I just wanted to get to my room and sleep for the rest of the day. My mother said she had put my stuff there yesterday already. Not that I have a lot in the first place. I put my headphones on, trying to shut the world out and slowly made my way to the 4th floor. At least, that wasn’t hard, finding the room was equally uneventful. Please let there be no one in there. I turned the key in the hole, the door was locked. Seems like I got lucky. I entered and as expected, was alone for now.

On the right a saw a few boxes, which probably contained my stuff. I swear, if the absent roommate has touched anything in there, I going to rip him apart. Looking over the left, I saw the roommate’s bed and belongings and quickly tossed that thought out. Just from how his side of the room looked, I could tell that he probably was a shy nerd. That type wouldn’t touch my stuff if they have the slightest bit of common sense. 

There were like tons of books, stacked on his shelves and a few scattered on the bed. Apart from that, his side was remarkably tidy. A violin case was leaning on the wall. It made sense, this was a music-based school after all. But the violin? Really? That was just screaming ‘Oh please, bully me, new guy’.

I started unpacking my stuff, putting everything in the drawers and changed the bedsheets. I couldn’t help but notice every difference of this room compared to the ones I’ve lived in before. The furniture was intact, the lights were working, and the room was quite large. I guess, that’s the best thing about this sparkling shithole. 

By the time I was done, I felt like taking a shower, so that’s what I decided to do. I grabbed a new set of clothes, some sweatpants, underwear and a black T-Shirt and headed towards the closed door. Every room had its own bathroom containing a fairly large shower, and of course a toilet and a sink, everything kept equally clean as the rest of the place. Those damn rich kids. I quickly took off my clothes and tossed them on the floor. I stepped into the shower, turned on the water and cursed myself for enjoying the luxury of the perfect water pressure and temperature on my skin. I could stand inside the shower stall for hours, letting the water trickle down my body and thinking about nothing. 

I didn’t know how much time has passed, when I finally turned the water off again and stepped out of the shower to get dressed. It always felt great to wear new clothes after taking a shower and sleeping in a freshly made bed. I threw myself on said bed when the exhaustion of the day took over, and I immediately fell asleep.

A few hours later, I woke up and felt even worse than before. There’s the finest line between being completely refreshed and feeling like a piece of shit after napping. In my case, it was the latter which didn’t improve my mood at all. 

I went to the bathroom again, splashed cold water on my face while taking a look in the mirror. My face had its usual scowl plastered on, but the bags under my eyes were far darker than usual, which made me look even more pissed. I was staring at my face for a while, taking in my features. 

My dark blue eyes looked almost black in the right light, matching my eyebrows. My hair, on the other hand, was coloured in some kind of burgundy colour and was already growing out a bit, revealing the black roots. I usually had one side kempt back, but right now, my uncombed bangs laid flat on my forehead, almost covering my eyes. I had a few piercings decorating each ear and one in the middle of the tongue. 

I wanted to smash my fist against the mirror but suppressed the urge, because I didn’t want to destroy the room, I’m going to live in on the first day of staying here.

There was still not a trace of my roommate, but that didn’t bother me in the slightest. I took my laptop, turned it on and started watching some random series on Netflix. When I began to feel comfortable, I suddenly heard a few steps and hushed voices outside the door. Annoying.

´` ´` ´` ´` ´`

“I don’t want to go in,” the small boy whined, “Please let me sleep in your room tonight!”

“We’d love to, but the teachers are controlling our rooms tonight. Argh, that’s garbage, why would they put a delinquent in your room? Shouldn’t they care a little bit more for us?” his friend sighed. 

They were told only last week that starting today, a new student is going to share Misha’s room. If that wasn’t enough to make poor little Misha nervous, the teacher’s remark, he should better not get involved with this new person, send shivers down his spine. 

For the whole week, his imagination ran wild, trying to think of what he was like. Misha was sure, he was probably taller than himself, which wasn’t that difficult, because Misha was only 1,65m and most boys his age were at least 1,75m. Images of piercings, tattoos, drugs and similar things that are usually connected to the “bad-guy-image” flooded his mind. After worrying for days, his fantasy made up the picture of an at least 2m big person, full of body modifications and with black-coloured eyes. 

At some point, Misha was scared to death. Even though somewhere in his subconsciousness he knew, that he was rather imagining a demon instead of a person ‘he should better not get involved with’.

“Hey, hey, relax. You know how conservative Mr Parker is, that new guy probably just dyed his hair blonde and our teacher made him to be a prison inmate, the moment he heard of him. I also doubt that the principal let a dangerous boy in here, let alone tell all the teachers the details about a single new student. I’m sure it’s all fine. What’s his name again? K… Krane? He probably is a really ni-“

The door to their left suddenly flew open, revealing a deathly glare.