This Shit Is Overrated

I glowered at the never ending row of snow covered evergreens as we drove, my IPod cranked up to the highest volume. I was on my way to Dark Woods Academy, my heaven and my hell all in one. On the one hand, I should've been happy. A new school, new friends, a new start. Not to mention, an escape from my wretched hag of a step mother. However, on the the other hand, I should've been angry, which I was. Because I'd had a life back home. I'd had a reputation, friends, not to mention I'd been the lead in my school's production of Lady Tess. All of these things, I'd been forced to abandon. And, as per usual with me, my wrath won out over my excitement.

I kept my eyes trained on Evergreen Row as we drove, refusing to turn to look at my traitorous father. We'd been driving for hours and we hadn't said a word to each other. In fact, I'd hardly talked to him at all since last week, when he'd informed me of his plans to ship me away to boarding school. I'd been too busy tearing down my old life to deal with him, not to mention I'd been so undeniably furious with him that the mere prospect of speaking with him made my skin chill and my blood boil.

I couldn't help but notice the a large gold sign with the words Dark Woods Academy engraved upon it as my dad made a left onto a windy uphill road. Dense snow-covered, forests surrounded us on both sides of the road, making the name for the instituting obvious. It was in the middle of the wilderness for Christ's sake - thirty minutes from the nearest town. The idea of being so isolated was repulsive to me; I even shuddered once despite the heat that was blowing through the vents.

When we finally reached the school, I was both impressed and not impressed. I'd seen my fair share of fancy establishment and they failed to astound me anymore. However, I'd always been a hopeless romantic, and couldn't help but be captivated by it's beauty. The institution was an expanse of dark grey stone buildings with castle like roofs and towers, giving it a medieval essence. There was snow on everything, except on the stone path that winded around the buildings - which was expertly shoveled. The front building was larger then the others, looking enchantingly like a dark castle.

I frowned as my dad veered off into the parking lot, stationing the car near the other fancy vehicles. The parking lot took a bit of that romantic feeling away from the school. It seemed much more . . . enchanting and archaic before. This parking lot was such a modern thing - it didnt' belong here. In this dark castle, this snowy kingdom, tucked away in the hills - hidden from civilization. It seemed as if it should be untouched by the modern world - only it wasn't.

I felt something foreign on my shoulder and whipped around to see my dad's hand settled there. I brushed him off and tore my headphones out of my ear. "Yes?" I asked curtly.
"We're here," he said.

"So it seems that we are," I said snootily, "Don't bother getting out of the car. I can handle it myself."
"Mercy, there is no way you can carry all your luggage," he said, giving me a weary look.

"I beg to differ," I snapped, pushing open the car door and stepping outside into the bitter cold.
"Mercy," my father rebuked.

"Goodbye Father," I said, closing the door. I went into the back of the car and grabbed my luggage out of the trunk. I put my backpack on my back, and let my two duffle bags rest in the crooks of my elbows. I had my purse in my hand and pulled my rolling suitcase behind me. It was all very heavy and I was sure I must look quite stupid. But I was making a point.

As I walked by the front of the car my father rolled down the window and called to me. "Mercy. Let me help you."
"You've done enough," I hissed, struggling with my luggage.

"Mercy," he said, knowing I wasn't going to let him help, "I love you."
"Hmph," I snorted, "This surprises me."

"I'll call you tonight," he said.
"Maybe I'll answer," I snapped as I turned and stumbled away. I would've loved to make a nice graceful exit but with all those bags, it was just not happening. So ungracefully, I made my way to the front door of the large castle like building.

Inside I hardly felt like I was in a palace. It was a little disappointing actually. Sure, it was all very fancy and elegant, but it looked more like the lobby of a nice hotel then a royal palace. The walls were a light gold, a contrast to the grey exterior. The floors were white and tiled with little painted gold vines running along them. A gold chandelier hung from the ceiling and there was an assortment of fancy armchairs around a coffee table just below it. Across the room was a desk with a woman sitting there. She wasn't the most beautiful woman, but she had such gorgeous light auburn colored hair. She watched me with concern as I labored across the room. Finally I stopped in front of her, dropping some of my bags to the floor.

"Hello," I panted out from exhausted, "I'm Mercy White."
"Mercy?" she repeated, "Oh yes, you're the new transfer, yes?"

"That would be me," I said brightly, trying to be friendly despite my labored breathing.
"I have your schedule right here," she said, placing some papers on the desk, "And a map of the grounds, and the list of school rules."

"Thank you," I said while my mind was preoccupied on finding a way to carry all my stuff, plus these papers, all the way to my dorm.
"And here's the key to your dorm room," she said, handing me a silver key on an otherwise empty metal ring.

"Thank you," I repeated again.
"Do you have anyone to help you with your bags?" she asked.

If I had, wouldn't I have had them help me in? I thought it but didn't point it out, out of fear of being rude. "No," I said instead.
"Oh - oh there's Fiona. She'll give you a hand," the woman said, "Fiona!"

I turned to see a girl coming out of a door off to the side labeled "Head Master." She had long hair that cascaded past her shoulders in curly ringlets of dark gold. She had lightly tanned skin and a gorgeous face. She was dressed in a school uniform - a black and grey plaid skirt that was hiked up as high as physically possible and a white button up blouse underneath a grey vest. She had on the traditional knee high socks and black shoes. I cringed at the uniform. I hadn't seen it up until this point. It wasn't that the uniform was ugly, it was just that it was so uniform.

"What's up Gail?" the girl, Fiona, asked as she strolled over to us.
"Would you mind helping Mercy to her new dorm," the woman, Gail, asked, "She's in the same building as you."

The girl's face became more alert at that, for some reason. She then turned to face me and looked me up and down briefly. "Sure thing Gail," she said, coming over to me and grabbing two bags.
"Thank you," I said sincerely as I reloaded. I balanced my purse on the crook of my elbow and picked up my rolling suitcase so that I had a free hand to hold my papers and keys.

"C'mon," Fiona said and began to sashay towards the door. I followed hurried after her. Once we exited the main building my eyes gravitated towards the parking lot. My father's car was gone and I was not surprised. I rolled my eyes at nothing and then moved to catch up with Fiona.

"So your name is Mercy?" she asked, "I'm Fiona."
"Nice to meet you," I said as we followed the stone path behind the building and into what seemed more like the thicket of the school grounds.

There were some kids rushing around, all in uniforms that only varied slightly. There weren't many of them, given that it was late evening and freezing cold, but all of those who were present were staring at me. Of course they were though. I was dressed in my typical outlandish fashions - the kind I wasn't looking forward to abandoning. Currently, I was donning white dress pants and a white peacoat with large black buttons, and a black furry hat that gave off a Russian feel. Normally, I would dress much more exotically, but the cold weather made that difficult.

"So why'd you transfer in the middle of the year?" Fiona wondered.
I made a disgusted sound in the back of my throat. "My spineless father forced me to. His new wife despises me, for whatever reason. Never will I-"

"Ohhh damn Vince is looking hot today," she cut me off, eyeing an attractive guy who was heading into a nearby building. "Ohhh the things I would love to do to that sexy, sexy man."
I made an annoyed 'hmph' sound at having been cut off.

"Oh sorry," she said, snapping back to reality and licking her lips absently, "He's just so damn sexy that I lose focus."
"It's quite alright," I said primly.

"So why did you transfer here again?" she asked again, having been too busy lusting over that boy that she'd missed my original answer.
"My father forced me to come here. His wicked wife hates me and convinced him to send me here," I repeated with some minor tweaking.

"Oh. Wow. That sucks," she sympathized, "But don't worry. It's not that bad."
"The uniforms are vile," I said plainly, having not known enough about the school to judge much else.

"Really? I think they're kinda cute," she disagreed, "And the guys look totally smoking in them."
"But where's the originality?" I demanded, "It's like we're all clones. And where's the color? The flair? I feel like you could get lost here in a sea of colorlessness."

She gave me an odd look, seeming puzzled. "Well we can take our uniforms off when we're in our dorms," she said with a shrug.
"Speaking of which," I said, "Where is ours? I feel like we've been walking for an awful long time."

"We're almost there," she promised, "Our's is the best. Really, it is. It's the best dorm on campus. It's super exclusive." My father must have shelled out a lot of money then, I thought. It didn't surprise me. We were hardly poor. In fact, we were quite wealthy, living in a luxuriously large house with all the finest things. For most of my life I'd never had to work a day in my life - thanks to the money - but when my father married Abigail she told him she thought I had to learn 'the value of the dollar.' Meaning, I had to do tedious chores. Such as shoveling and vacuuming. It was ridiculous, and truly, I had always hated her for it.

"I'm sure it'll be lovely," I said.
"And I haven't even told you the best part!" she enthused, "It's Co-ed. Isn't that totally awesome?"

"A Co-ed dorm?" I asked, "I didn't know they had those."
"Well they do. Our's is the only dorm in the school like it, cause our parents paid extra for us to stay there. There's only eight of us living there - well nine now I guess," she amended.

"It must be very expensive then," I guessed. If it consisted of the nine richest students on campus then it must have cost a lot to get in there, seeing as this was a fancy boarding school just teeming with wealthy children. It surprised me that I was apart of the small group of elites here. I'd always been wealthy, but not like millionaire money. Nothing like that. It hit me then how badly my father wanted to get rid of me - enough to drain large amounts of his money to make sure that I was happy here - happy enough to not beg to come back.

"Oh yes it is," she agreed, "They call it The Palace."
"Appropriate," I decided.

"Yep! Here we are!" she announced. We had stopped at the building at the very, very end of the complex. It didn't look like anything special from the outside. Actually, it was smaller then all of the other buildings around. It was about the size of an average American home, three stories, and made of grey stone. There was one castle like torrent on the side.

"Welcome home," she cheered and went over to the door, with me hot on her heels. She unlocked the door with the key she'd extracted from her bra and managed to push the door open, despite the luggage she held. We stepped inside and I dropped my bags, staring. This room wasn't the kind of thing that usually awed me - it wasn't very old fashioned or romantic. But it was certainly very 'cool.'

We were in some sort of living room, a very posh living room. The walls were painted a pristine white, the floor covered in black shag carpeting. There was a large plasma screen TV mounted on the wall, above an oddly sleek looking black fireplace, from which a fire burned brightly. There was a long leather black couch, a white bean bag chair, and a white feathery bucket chair assituated around a glass coffee table.

There were three teenagers in the room, all male. They were all dressed in simmiliar variations of the school unfirom - all consisting of grey pants, white button up shirts. One wore a black sweater and one wore a grey vest. They were all lounging about. On the leather couch there was a boy with eyes like liquid emeralds and hair like coal. He held a game controller in his hand and wore a violent expression. Next to him was a thin younger boy with unkempt brown hair that reached to his chin. He was slouched down low in his seat and also held a game controller, only his expression was much more lax. Sitting in the bean bag chair was a boy with neat dark brown hair, a sleek laptop perched on his lap while he drank some sort of hot beverage.

"Boys," sang Fiona, "Meet our new roommate."
Automatically they all looked up, minus the thin brunette. He kept his eyes trained on the screen while the other two boys looked up at me. A violently loud sound erupted from the TV screen.

"You fucking cheater!" shouted the black haired one, throwing down his controller.
"Dude, calm the hell down," Fiona advised. "You're going to scare our new room mate."

"I'm perfectly fine," I assured her.
"Okay, so the guy having the five star freak out over there is Blake," she told me, "He does this sort of thing on a regular basis. And the one with the laptop, that's Keith. And the one who's too rude to look this way is Greg. And guys, this is Mercy."

"Hello," Keith said at the same time Greg mumbled, "Hi." Blake didn't say anything, but proceeded to silently clench and unclench his fists.
"Hello," I returned politely.

"You can all get to know each other later," she said, "But first I want to show Mercy her room. Just leave your bags here. I don't feel like lugging them up two flights."
"Alright," I said, not bothered by the idea. It wasn't like any of these rich kids would steal my stuff.

I followed Fiona over to the semi-grand white stair case with the metal black railings. Upstairs was a decent length hallway with four doors, all of which were spread very far apart. Three of the doors had little plagues next to them, but one did not.

"This is the boys' floor," Fiona informed me before quickly leading me up another flight of stairs. On this floor, all of the rooms had little plagues next to them. Just as we arrived a girl came out of one of the room. She wasn't very tall, but she was very voluptuous with curves everywhere. She had light brown hair piled into a crown in her head and wasn't dressed in a uniform. She was dressed in grey Dark Wood Academy sweats and a red t-shirt. I was so amazingly happy to see colors that I almost ran over to the girl and hugged her.

"Oh, hey Jenna," Fiona said, "Jen, this is our new room mate Mercy. You know, the one they told us about."
"Oh hi Mercy," Jenna said, "It's so cool to meet you. I love your hat."

"Thanks," I said, "It's nice to meet you too."
"So Jen," Fiona said, "You wanna stay for the little tour I'm giving Mercy."

"Sure," she said easily.
"Anyway, this is the girls' floor," Fiona went on, "The guys' and girls' rooms are on seperate floors. You know, just because."

I nodded. "What's up there?" I asked, nodding towards the staircase that led up to another floor. Only, I couldn't see what that floor looked like at all. There was a door at the end of the stairs.
"Avery's room," Fiona said.

"You mean Prince Avery's room," Jenna sneered.
"Pardon me?" I asked. "Who's room is it?"

They both gave me slightly weird looks but they both brushed off my odd vocabulary. "Avery's," Fiona told me, "He has his own floor. His Dad's the headmaster. They're like mad rich."
"Yeah and that's coming from us," Jenna added.

"Enough about Avery," Fiona said, "Let's see your room."
I followed both of them as they began a treck to the end of the hallway, to the last door. The last of five. The little plague next to the door read "Mercy White." It made me suspicious as to how long my dad had been plotting this behind my back.

"You got your key?" she asked.
I opened my clenched hand to reveal the little silver key. I took the tiny thing and used it to unlock the door. I pushed it open and stepped inside into a large, modern, sleek room. It was devoid of color though. All black and white. There was a large bed in the center of the room with a black frame and white sheets. The walls were black, the floor covered in white shag carpeting. There was a window masked by black silk curtains and a black sporty looking dresser. There was even a white desk and bookcase that looked as if they were actually made of plastic. There were no extra embellishments to the room to make it seem as if someone lived here.

"It's quite dreary," I said.
"You can spruce it up if you want," Jenna said.

"Yeah, maybe we could take you shopping in the village this weekend," Fiona jumped in, "Get you some new stuff."
"Besides, it looks better once you have your stuff in it," Jenna promised.

"I hope so," I sighed longingly.
"You wanna come down and have something to eat?" Jenna asked, "We have some pretty good food here in the house."

"Or do you wanna come to dinner with me at the cafeteria," Fiona wondered, "I know cafeteria food is supposed to be gross, but it's pretty good here."
"No thanks," I said, "I'm actually quite weary from traveling. Would it be alright if I just rested?"

"Of course," Fiona said, backing out of the room with Jenna mirroring her, "We'll leave you alone. If you need anything I'm right next door."
"Thank you," I said as they closed the door behind them.

I sighed wearily, reminding myself of my father and collapsed onto my new bed. The sheets were soft and the bed felt comfortable, despite how rigid I had expected it to be. In fact, even the floor looked comfortable. However, I preferred the bed. I took off my faux fur hat and rested my head on the full pillow that was just about bursting with pillows. I lay there for probably about an hour, tossing and turning as I tried to get comfortable, letting my mind wander to my stories. Eventually though, I finally slipped into unconsciousness.