4: day one
monsters... in a forest... the game must be played... no... no... no... NO... thump
thump
thump
As soon as the soft thump of the alarm clock sounded, Edward's eyes shot wide open. Unlike the previous day, he was not the least bit tired. Last night, after eating dinner with Greto, he had promptly gone to bed, and had a great night's sleep. He was that excited for today.
It was his first day at the Academy of Doom, and he could hardly contain his excitement. Yet, deep down there was also a bit of anxiety. That was natural for his first day, though, and he had gone through this many times before whenever he tried a new experience. It was just that he had never been so far away from home before, and he had never done anything quite as bizarre as this before. It's perfectly natural to be afraid, he told himself.
He got up out of bed, and rummaged through a pile of clothes that Greto had given him to wear. They weren't his standard apparel, but they would do. He put on a plain blue t-shirt, and then a pair of jeans. He checked his reflection in the mirror, and realized that he didn't look that bad. Preparing to leave, he looked in the corner of his room and found a backpack that Greto had given him to transport his books from class to class. It was filled with school supplies that were provided for him. The last thing he did before he left the room was putting his glasses on his face, and then he left to go to breakfast.
Not surprisingly, he had forgotten the path to the cafeteria and had to follow a couple other students down the corridors to his destination. When he got there, though, he picked up the procedure quickly and grabbed a tray off of a stack next to the door and stood in line. At first he was going to attempt to converse with the people next to him in the line, but all of the nearby people were girls wrapped up in their own conversations, so instead he just stood and patiently awaited his meal.
When he picked out several pancakes and some cereal, he sat down at an empty lunch table in the designated section for his grade. The entire cafeteria was swarming with at least four thousand people, and it took a little work to find the place in which his class was supposed to eat. Once he found it though, he dug in and began to enjoy his breakfast. Nobody joined him at his empty table, but he didn't mind.
After finishing his food, he reached into his pocket and grabbed the schedule that he had been given. He unfolded it, and as he was smoothing it out on the table he looked to see what his first period class was. "Mr. Faverbro," he quietly read aloud. Now where was that classroom? He remembered Greto showing him yesterday, but he couldn't recall how to get there from the cafeteria. Noticing people grabbing their backpacks and leaving, he followed the pack of kids to the area where most of their classes were. It was no time before he found his first period class. He was the first one to arrive in the room, and he took a seat in the front row. He was surprised at how much it looked like a traditional classroom, with rows of desks, a whiteboard with some notes still written on it, a couple posters, and a desk at the front of the room for the teacher. Greto had told him what the classes were like, not focused on any particular subject, but by glancing around at his surroundings, Edward sensed that this was probably some sort of math class.
In a minute or so, the teacher walked in. Edward turned around to look at him. He was a large, potbellied man, with a bald head and a thick, bushy black mustache. Seeing Edward looking at him, he gave a small nod of the head, and walked past Edward to the desk at the front of the room.
"Excuse me, do you happen to be Mr. Faverbro?" Edward asked politely
"Yes, I am, and you are in my class. You must be..." he sat down at his desk and peered at a piece of paper lying on the wooden surface "Edward Thatcher," he gruffly finished. "Welcome to the Academy of Doom," he said, extending his hand.
Edward firmly grasped it, and gave a full handshake. Mr. Faverbro had an crushing grip, and once he let go Edward massaged his sore hand.
Soon, more people filed into the room, and a boy sat down next to him in the front row. "Hello," Edward said politely. The boy nodded. He had short, spiky black hair and a friendly face that made him seem like a nice person. "I'm Andrew," he said warmly. "What's your name?"
"Edward."
"Are you the new kid here?"
"I suppose so," said Edward. "I just arrived here from planet Earth. Judging by your name... I suppose that you came from Earth too."
"Yeah!" said Andrew, with a spark of joy in his voice. "Although, it was like two years ago that I left... I kind of miss Earth. It was pretty cool. I liked the peanuts. Did you know that they don't have peanuts here in the Kingdom of Doom? Which means no peanut butter!"
"I can't say I really miss peanut butter that much. The smell bothers me a little," said Edward, amused by this boy.
"Are you kidding me!? Peanut butter is the thing I miss most about Earth! I wish I could just have a little taste of peanut butter again..." he trailed off, into a thoughtful silence.
"I suppose the thing I miss the most is-"
The deep, booming voice of Mr. Faverbro cut him off. "Hello, class."
The whole room, which had previously been abuzz with chatter and conversation fell silent.
"We have a new student today, class. Edward, please stand up."
Edward obediently rose from his chair and turned around to face the class.
"Welcome to the school, young man. Come here, please."
Edward navigated around the desks to stand next to the large man.
"Please tell the class about yourself, Edward."
"Well," he started. "I'm Edward, and I used to live on Earth, until several days ago when I was brought here. I am very grateful for the opportunity to go to this school."
Edward looked next to him at Mr. Faverbro, and he seemed satisfied with what Edward had told him, so he sat back down at his desk, and Mr. Faverbro began to teach.
To Edward's immense enjoyment, the class was very, very interesting. However, Edward had a feeling that he was one of the few that thought that. Mr. Faverbro taught the class high-level physics, all of which were fascinating to Edward. He knew the basics, and he had previously learned some of what Mr. Faverbro was discussing, but to hear it fully explained like this was so engrossing, Edward found himself wrapped up in the class discussion, not thinking about anything else. However, a bunch of kids in the back just talked and made rude comments the entire time, forcing Mr. Faverbro to lose his cool, which severely disrupted the lesson and made both Edward and Mr. Faverbro a little angry.
After he had finished talking to the class, he passed out some worksheets to the students for them to complete. "You can work in partners," he said simply, and then sat down at his desk and began to grade stuff. Edward turned to Andrew, but Andrew was already working with another kid, so he turned to the person on his other side. She was a girl with long, flowing blond hair, hunched over her desk, pen in hand, intently working on something unseen to Edward. He lightly tapped her on the shoulder, and she spun around, hastily covering up whatever she was working on. "Excuse me," Edward said, "Do you want to work together?"
Caught by surprise, her stunned look turned into a smile. "Yeah, sure! I don't understand any of this stuff anyway... that would be great."
"Oh, well I think I understand some of it," Edward said with false modestly.
"Wow, that's weird. You're new, and you get it? When I was new like six months ago, I had no clue what was going on." After a moment's pause, she continued. "Still don't."
"Well, I just happen to understand some of these concepts fairly easily, I suppose."
The girl shrugged. "Anyway, I'm Leffa."
"I'm Edward," Edward said.
"Yeah, I know, Mr. Faverbro told us, remember?"
"Oh, that's right. By the way... what was that you were working on before?"
She blushed, and at first it seemed like she was moving her hand in an attempt to cover it up, but then she though better of it and showed it to Edward. "It's a poem I wrote," she said.
Edward nodded, and Leffa placed a couple books on top of the paper. Brushing her bright blond hair out of her eyes, and smoothing the front of her white shirt, she leaned forward to look at the worksheet. "So... how do you solve this problem here?"
"Well," said Edward, "I think you just have to move x over here... and then you-"
The girl interrupted him. "Don't you hate it here?"
"What?" Edward said, having not really heard.
"I mean, doesn't this place, the Academy of Doom totally suck? Like... a lot?"
"I don't see why you would say that," said Edward confusedly. "It seems like a nice place so far."
"It. Sucks," Leffa said in a low voice. "All the teachers talk about all this stuff that no one understands, and they give us so much homework and expect us to do it all. It seems okay at first, but believe me, after a while..." She trailed off.
"Um... right," muttered Edward. "So, anyway, you move the x over here next to the y..."
After first period, Edward looked at his schedule. In the second period block on his schedule it said in large letters "CHOICE ACTIVITY". Wondering what that meant, he asked Leffa as she was gathering up her belongings. "Oh, yeah. We get to choose our second period class."
"I haven't chosen anything yet," said Edward confusedly.
"Well, then you might want to see Mrs. Sansimero. She's in the office downstairs, she can tell you what choice activity you're supposed to be in."
Edward left Mr. Faverbro's classroom and walked down a flight of stairs to an office, where a woman, presumably Mrs. Sansimero, with brown hair in a tight bun and a stern, lined face was sitting at a desk. When she saw Edward enter the office, her face lit up. "Hello!"
"Hello. I'm here to find out what choice activity I am in. Do you have any idea?"
"Well," the woman said, "It's a choice activity, which means you get to choose. The ones we have open are..." she paused for a moment, as if trying to recollect an escaped thought, "...oh yes. Orchestra with Mrs. Marniavo, technology with Mr. Avo, theater with Mrs. Juletta, chess club with Mr. Maxwell. And... that's it. You can decide!"
Edward had to think about this choice for a moment. He had been fairly proficient in chess back on planet Earth, but to tell the truth it was getting old by now, and he would like something new. Theater had never been his thing, nor had technology and using computers. He did enjoy music a lot, and maybe orchestra could be a fun and interesting experience. He decided to choose that one.
"I think I'll go with orchestra, if you please."
"Great," said Mrs. Sansimero. "Now what instrument do you play?"
"Well, I do play the piano, but that's not an orchestra instrument."
"Oh, I'm sorry... but you have to already play an instrument to be in the orchestra," she said apoligetically. "Although, the talent show is coming up, you could play piano in that."
He nodded. "Is that all the choices there are?"
"I think so... let me check," she began, thumbing through some papers. "Oh, wait, there's one more. Art class with Greto."
"Greto?" Edward burst out. "He's an art teacher?"
"Is that the class you want?" asked Mrs. Sansimero.
"Yes, please!" exclaimed Edward.
When Edward walked into the busy art room, Greto, who was sitting at a table toward the side of the room, still with messy hair and an unshaven beard, although this time wearing an art apron, looked up, surprised, and a wide smile broke out on his face.
"Edward! You're in my art class!" he exclaimed.
"Yes, I know. I didn't know you were a teacher here."
"Yeah, I teach art, and I also organize weekly services in the chapel for people who... you know, want to pray to the old gods. I thought I had told you that before, didn't I?"
"No, you didn't," Edward said simply.
After a couple moments of silence, Greto said "Look, I know your opinion on religion and stuff, but since it's proven that the Old Gods are real and actually did make the planets and stuff, I think we should show them that we appreciate that and pray to them maybe just like once a week."
Edward nodded. "I understand. So, what is my assignment here in your class?"
Greto got up from the chair he was sitting in. "Alright, first we'll get you some paint!"
Greto's art class was incredibly fun, but still Edward looked forward to his third period class, in the hopes that it would be as fascinating as his first period class. He managed to get out of art class early, and without much difficulty find his way to the room where he had his next class. He didn't know what it was about yet, but he did know that the teacher's name was Mr. Bugorusho. When he got in, however, he noticed that the entire class room was covered in the colors orange, black, and white. Confusedly, he looked around some more and noticed a teacher.
"Hello, Mr. Bugorusho, I'm Edward, and I'm new," he said, upon seeing the man. He was tall, thin with short, cropped brown hair and looked to be in his early thirties.
"Hey! Nice to meet you!" Mr. Bugorusho said. This man seemed like he was nicer than Mr. Faverbro.
"Can you please tell me something?" Edward asked somewhat hesitantly.
"Yes, of course! What is it?" he said warmly.
"Why is the room in all these different colors?" He pointed to the walls that he was inquiring about.
"I can see why you might not know that if you're new! They're the colors of the Kingdom of Doom. Orange, black, and white are our colors."
This made lots of sense to Edward. "Thanks," he said, and then took a seat in the front row, like always.
Once more people entered the room, sat down and settled down, the lesson began. In a short amount of time, Edward sensed that, like how Mr. Faverbro had a penchant for teaching physics, the area that Mr. Bugorusho liked to teach was politics. He was discussing the current structure of the government in the planet of Water. Edward had a little difficulty picking up what was going on, because as of yesterday, he had never even heard of the planet of Water, and this was his first day in class. He did manage to figure out that the system of government in several countries in Water was called a "virtoucracy", although figuring the characteristics of this government was difficult for him. It was incredibly interesting to hear what it was like living on other planets, although from what he gathered, much of it was just like living on Earth.
Halfway though the lesson, Mr. Bugorusho told the class that they were to begin a project related to government structures. The class did a sort of simultaneous groan when he announced this, and he gave a short laugh.
"Well, anyway, I'll give you the details of the project in a moment, but for now, I will assign partners!"
"You mean we don't get to pick our partners?" called a voice in the back.
"No, but I'm sure you'll like the project anyway!"
More groans were audible from throughout the class.
"Alright, now the partners will be... Harvet and Rochne, Miranda and Lami, Wodo and James, Miraksi and Fallar, Edward and Jarex..."
Edward's name had been called, but he didn't recognize the name Jarex. Oh, well, he would likely find out in a moment.
Sure enough, after he called the last pair of "Richard and Fallimo", Mr. Bugorusho told the class to go briefly meet with their partners, and so Edward got out of his seat, hoping that he could find the boy named Jarex. After searching around for a couple seconds to no avail, "Who's Jarex?" he asked of a boy in his class. The boy looked around, and pointed at a kid that was still sitting at his desk, leaning back casually in his chair, making no effort himself to find Edward.
When Edward first saw Jarex, he almost burst out laughing. He was billions of miles away from his home, and they still had the same ridiculous trends as they did back on Earth! This kid was the poster child of the widely hated and completely ridiculous "emo" trend, with the black hair that hung down over one eye, the sullen look, the tight jeans, and the dark clothing. He would have to constantly remind himself that he was on an alien planet! Next thing he knew, there would be American Idol on TV here!
He walked over to the desk in which Jarex was sitting. "Hello, I'm Edward. I'm your partner for this project we've been assigned." Jarex looked up at him from his reclining position in the chair.
"Huh?" he grunted.
"I said, I'm Edward and I'm your partner for this project we've been assigned," he patiently repeated.
"Uh... yeah. I'm Jarex..." said the boy, rubbing his eyes. It looked like he was about to fall asleep. Probably stayed up cutting himself, thought Edward with an inward chuckle.
"So," said Edward, attempting to start a discussion on the project, "Can you explain to me what we're covering in this class, so that I can help with the project?"
Jarex stared at him for a moment with dark, intense eyes. "No," he said simply, and put his head down on his desk.
"Come on! Do you want to get a good grade on this project?" he asked pleadingly, knowing that this was often an incentive to students.
"Not really," Jarex said again, not lifting his head up from the desk.
Edward was taken aback by this rash statement. "But... surely you want to pass your classes here, don't you?"
Jarex looked up, straight into Edward's face with a serious expression. "My parents aren't here. They won't know if I get crappy grades. You need to do terribly to get kicked out of this school, and not doing a great job on this project won't drop my grade down to that level. Even if it did, I don't care. I hate it here, it would be nice to leave. Now please let me sleep, I'm really tired."
With this, he laid his head back down on the desk and shut his eyes.
"Jarex?" Edward asked.
He didn't answer.
This would be a frustrating project.
Before too long, Edward left his third period class to go to his fourth period class. He noticed a slight rumbling in his stomach. Grabbing his schedule out of his pocket once again, he noticed that his fourth period class was with Mrs. Joaba, and right after that was his lunch. He was looking forward to that!
While he was trying to get to his next class, he noticed that whenever he was walking through the corridors, he had a slightly disturbed feeling. A cramped, creepy feeling, like everything was squeezing in on him. It was odd, as he rarely got feelings like this. There was something innately claustrophobic about this place, and he couldn't put his finger on what it was. He decided to just ignore it for now.
After a while, he found Mrs. Joaba's classroom.
Mrs. Joaba had a different classroom than the previous ones he had been in. While in the previous two classrooms he had been in, the walls were decorated with posters pertaining to the teacher's field. However, this class's walls were completely white, with no posters or decorations on them whatsoever. In the back of the room was a desk, which was currently empty. In the middle of the room were several large tables, with chairs arranged around them. Unlike the other classrooms which had hard, plain seats, this room had armchairs that looked extremely cozy and comfortable, and sure enough, kids were relaxing in them waiting for the teacher to come in. Some of them had their eyes closed. In the front of the room, next to the door was a whiteboard. Five words were written on this whiteboard:
Confusedly, Edward looked around. Kids were sprawled in armchairs, just sitting there, some sleeping, and there was no teacher to be seen. Wondering what the heck was going on, Edward sat down in a nearby armchair. They were as comfortable as they looked. He didn't blame other kids for falling asleep in there. He decided just to wait there until the teacher came in.
Some time passed.
The teacher still hadn't entered the room. Odd. He looked back at the board. "The true worth of science", he quietly said, pondering as to what this could mean.
Some more time passed.
There was still no teacher. What kind of class was this?
Some more time passed.
Some more time passed
Some more time passed, and finally, a young woman walked in the room. Edward assumed she was the teacher, finally.
"Alright class!" she said in a bright and cheery voice. "What are your thoughts on the topic on the board?"
Kids opened their eyes, sat up in their chairs, and stretched. Some people raised their hands.
The teacher pointed to a boy near the front of the room, whose hand was extended in the air. "Well, when I was thinking about this, I realized that science was a lot more important than we give it credit for."
"Are you kidding me? I thought that science is a lot less important that what we might think!" a girl in the back blurted out.
"Are you crazy?" the boy retaliated. "It's obvious that-"
Mrs. Joaba held up a hand to stop him. "Now, now, we can be civilized about this."
For the remainder of the period, the discussion went like that. People offered their views on the "true worth of science" and the teacher made various interjections occasionally. However, a more interesting topic to Edward than the "true worth of science" was the way that this subject was taught! Edward couldn't believe that no one had ever came up with this before, it was... odd, to say the least. At first, when hearing about it, Edward would have said that people wouldn't think about the subject, they would just sleep! It certainly seemed some kids had been sleeping, but by listening to the discussion, Edward realized that people actually learned a lot by sitting, thinking, and hearing what others had to say about these subjects.
At the end of the class, the teacher told them to research "the true worth of science" for homework, and they were to leave. Edward was sad to leave behind his comfortable chair, but next was lunch! A welcome reprieve from the rest of the day's activities. Edward stowed his materials in his bag, and rushed off to the cafeteria for food. He thought that he might make it there first, but no, everyone wanted food just as much as he did, and when he got there the line stretched out into the halls. Fortunately, it was a fast-moving line, and Edward got a decent meal. There was an enormous variety of food for offer here. There were foods from most cultures on Earth in various places, he found pizza, burritos, and dumplings, but then there was food from other planets that he had never heard of. There was also the standard lunch stuff like soup and sandwiches (although, he did notice, there was no peanut butter and jelly).
Gripping his tray tightly, he surveyed the cafeteria for a possible place to sit. It wasn't as if he had any friends yet at this school. Hopefully that would change soon. He had talked to two friendly people today, maybe he could sit by them.
He found Leffa pretty quickly, but she was sitting with about ten other girls, and he decided that that might be a bit awkward, so he searched for Andrew. When Edward found him, he was sitting at a rectangular table in the middle of the room with a couple other guys. This would probably be the best place to sit for today, he rationed. So he sat down in an empty seat at the table.
"Hey, Edward!" said Andrew brightly.
"Hello," said Edward.
There were six people at the table, including Edward. Andrew was there with a couple of his friends. A boy who was very skinny with curly blond hair and another boy who was very fat were talking about mathematics. A kid with dark brown skin (his skin was the color that if this was Earth, Edward would have said he was Indian, but since this was the Kingdom of Doom, he might have been from a different planet) was trying to interrupt their conversation to tell them about some video game called Battlesector 3, and a kid who looked like he had severe ADD and was hopping up and down in his seat. Edward quickly realized that these were not the coolest kids ever.
The kid with the dark brown skin turned to Edward, who had the misfortune of sitting next to him. "Have you played Battlesector 3?" he asked feverishly.
"No, I don't care much for video games," said Edward.
"Well, even if you don't like video games, Battlesector 3 is AWESOME! You can unlock this amazing map that lets you play in the crater of a moon!"
"Oh, that's very interesting," mumbled Edward.
"I have that map!" said Andrew to the boy with dark skin. "It's so much fun!"
Happy that someone had interjected and that he didn't have to discuss this anymore, he quickly finished his food and put his tray away. Looking at his schedule, he noticed that he had an hour-long break between lunch and fifth period.
Maybe he would just go to his room and get a start on his homework.
His room was about a five minute walk from the cafeteria, and he began to increasingly notice that cramped, claustrophobic feeling he had had before. It slightly freaked him out, he had felt it the entire day, and couldn't figure out what it was or what was causing it.
Just ignore it, he said to himself. It's probably just because it's your first day, and you're nervous or something.
When he walked by the administrations office that he had asked Greto about before, he stopped in his tracks. For some reason, this section of the building had an air of mystery to it. The one that was supposedly just run "by the government, I guess". The tightly closed door had a pane of blue translucent glass embedded in it. It was impossible to see through the glass. Edward found this strange, as every other door in the building had a pane of clear glass. Oh well, it probably didn't mean anything.
Just as he was about to walk away, he noticed a piece of paper crumpled up on the ground. Cautiously, he walked over to the spot on the carpet where it lay and picked it up, and unfolded it.
"Hmm..." he quietly said. The words on this sheet of paper were certainly curious. In large, penciled letters on one side, it said "THE CHOSEN ONE"?. Just like that, with the quotation marks and the question mark outside of them. And just under the words was a symbol he had never seen before. It was like an X, but with an extra line extending downward from the center of the X. What is this?
Eh, it's probably just a project for a literature class. I mean, "the chosen one"? What the heck?
He then proceeded to walk the rest of the way to the dorm room. By the afternoon, he had forgotten all about it.
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