It was pretty early in the morning when I gathered the last of my things, pushing them into the largest suitcase as I gathered them all in the front room before tightly hugging Dad, he was trembling a little as he did so, as the last days before I left fell away he just got…more and more tense; his anxiety was palpable, you could feel how tense and the impossible tension in the air of the apartment as he was preparing himself for the idea of me leaving. Soon after breakfast, there was a knock at the front door. I walked away from the tight hug Dad was giving me as I walked over to the door, looking through the peephole as I reached up to the handful of locks that Dad had on the door.

 Outside the door was a rather petite woman, short clipped and roughly layered black hair, dark green eyes and tanned skin, dressed in a rather shocking shade of pink as a pencil skirt and a tucked in white blouse covered in paler pink polka-dots with ruffles on the neckline, a midground pink kerchief, lots of pearls and low pale pink heels, a pair of white pearl framed sunglasses rested at her hairline showing soft makeup around her eyes as her lips were painted dark pink, but…her ears didn’t have one point…but two. Dad didn’t seem to notice that her ears had multiple points to them as he was currently cowering around the corner towards his room.

“Kain Shepard?” she asked

“That’s me” I said as I started moving all of my bags over.

“Fantastic, we should get going it is…quite the trip.” She said, pausing as if she was trying to find the right words before settling on those as she took a few of the smaller bags as I moved them outside. “I was so happy to hear that you were joining us at the Academy, your mother was a…fantastic student.”

“Was she an…international student?”

“She was” she said with a soft nod, not really fazed at all as she just hefted the smaller bags up and bounded down the metal stairs, heels clacking against the material sharply as the early summer morning was rich with the scent of freshly hewn wood, dew and gasoline. “I’m…so sorry to hear what happened.”

“Its fine” I said, maybe a touch sharper than she was expecting me to say because I saw her expression be startled a little before a soft smile spread on her lips in a…weird expression like she put together why I responded like that. At the edge of the parking lot as close to the stairs as possible was this rather sleek and…weirdly expensive looking black car with a logo on the door of a gold ring occupied in the center by a long necked bird of some kind, massive feathery wings spread past the ring as its head was curled around and its massive almost peacock like tail fanned and spread out below it, the name of the school emblazed along the ring with a bundle of some kind of branches in one talon and a sword in the other with a crown on its head and a long ribbon held in its beak.

“I’m sure that a lot will have to be explained to you with how our school works, but…luckily we are more than prepared for situations like yours.” She said as she used her foot to pop open the trunk. She looked around a bit, almost like she was ensuring we were alone before just flicking her fingers in a weird way and like ropes were tied to my bags…they slid away from me and towards her before floating up and were almost vacuum sucked into the trunk of the car with a soft puff of glitter and soft white light.

“Um…what?” I asked extremely confused, she just softly laughed with a soft wink as she flicked a hand and the back door of the car opened as she got in the driver’s seat. I was still extremely, extremely confused, but…still felt this tether like cord on my chest pulling me forward before I slid into the backseat of the car, the door closing on its own. Inside was a bit…larger than I was expecting, not egregiously bigger, but just a touch. The woman in the driver’s seat adjusted the mirror before lowering her sunglasses as she started driving, but…as she drove…she didn’t go towards the highway, she was going north and…deeper into the forest.

“Um…where are we going?” I asked

“The school, where else” she asked with a soft laugh, “We were all informed that because of the time of your mother’s passing that you would have no idea about the world in which you were born into, but…for people like me…our abilities and skills just come to us so easily.”

“What world I was born into?” I asked feeling my heart race as I just out of instinct slid towards a door to reach for a handle, but she sighed as she turned down a road a car like this should not go down and a large bump instantly threw me back away from the door as I had unfastened to get close to the door. She slowed before stopped, but the moment I went for the doorhandle to run she just tutted her tongue in a way that made me freeze. She rose her hands and flicked her fingers around as the air shimmered around us before warping and with a soft bounce the car was…somewhere else. She started driving again.

“Ah, here we are” she said, “Welcome to Silverlane. It’s the town that Paradise Academy is in. Pocket dimension magic is…so…so good for things like this. The school is undetectable by humans, is connected to everywhere about the world, gives people of races who have trouble hiding themselves somewhere to live and of course, the city popped up after the school. The founders made the school to give kids like you and all of the others…a place to learn their magics, how to be adults, how to hide themselves amongst…everything else.”

“Magic?” I asked, “But…magic isn’t real”

“Dude, you just saw me do all of this and you’re still confused?” she asked laughing softly before motioning ahead, “Look”