a/n: i finally finished reading the rest of the books. and they were boring. a little awkward kind of funny, but mostly boring. but because of that i mostly have an outline for the story. and i apologize for the line breaks in this one. also the two teachers in this chapter are nobodies, they're cookie cutter characters used for placement, so idk who they are personality and character wise, maybe they'll be guards idk.
The stroke of midnight came and past. Immediately two children were whisked away by the shadow. The adults clung to those who were lucky enough to survive, but one adult could not. Relief was stolen from him the second he opened his eyes. In a flash the boy he had raised for the past sixteen years was gone.
A boy, only eleven, stood beside his father. Not a word uttered. Not a tear shed. Be brave, he tells himself. Three years he was lucky enough to be skipped. Three extra years he had survived. The boy had been right, but he couldn't forgive the other.
Five minutes past midnight and the town was moving again, albeit slow. They returned to their homes to celebrate surviving another year. The boy turned to his father and began to drag him home.
The house was silent. It won't be as lively as it was before. And soon next year the trial begins all over again. This time the younger would be next. The man could only pray to not lose another.
Up the clock tower. Over the houses. Out the town and up the hill. Past the trees then head straight. A sharp turn left and down the hill. Over the pond, take a right and into the forest. Left to the clearing and down the rabbit's hole. Out of the tree and into the river. Down the stream, through a tunnel, One…Two…Three. And drop.
Goodbye status quo and hello Fairy Tales.
"AaaAaaAAHHh! Oof!"
"Nice of you to drop in, Mr. Beilschmidt, but everyone else is waiting for you. So get in line with the rest."
The boy had merely seconds to understand his situation. Only a minute ago was he standing in the middle of the town square, before the clock tower. When he heard the first ring of the bell, everything turned black, followed by a rapid array of quick movement and motions. Left, right, up, down, all in a black shadow. He couldn't see a thing, not even with his hand right in front of him. Then the next thing he knew, he was falling. A quick and easy drop onto light, poofy clouds. Currently, he is too dazed to question the authoritative voice, and complied with the notion.
"Alright. Now that everybody is here, I'll begin passing out your schedules." The woman with the authoritative voice said as she magically (as in out-of-nowhere) produced, what the boy assumed their schedules, in her hand. She walked by each student handing them a sheet of blank paper. The students became confused.
"In your hands right now are your schedules and your room and class assignments. For the next five years your class will not change." She said eyeing the newcomers. "Your room assignments, as well as your roommates will stay the same. The only way you will ever get a room reassignment is if one of you try and manage to kill each other. Otherwise no change." Like a drill sergeant she continued to explain the rules of the academy. All the while the boy was in disbelief.
"Any questions?" The drill sergeant asked.
Murmurs were exchanged before a boy with the thickest eyebrows the other had ever seen decided to speak up.
"I'm sorry to say this, ma'am, but these pages are blank."
The boy spoke in a language he hadn't heard before. It was completely alien to him. Took him by surprise when the sound finally struck. But a few words here and there sounded similar. And judging by the Drill Sergeant's answer, it must have been about the empty paper they had all received.
"Must I teach you everything." She growled. "Put some spit into it and blow." She instructed as the students eyed her with disbelief. Even Gilbert had a hard time believing it. When the boy with the thick brows demonstrated (or tried to recover from humiliation) the rest followed suit. Albeit a little disgusted, soon their schedules appeared on wet sheets of paper. Each designated to their owners. On the top of the page was their names in bold letters and place of origin, below it, they had assumed it be their room number and class. Followed by it was a list of their classes. Disbelief soon followed as Gilbert scanned through his schedule.
A murky swamp trembled as students started arriving. One by one the students came right out of the ground. As if emerging from water their hands clawed from the ground up and pulled themselves upright. As if it were normal. A few got stuck but none tried to help. However, only one did not come from the ground.
From the swamp, the water spiraled upwards for a few feet before it returned back to the swamp and the passenger fell into the water. Ellis then emerged from the water, wet and swimming towards land.
"Good day, Miss Knight. I don't know what your impressions of our school is, but being wet on the first day, or any other day, is intolerable. Dry yourself before moving along."
The girl blinked at the instructor before her. She stayed silent as she tried to squeeze out the water from her dress and her hair. It took a while, but in the end she was mostly rid of the heavy weight. Though she was still damp to the touch.
"Now that everyone has finally made it. I welcome you to the rest of your lives." The Instructor said; the elegance in his voice mismatching of the subject at hand. "As you know, you cannot leave school grounds, and you cannot return home unless you graduate. That is, if you graduate."
Ellis watched the Instructor as he walked towards the other end of the line. It reminded her of the rare times when nobles had thought their small town darling and decided to stop by. The Instructor himself reminded her of the nobles that Gilbert hated the most.
The Instructor then produced, out of thin air, a small stack of papers, blank from Ellis' vision. "In my hands are your schedules for the rest of your first year here." He said as he handed each student a sheet. (Somehow Ellis has managed to cut her finger on it.) "For now they are blank. To see what it holds, merely dab it with your saliva and release your breath onto the page. It will recognize your signature and reveal to you the information it holds. Watch as I demonstrate."
The Instructor licked his thumb and and smeared it on the page before exhaling a short breath over the page. The students mimicked the action. Each revealing their schedules for the year.
"Are you having trouble?" A voiced piqued up next to her.
Indeed, Ellis was having a bit of trouble with hers. The page was slightly smeared with blood from her paper cut, and a bit damp from her wet hands, but that wasn't the problem. When she breathed into the page it wouldn't reveal the words like the rest. Only a blur.
"A little." She answered. The boy next to her offered to help, but the Instructor interrupted instead.
"Is there a problem Miss Knight, Mr. Galante?" Ellis looked up from the boy, younger than her it seems, and at the Instructor. From the way he spoke, it felt less from concern and more like a rhetorical question, but she answered anyway.
"I can't seem to be able to see my schedule, sir." She said as she held up the page for him to see.
The Instructor sighed out his nose and took the page in his hands. The words on the page were barely there, only somewhat blurred. But it wasn't completely clear. He looked back at the girl that watched him with unwavering blue eyes before darting back to the page.
"Well, that's because its too damp. The words are there, blurry, but clearly there. Maybe you'll think twice about showing to school wet. The school will redistribute another to your dorm room. For now, it seems you and Mr. Galante share the same schedule. As for your room, we'll be giving a tour for the new students, we'll see what room you're in once we pass by the dorm councilors. Now come along, we shouldn't keep everyone waiting."
And soon the tour began.
"You keep staring at me and I'll stab your eyes out." The blonde, bushy-browed teen snapped.
"Sorry. Just not use to all this." Gilbert said from his side of the room. "Isn't it weird."
"Not as weird as you. You don't look like you belong. And you obviously know nothing about the school."
"Well sorry for seeing this school like some hell hole prison!" He lashed in defense. "From where I come from, no one makes it back. Dead or alive. Only in some stupid fairy tale, and that's not always the case."
The room was silent for a moment before the blonde with the weird speech pattern spoke. "Sorry. I didn't know." (Course not.) "But it's not all bad here. For me, this is paradise. Three older brothers and parents that never seemed to care, compared to that, this is heaven. If you don't mind me asking, what was your life before, you know, coming here."
Gilbert was a bit miffed, but he calmed and decided to answer the blonde.
"I lived in a small town with my father and little brother. Mom's dead, but we lived a peaceful life. Except every year on this day, that is. Never liked it. The way our elders paraded us like offerings for a sacrifice."
He dreaded the thought of his younger brother all alone with his father getting up in the years. And come next year he'd be old enough to be committed. He didn't want to see him again if possible. Not here anyway.
The silence settled in after that. It was a long while before either spoke again. It was the blonde.
"I never did catch your name. Beilsmith?"
"It's Beilschmidt. Don't get that fancy tongue of yours messin' it up again."
"Beilschmit." He repeated, only to fail at the pronunciation. Gilbert had let it pass with a 'close enough'. He blamed it on the weird language they spoke. Then the boy held up his hand for a shake. "Kirkland. Arthur Kirkland of Great Britania."
Gilbert eyed the action with skepticism but slowly accepted it with a shake of his own.
"Gilbert. Gilbert Beilschmidt of Deutschenland."
The blonde smiled.
"Welcome to the Academy of Redemption for the Punished."
Within the Tower of Despair, Ellis wandered the halls pondering her day. She studied the murals on the walls, each coming to life the longer she looked at them. Slowly they had moved from scene to scene depicting of their triumph over good. The littlest things really, but in fairy tales of good and happiness, the littlest can seem to be the greatest of victories.
Looking at them, she wondered if she can ever be like them. Witches and liars, Evil and rotten. But more so, she wondered why. Why is it they became this way. Why is it that even the smallest things can seem so big. Why is it that she was here. Why is it that she felt that she belonged. Yet she doesn't know her reason.
It was at the end of the tour when she started to question why. And even now she has no answer. When the Instructor asked the class their reason for being here, even the quiet spoken Galante boy, Raivis, she had learned, only a mere thirteen, had known why he was here.
At first, she did not understand. His reasoning, as he had put it 'I hurt with my words', was definitely something a child could and would do. For a boy of thirteen it seemed natural to tease others. It was a part of adolescence, she had mused as she remembered the children back home. Teasing was normal for them, it was a sign of kinship. Then she thought back to how some of them used to bully others just the same with name calling and such. But it was hard to believe of the boy whom she shares a schedule with.
When she was done with her stroll, Ellis returned to her room. She was the only student to receive a single bed room. It was odd when others had either roommates of two or three, but she gladly accepted it along with her place and schedule for her time at the Academy of Desolation for the Sinned. She looked over her schedule again.
It read:
Ellis Knight of Deutschenland
Tower: Despair Rm. 368
Year : 1 ~Witchcraft
Period 1: The Art of Deceit...Emily Strange
Period 2: History of Fairy Tales...Mana Emerson
Period 3: Self Defense Arts...Rhodenia Kaien
Period 4: Literature...Miranda Rosenberg
Lunch
Period 5: Revenge 101...Magnus Fierro
Period 6: Survival...Mikael
The more she looked it over, the more unease she felt. Then she thought back to the beginning. Maybe it was a mistake, there were plenty of signs pointing her to be a misfit, with the way she messed up her schedule, and her entrance from the moor. But there was only one way out, and that is through a fairy tale, but that can only happen after graduation. She sighed and put her schedule on the lamp desk next to her bed and slept on it, praying for the safety of the other who was taken alongside her.