'Thunder. Lightning lit up the pitch-black night sky as rain cascaded down the dirt road. A beautiful woman now bruised in multiple places ran. Trees and buildings pass, yet she runs to her destination. "You will come for me, love...and when you do, you will realize who you are." Her leg tripped on a stud that wasn't there a second ago, and she fell. A group wearing hoods neared her and the leader raised something that glinted against the lightning. "Aeris! Liga", the man shouted, extending an arm toward the sky."
My dream was cut short as a searing pain invaded my head. "Aaaaahhhh", I groaned. My head felt like a stampede was happening inside of it. I held my hands up to my temples and squeezed. Something pushed against my lips, and I opened them. A cool liquid with the viscosity of honey flooded my mouth. It flowed into my throat, the warmth soothing my raw throat, which I realized with a jolt was raw from screaming. My headache vanished just as suddenly as it had come, and I let out a sigh of relief. I realized that the liquid had been some type of healing serum, for I could feel strength returning into my body.
I managed to peel my eyes open and look around. Everything was blurry, but it soon clarified. I looked around and saw the face of a well-known man. Dr. Tejas, Dean of Elemental Academy.
"Welcome to Elemental Academy, Shravan," He said, spreading his hands open.
"What happened? Why am I here?", I ask because my memory is blurry.
"You passed the Elemental Test with strange colors. You are an Elementalist, but you performed your task uniquely. You see, the energy that fuels magic is called Mana. Everyone has a little bit of Mana in them. That's the basic energy that fuels life too. But the reason not everyone is an Elementalist is because only select people have sufficient Mana to even cast the most basic of spells. But even Elementalists don't have infinite mana. The more powerful an Elementalist is, the more Mana they have." Dr. Tejas paused to get a sip of water from the glass. "Among the first things that Elementalists learn is that they have to learn to get a feeling of how much Mana they have left. If they cast a spell that takes more than the amount of mana they have, the spell would start feeding on their life source. Because, as I said, a life source has a little bit of mana too. Feeding on the life source would mean life leaving your body, essentially killing you. The spell you cast in the Testing Field exceeded your Mana, so the spell started feeding on your life source. But the Elders were able to disable your spell just in time to save you. You're quite a handful, it is not a lot of times we see Elders carrying a fainted new apprentice into the halls of Elemental Academy." He said, ending with a grin spreading across his face. "Oh my! How rude of me to not introduce myself. My name is Dr. Tejas Bojanapati and I am the Dean of Elemental Academy. You may call me Dr. Tejas" He said, well knowing that I knew who he was. "Well, let me not hold you back anymore. You are probably curious to take a look around the school. One of your hallmates will show you around. Ayushi?" He finished, looking to the side outside the room.
An Asian girl entered, with jet black hair flowing down her back like water, she looked beautiful. But her eyes were what caught me. She had dark brown irises with amber flecks in them, that seemed to flicker in the light. She wore blue tight-skinned jeans and a red top.
"Hey Sleepyhead, done sleeping?" She asked, placing her hands on her hips, and giving a smirk. I rolled my eyes and got to my feet.
"Woah!" I exclaim as my feet felt unsteady, but I grabbed onto a bar in my bed and steadied myself. My feet immediately got used to walking after a long break and I was back steady. I walked toward the Asian girl and held out my hand. "I'm Shravan Parameswaran. You?" I asked, looking at her.
"Ayushi Priyadarshani", she said with a smile and accepted my extended hand.
"Well met, Ayushi" I tell, with a smirk of my own.
She rolls her eyes and asks: "You read a lot of stories, don't you?" She asks, noticing my grace in formal English.
"Mhm...Well? Let's look around the campus" I respond, my mind already drifting about how the campus would look.
"Sure, but do you want to go to our hall and meet our hallmates?" She asks, looking straight at me. I weighed if I wanted to meet my hallmates or see the school first. I figured the hallmates were better since one, they would be with me the entire time I am here, and second, they knew more about this place and could show me around the campus better.
I nodded and started walking out the door and picked a random direction out of left and right. "That's the wrong direction, Mushbrain" Ayushi's voice drifts from behind me. I stop in my tracks and turn around, red blooming in my cheeks. It was clear that she was trying not to laugh, for her mouth was pressed in a thin line and it was stuttering between being lifted upward and downward. Then, for some unknown reason, I burst out laughing. She looked at me and cocked her eyebrow. Then she burst out laughing along with me, and we both keeled over from laughing. I straightened and wiped tears from my eyes.
"I can't believe how much we are stalling for this matter" I say, rolling my eyes.
"We got all day, but you are right. Let's get moving." She responds, as her laughter ceases too. We walk–this time Ayushi guiding me–and walk through the maze of halls and windows and doors. The school looked enormous, with the halls weaving in and out of an intricate maze. Ayushi seemed to get lost a couple of times, but eventually, we made it.
We stopped in front of a thick oak door.
"Shravan, you need to memorize the words I am about to utter. It is a type of lock for the door. You need to place your hand on the door and repeat this command. If your hand matches its memory, it will open for you. Got it?" She says, looking at me to make sure I heard and understood it. I nodded and waved my hand to indicate for her to go on. "Apert Porta, ego huc pertinent". The doors swung open revealing a massive pathway leading to a common area, with sofas and flat-screen TVs. Even a mini kitchen was included. An Asian boy was sitting on the sofa, wearing a T-shirt that said: "Welcome the best Elementalist of the Year". He wore shorts that barely cleared his knee. He was a very tall boy, at least 5' 10", making him the tallest person I had seen.
"I am Shravan Parameswaran, you?" I ask, holding out my hand.
"Devansh Patel. Nice to meet you, Shravan" He said, shaking my hand.
"I finally tagged a name to the new famous guy", he says rolling his eyes.
"Wait...famous?" I ask, my brain catching up on the keyword of his sentence. "What do you mean famous?" I ask incredulously.
"Well, it's not every day we see the Elders asking everyone to move out of the way. They carried your limp body in, rushing straight to the Medical Center. You are a new apprentice like the rest of us. The entire school knows you." He says.
"Hey Ayushi, back from the Medical Center already?", A voice asked behind me. I turned around and saw ANOTHER Asian girl enter the room, carrying a notebook in her hands. There was a color pencil stuck above her ear and a streak of color on her fingertip. She was about as tall as Ayushi, which would be 5' 4" or so. She wore a brown, faded-out top which was filled with paint streaks. Her pants seemed to be like leggings, but regardless, they were pretty tight-skinned. Ayushi and the other Asian girl hugged each other, before coming apart. She took another take when she spotted me next to Devansh.
"Are you the...new guy? The one that the Elders rushed in?" She asks, her eyes widening.
"The one and only," I say simply spreading my arms out.
"You are OUR roommate? Oh my god, we are SO going to be the most famous hall" She says with the shock of a happy person.
"Either way, I am Shravan Parameswaran. You?" I ask, raising my hand for the third time that day.
"Cindy Cheng" She replies, shaking my hand.
"Pleasure to meet you, Cindy," I say grinning. "I don't know about you guys, but I'm sure as hell itching to look at the Academy grounds," I say, looking at all of them. They looked at each other and grinned.
"We all have had one day to look at the campus. The tests were yesterday morning, and we moved here yesterday around noon. You have been out since then. It's 1:45 pm now and we have got a lot of time to look around. Let's go, we can show you around all the famous places." Ayushi explains, looking excited. I grin and gesture to walk out the door.
"Well, SOMEONE is excited about school," Devansh says before walking out the door with Cindy. I trailed behind Ayushi out the door, excited to get my first actual look around the campus.
"We should go to the Cafeteria first, because I am starving," Devansh says, when his stomach growls.
"True. We all are probably starving after that extraordinary show of magic" I say when my stomach growls just as competitive as Devansh. Being the one to have gone around the campus the most, Cindy leads us to the Cafeteria. There was a variety of things ranging from noodles, burgers, pasta, pizzas, ramen, sushi, chapati, rice, Dosa, idly, soups, bread, and a lot more things. The Cafeteria had everything you could name. My mouth started to water when I saw all these exotic foods, most of which I had never been able to taste, coming from a Middle group.
I could see that all four of us were having similar reactions, which made me ask: "Are you guys Middles or Nobles?" I ask, looking at them.
"You think they would mix Nobles and Middles? Of course, we all are Middles", Ayushi says with a look of obviousness. It probably is the most obvious thing. Why would the Nobles want to be mixed with Middles and Middles with Nobles?
We practically hate each other. "Yeah...true"
We caught a table for 4 and waited for a while to see if anyone would get our orders. But after waiting for 10 minutes, we realized no one was doing any waiting jobs.
"Uh...How do we order food at this place?" I asked, but everyone just shrugged and shook their heads. "Hm... OH WAIT! There is a paper on the table!" I say, catching a piece of paper that was stuck under the tissue holder. "This cafeteria does not have any human waiting services. We are Elementalists, so we use magic for this. Please say: "Habeo Ordinem" to have an order cube appear at your table. You may share your orders with it. Once you are done speaking about your orders, tell: "Dimisit es" to have the cube register your orders and send it over to the cooks", I read aloud.
Devansh swore under his breath. Cindy shot him a glare (She probably doesn't like swearing). "We were waiting around like idiots when we just had to utter 2 words to get our orders in," Devansh says, shaking his head.
"Habeo Ordinem" I say, for I was very hungry, and I needed to eat. A blue square made of light appears over the table and blinks red.
"I would like to get a burger and a banana smoothie," I say, hoping that was the right way to do it. The cube blinked green and went back to red.
"I'll just take a Crêpe", Ayushi says.
"Vanilla shake please", Cindy orders.
"Spaghetti, Cheese garlic bread, and a Chocolate shake", Devansh says after making up his mind. I look at him when he orders that entire meal. "What? I'm starving", Devansh says, shrugging. I just hold my hand up in surrender and grin before saying the command to dismiss the square.
"Dimisit es", I say, and the square disappears. I am starving but if I keep thinking about it, it would make it feel more real. So, I decided to initiate a conversation to take my mind off of it. "So... What do we do in this academy anyway? I mean I know we learn magic here, but how?", I say.
"I don't know much, since I am the first in my nearest ring of family to come here. But I think we learn to control the elements and use them as weapons and for good." Ayushi says.
"Yeah...my friend's elder brother graduated from here a couple of years ago. The graduates are supposed to keep everything that happens here a secret, but my friend's brother leaked a little to him. He said that we all learn to control one element each since we specialize in them or something. I'm not very sure", Devansh added. Cindy was just quiet and looking at the table.
"Hey, Cindy...Why are you dull? Any problem?" I asked. I and Devansh nodding as they agree with my question. She looked up; her eyes filled with tears. "I don't know anything about this place. I don't have friends or family to tell me about these places. I was abandoned when I was born, so an old couple adopted me and took care of me. They were really happy when I was declared Elementalist.", she said, clearly on the verge of breaking down. I looked at Ayushi and gestured since only a girl can understand a girl best. Ayushi's eyes immediately softened and she moved closer to Cindy.
"Cindy...don't say that. We are all your family and friends now, so you're not alone." Ayushi says in a soothing voice, rubbing Cindy's back to ease her crying. Cindy sniffed and looked at all of us.
"Really? Do you want to be friends with me?" She asked with round, tear-filled eyes full of hopefulness. We all smiled gently at her and nodded.
"Well, I thought that was obvious," Devansh said, in a matter-of-fact tone.
I shot him a glare. "Of course, we do! Why would we not want to be friends with such a nice girl?" I say. She smiled at us and hugged me, whispering thanks to all of us. I just hugged her back before letting her go.
Suddenly we saw four plates creepily floating toward us, alongside some cups. We just stared incredulously at it as it plopped down on our table, before the person that ordered the food on it. We all looked at each other, surprised at the applications magic can do. But, Devansh and I didn't think much since we were starving enough to be cannibals. We dug into the food and ate ruthlessly. The girls just rolled their eyes at us and muttered something that sounded a lot like "Boys are such animals". But we paid no heed and continued like hogs. We were done with our massive meals by the time the girls were half done with their mini-meals. We just looked at them apologizing and went to the restroom to wash our hands. Two other students, a boy, and a girl were entering the restroom too. When they spotted us walking in, their faces immediately scrunched like we were disgusting to them.
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