5: nothing to do

Edward had time to do some homework, and then class started again. Fifth, sixth, and seventh period passed in a blur, all were fairly interesting classes, though none were incredibly exciting. Before too long, the school day was over and Edward went back to his room again. In an hour and a half or so, he managed to complete all of his assignments with relative ease. Finally he thought, with a sigh of relief, and sat down on the bed in his room. He checked the clock. There was still two hours until dinner. Now what was he supposed to do?

As of yet, he had no friends to talk to. There was nothing in his room that he could use to busy himself with. He didn't know the school very well at all. What was there to do?

Then he had an idea. I wonder if Greto is still in the art room, cleaning up or something? he mused. It was worth a shot, so he found the energy to get up off of the bed and go all the way to the art room, which was about ten minutes away from his dorm. On his way there, he passed the administration offices. He took a long pause to look at the tightly closed door, and continued on his way.

It came about two minutes into the walk. There was that unnatural feeling that he just couldn't shake off! It was like he was being squeezed into a box, all cramped and claustrophobic. If only he could figure out what it was, then he might be able to control the uneasiness he felt while wandering around the school. He just couldn't get rid of it.

After several more minutes, he reached the art room. When he opened the door, he faced an empty space. The tables splashed with paint had no one sitting at them, no one was standing on the hard linoleum floor, no one was painting on a canvas in a corner. It was desolate. Well, so much for that idea.

He trudged back to his dorm room, utterly alone, still with that unnatural feeling that followed him around. Not really paying attention to the turns in the hallway, he took a wrong path and realized a moment later that he was lost. He was in a section of the school that he had never seen before, with classrooms unfamiliar to him. He looked around in confusion. How had he even gotten here? He walked down a little more to the end of the hall, still lost. Let's see, he reasoned. Maybe if I retrace my own steps...

Walking backward down the hall, he still got nowhere. It felt like he was just blindly changing direction and turning corners, with no idea as to his destination. He took a couple more turns, until he ran into something of interest. In the middle of a hallway, there were two large, ornate doors, dark red with intricate carvings over them. Such fancy doors were unexpected in the school, so Edward stopped and looked. Then he noticed the sign over the doors. Chapel it said. Edward felt a bit of triumph inside. Greto worked in the chapel, and there was a slim chance he would still be there!

Edward pushed open the heavy doors, and entered the chapel. As the door swung back behind him, Edward just stood there, transfixed, looking at the magnificent interior of the chapel. To say that it was impressive was an understatement. It was stunning, the grandeur of it all. The arched ceiling rose high above Edward's head, and from it hung a large crystal chandelier, soft, blue, light radiating from all corners of it. It covered the entire room in cool hues. From Edward's vantage point stretched a long aisle, rows and rows of pews extending from either side of it. On the walls, the ceiling, and even the soft carpet beneath his feet, were ornate designs featuring images of animals, some he recognized from Earth, some he had never seen before, images of humans, images of monsters. At the end was an altar, where a single man stood leaning against the wall.

"Greto!" Edward exclaimed, and walked forward through the pews to meet his friend.

"Hey, man," greeted Greto, moving away from the wall and toward Edward. "Nice to see you. How was the rest of your first day?"

"It was alright," said Edward truthfully.

"Yeah. I have a feeling you'll like it more later. It's a pretty awesome place here."

Edward remembered what Leffa and Jarex had said about the Academy of Doom and wasn't sure who to believe.

As Edward's gaze went all around the intricate details of the chapel, he noticed something near the very front of the room. Up above the altar, the images of four different monstrous beings adorned the ceiling. He asked Greto, with his finger extended in the air, pointing to the figures, "Are those the four gods you told me about yesterday?"

Greto turned toward Edward and nodded with a smile. "Yeah, those are the four gods that created everything. That one's-" he pointed to a massive, raging red boar on the far left with long, curved tusks and a ring of flame surrounding it, "-the fire god, and then this one," he pointed to a sea monster with a long, curved neck and rows of sharp teeth, "is the water god, and then this one," he gestured toward a falcon-like monstrosity with a curved beak and four outstretched wings, "is air, and then the last one," he pointed toward a somewhat humanoid thing with an ugly, squat head perched on a massive body, "is, of course, earth."

"They don't look particularly friendly," commented Edward.

Greto shrugged. "Well, they're in charge of it all, and I think they've done a pretty good job so far, don't you?"

Edward was silent for a moment, and then he spoke up. "So does this religion work like some of the religions on Earth?"

"You mean Christianity and stuff?" Greto asked. "Well, sort of. Like, there's a lot less... well... it's not as profound and stuff. It's more like saying 'Hey, man, thanks for creating the world,' instead of being all profound about it."

Edward nodded. Then, he remembered the scrap of paper he had found on the ground after lunch that morning, and a question formed in his mind. "Do the gods ever, say, chose anyone?"

"Huh?"

"I mean, has anyone ever been, say, chosen by the gods to be a hero or something similar? Because, you see, I have heard... that there might be a chosen one."

"Oh, well... um..." Greto said rather sheepishly. "Well, the thing is... um... well...," Greto paused, clearly in an undesirable situation, "...just don't worry about it, okay?"

Edward looked a little suspicious and concerned.

"It's nothing big, it's just that there are, you know, rumors and stuff. Probably not true, but yeah... just forget about it."

Edward knew that forgetting about it was the last thing his mind would do.

Greto looked at his watch. "Listen, I have some stuff to do, you know, prepare for art class tomorrow, so, yeah."

"Alright, then," said Edward, and made the long walk down the aisle of the chapel to the outside world, not exactly trusting Greto right now.

Now what do I do? he asked himself. Looking at a nearby clock on the wall, he noticed that he still had about an hour and a half to kill before dinner.

Since he couldn't think of anything else, he just started walking back to his dorm room. Then he realized that he was still lost somewhere in the school, and he had no idea how to get to his dorm room from here. Eh, I have time to kill, he rationed. I'll just go for a walk until I find the dorms.

He began a stroll through the corridors, looking at his surroundings as he passed. The school was really an interesting place. Maybe he should go on walks more often. However, it wasn't long until that uneasy feeling settled in.

What the hell is that? It's the same feeling every time! he questioned to himself. It was driving him insane, this odd, cramped, crushing feeling he got whenever he walked through the corridors.

Then, all of a sudden, in a brilliant realization, it occurred to him what it was. The school has no windows! He had just realized that the source for this cramped sensation was that, ever since two days ago when he had entered the school, he had never seen the outside of this building before. This was of course, he immediately realized, due to the school's enormous size, and the fact that it was all contained inside one building. He was most likely in the middle of the school right now, with several floors of classrooms above him, and several down below, and rooms and rooms on every side of him. Aha, he thought. Now that he had discovered the source of his discomfort, it hardly bothered him anymore.

But what if the people running the school want to hide something from us?

What? That's ridiculous! he assured himself. I've been outside of the school, in the actual Kingdom of Doom itself, when Greto first brought me here. There was nothing special there.

Still, he couldn't shake off the feeling that something was up with the way the school was being run.

* * * * *

As he neared the area where the dormitories were, he ran into a familiar face along the way.

"Hi, Edward!" said Leffa brightly. Edward couldn't help but feel happy that she was taking the initiative to greet him, this was the first step in making friends.

"Hello," greeted Edward. "How are you doing?"

"Okay," she said with a smile. "We got so much homework today, though!" she added, looking a little outraged. "I just finished it like ten minutes ago!"

Edward decided to not tell her that he had finished over an hour ago. "It was pretty difficult," he said.

"So... I guess I'll see you later," she told him.

"Alright. Bye," he called, while she walked past him down the hallway. As her long, blond hair streamed behind her as she walked, Edward couldn't help admitting that she was rather pretty.

* * * * *

Jarex was arm and arm with his new woman, the red-headed one he had picked up yesterday at dinner. Together they sat down at a booth in the dimly lit cafeteria together for dinner. It had turned out the girl's name was Kalie, and she was actually a pretty awesome and hot person. The best thing about going out with her, however, was that after just being dumped by Sellara, Jarex managed to just get a new girl right away. If he hadn't, there would have undoubtedly been gossip about him, and not in a good way. But now? He showed them that if Jarex wants a girlfriend, he gets a girlfriend. Nothing could stand in his way.

Side by side, they ate their school dinner together. "So," Jarex said with a casual flick of his hair, "how's it going?"

She swallowed a bite of food, and replied "Yeah, it's going okay." After a moments pause, she giggled. "What about you?"

"Yeah, I'm doing fine, except Mr. Faverbro was being a bitch today and gave me a detention. Who knows why."

"Aw, that's too bad," Kalie said sympathetically.

"Meh, I'm used to it, it's not too bad."

Then, another boy came over to the booth and put his tray down next to Jarex's. "Hello," the boy said. "Is it alright if I sit here?"

Jarex didn't say anything, and the boy took it as an invitation to sit down. Jarex looked up at the boy. It was that one kid, the one he was assigned to for his project on the government. What was his name? Edward? Yeah, that was it. What kind of asshole is he? Jarex asked himself. Who sits down next to a guy and his girlfriend when they're eating dinner together? Maybe the kid just didn't get it. He was a bit of a loser, it seemed. With his odd, stiff manner of talking, and his round glasses, he wasn't exactly the coolest person that Jarex had ever met.

For a moment the three ate together, Jarex and Kalie curled up side by side, when Edward made attempts to start conversation. "How are you doing?"

"We're eating dinner," Jarex said bluntly, and Kalie giggled next to him.

Edward gave a forced laugh, and kept it up with the attempts to make discussion. "I somewhat enjoyed my first day here," he said casually.

"I didn't enjoy your first day here," said Jarex flatly, and took some more bites out of his food. Kalie giggled again, she seemed prone to giggling at whatever Jarex said.

"Well, I apologize if you had a bad day," said Edward.

"I've had a shitty week, man," Jarex complained. Kalie stroked his hair a little in sympathy.

Edward looked somewhat appalled at Jarex's use of a swear word, but he seemed to recover rather quickly. "Well, that's misfortunate."

"Why the fuck do you talk like that?" asked Jarex rather harshly.

"Why do I talk like what?" asked Edward in response.

"Like you're a fucking robot. You're all like, 'I apologize for the inconvenience' and 'I somewhat enjoyed my day'. What the fuck? Do you have some sort of mental disease?" Jarex cruelly spit out, while Kalie clung to his side.

Edward looked down at his lap. "I do not... I mean... I don't talk like a robot, I... you... you must be mistake-... I mean you must be wrong."

Jarex had to try hard not to laugh.

Several moments of awkward silence passed, with Edward biting his lip and staring sullenly at his lap, and Jarex and Kalie cuddling while taking bites out of their food.

"So, you coming to my room tonight, Kalie?" asked Jarex, breaking the silence.

"Um, girls are prohib-... I mean girls aren't allowed to go into the boy's dorm rooms," Edward pointed out.

Jarex turned to Edward and gave him a cold, steely glare. "Dude. Just fuck off somewhere, okay? Fuck off."

Edward's mouth hung open, and after sitting there gaping for a moment, he picked up his dinner tray and left, his head hung down. Serves him right, Jarex thought spitefully, as he watched Edward search for another seat.

"It's just you and me," Jarex whispered to Kalie, and she snuggled closer to him in the candlelit booth.

* * * * *

After taking their time over dinner, the couple put their trays away. "Alright, come on," Jarex whispered to his girlfriend as they left the cafeteria, with Kalie's arm wrapped around Jarex's waist. "I've got something awesome to show you in my dorm room. It's awesome," he said with a wink and a flick of his hair. She giggled, and gave him a quick kiss on the cheek.

Out of the corner of his eye, Jarex noticed many other boys giving the two spiteful looks. He laughed at these pitiful fools who couldn't even get a girlfriend, a task so easy for him. It was very rare that Jarex ever socialized with another boy. He didn't see the point. He wasn't interested in the crap that most guys were, stuff like sports and shit. He had never been much for sports. Girls were way hotter than guys, obviously, and otherwise they were more or less the same, so why not just hang out with the girls? One might think it would bother him, having half the grade hate him, but when the other half absolutely loved him, it wasn't that bad.

After five minutes or so's walk, Jarex turned the key in the door to his room, and one he got in, Kalie immediately made herself at home and flopped down on the bed. "So, what's this awesome thing you have to show me?" she asked.

"One sec..." Jarex mumbled, who was searching through a pile of stuff on the floor for something. "Okay, here it is."

He had pulled out an old, wooden acoustic guitar that looked quite the worse for wear. It had large scrapes all over it, and a chunk of wood was even missing from the side of it. Fiddling with the strings a little, Jarex sat down on the bed next to Kalie, with the guitar in his lap.

"You play guitar?" she asked curiously.

"Hell yeah," he said with a smile. "Guitar is awesome."

"So...?" she said, in anticipation.

"Alright, here we go," Jarex announced, and muttered under his breath "1, 2, 3, 4..."

He started to strum some chords on his acoustic guitar, playing a tune, playing it rather fast. Kalie giggled and Jarex looked her in the eye. Then he started to sing.

"Kalie... I'd give it all for you..." he sang softly, as he looked at her eyes. Inside, however, he was trying not to let his gaze drift to her chest. Damn, she is hot, he told himself, as he strummed some more chords. "Kalie, you are my true..." he cooed, "love..." he finished, and she giggled.

He played the rest of the song he had composed for her, and she laughed the entire way. This is going awesome, he thought. After he played the final note, she clapped and laughed.

"That was awesome!" she exclaimed. "Did you write that?"

Jarex nodded proudly. "I've written more. That's my first love song, and it's my first for acoustic guitar. So... yeah."

"Wow!" she said excitedly. "You should really write more."

"I probably will," he said. "Anyway, I kind of haven't even started my homework yet, so you know, I'd really like to be with you more, but I kind of have to..."

"Yeah, I know," she said as she got up off of the bed, giving him a quick peck on the cheek, and left the room.

That was fucking awesome! Jarex thought inwardly, as he punched the air. She was really, really hot. Her personality's nice too.

* * * * *

Edward couldn't get to sleep. The chosen one... the chosen one... was still running through his head. What did it all mean?

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