is, you are going to have to investigate"