Darkness surrounded Davis. The floor was rippling like the water underneath a skipping stone on a calm lake.
Davis took off running, the ripples behind him becoming larger and larger, soon combining into waves breaking behind him, getting ever so slowly closer to his feet. In front of the boy appeared an endless amount of purple portals. Whenever he stepped through one the scenery did not change but his body told him, he definitely moved.

When he stepped through the last portal, his body signaled a falling sensation. First through the air before a wet feeling clamped down on his whole body.

Gasping Davis grabbed the top of the heavy duvet, the weight mimicking his dreams. His heart was ready to burst right out of the ribcage.

Loran, who was already ready to head out, stood next to the bed startling a bit when his roommate decided to wake up. “You good?”

Between heavy breaths, Davis could only heave out a quick “nightmare.”

In a rather weird way, he couldn’t remember any details of the dream. Nothing came back to him, only a feeling of crushing emptiness and loneliness.

“Is it breakfast time already?” His rumbling tummy interrupted Davis’s thoughts.

Loran simply nodded. “I was about to blast you and your sheets out of bed.”

Together with the loud cracking of knee joints Davis got out of bed, stretched his back and arms towards the ceiling.

Hearing Loran clear his throat rather prominently, Davis looked over to see him point to the floor and watch out their window and realized the state his body was in, despite waking up from a nightmare.

At sleepovers, neither of the boys cared. Seeing the other pitching a tent in the morning nothing new. Loran, though, got an extremely flushed face, bringing that cute shade of red into the face Davis loved so much.

Chuckling, Davis grabbed his jeans, a new T-Shirt, and his deodorant from the bag, giving his armpits two healthy sprays before putting on the shirt.

 “What was that spray?” Loran inquired.

“Oh ehm….makes you smell good. It’s like…plants and stuff.”

“So it’s a perfume? Why didn’t you say so?”

Davis felt like an idiot while he laced his shoes. “Not only that. It also makes you sweat less, you know?”

On the way to the dining hall, many students greeted Loran after giving Davis weird looks. It started to get on his nerves but he also was not sure how much he would have liked wearing the school uniform.

Gerrit on the other hand was happy to see the untamed black mess and another weird shirt of Davis.

“See you later, Davis.” Loran didn’t bother at all to look at Gerrit, opting to ignore him like most other students.

“Later Loran!” The redhead knew exactly how much his presence annoyed the Professor’s son. Compared to the day before, Davis seemed a lot more stable. Grabbing an assortment of bread, sliced meats and chesses for both of them, Gerrit lead the way thought the dining hall. The two boys sat down at the same seat they had at dinner the before.

“Now what in the gods name happened to you yesterday? You repeated ‘that’s impossible’ one too many times to be still considered sane.”

Davis gave a small chuckle. “Remember how I took off running? Telling you I saw my best friend?” It felt good being able to talk to Gerrit freely.

It didn’t take much more than that for everything to fall into place. Between the shocked face and way, Davis almost touched Loran’s face this actually was the most logical explanation. “That’s what this’s about. Here I was, thinking you had brain worms. How are you coping with him as roommate?”

A loud sigh escaped Davis. “Sometimes I feel like I’m talking to Maron but there are a few glaring differences.”

“Like what? One likes airships and the other prefers horseback?”

Davis snickered in response. “It’s rather personal. Not my place to go blabbing.”

“Ahhh, I see. Probably their favorite underwear color. I’m sure you had a clooose look at both of them.” This earned Gerrit a punch on the shoulder.

“Shut up! Give me more of that boar meat. That shit’s good.”

While the boys enjoyed their breakfast, they started talking about their rooms both in Academia and at home, making Davis think about all those nights he had spent looking at his best friend’s face lit up by the moonlight. Davis took those opportunities to remember as many little details as possible.

Being satisfied and filled to the brim, Gerrit escorted Davis to the Professor’s office, knocking once and then entering.

The Professor simply looked over the rim of his glasses when the boys entered. “I hope that you had a good nights worth of sleep?”

Davis shuffled his feet, being put so on the spot. “Kind of, Sir. The bed is fine but I had a nightmare.” Trying to remember anything about it though proved to be useless again.

“That is to be expected, I’d say.” Roland smiled, closing the book in his lap. “Now. How would you like to be my teaching assistant for the day? It would benefit you a great deal to see how lessons are done in this school and you can pick my brain for anything you want to know.”

Gerrit smiled and clapped Davis on the back. “Sounds like a pretty sweet deal to me. I gotta go to class, see you at lunch!” Just like that, Gerrit was out of the room. If he didn’t know any better, Davis thought Gerrit was actually excited to be in class.

“Well then. Shall we head out ourselves?”

The other side of a teacher’s desk was indeed interesting. Keeping an eye on the younger students was enough. Following the Professor’s instructions on how to manipulate the arcane energy around himself to become invisible was much harder, especially without a stone of his own. Davis didn’t care much for it.

He tried his best to understand and change the world around him. Same as with the dollar, though, nothing but an occasional glimmer happened.

During the last class before lunchtime, Davis finally had the opportunity to talk to Roland in peace.

“Sir, I’m sorry for asking you this blunt but where will I be getting a stone myself?”

The Professor smiled apologetically. He felt guilty for Davis being stuck. Since the day before he retraced every one of his steps in preparing the portal. He just couldn’t imagine where it went wrong.

“You will need an arcane stone to practice magic, given your results yesterday. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen a first timer build a bubble this quick. I will cover all of your costs while you are staying with us. I already arranged for you to be my second assistant, if you pass your entry exam.”

Davis was all ears now. “Does that mean I’ll get paid, just like Gerrit?”

If his own son were to be stranded in an unfamiliar world, Roland would have hoped someone would do the same.

“Yes, Academia will pay you the same as him. We can get your stone fitted after New Year’s. Have you given it some thought how you want to wear it?”

Up until then Davis thought he’d get a ring like everyone else but he saw now, that some students were wearing ear rings, amulets or bracelets. It was surprising, though in hindsight obvious, that he was allowed to choose a design for and how to wear the stone.

“To be honest, Professor, I don’t really have a preference I guess. A ring sounds good?”

Davis wasn’t the guy to wear jewelry so a ring seemed to be the most inconspicuous.

“Good. Shall we wrap up this test? Be so kind and collect the papers.”

 Obliging Davis went through the rows and took the papers from the tables while the students started talking in an excited manner and packing their bags. Their behavior made it obvious that holidays were approaching.

“Class dismissed, enjoy your holidays!”

When all the papers were neatly stacked on the Professor’s desk Davis was allowed to leave to the dinner hall too. “You can go to next class together with Gerrit. Professor Strontin knows you’ll be joining her class.”

For the first time since he arrived, Davis was free to roam the school on his own. It was even more exciting than just hanging out with Gerrit. All the possibilities were in front of him. It was a completely new world to explore. His stomach, though, demanded to be full again so he dragged his feet behind other students who went in the direction of the dinner hall.

When Gerrit saw Davis approaching on his own he was delighted at first and confused after a second.  “How come you’re on your own? Didn’t you walk with the Professor?”

Davis shrugged in response. “I was with him the whole morning. He said I should go with you to class.”

This made Gerrit smile a lot. He turned his head to hide it from Davis, though. “I see. Let’s grab lunch and you can tell me about your first day as teaching assistant.”

During lunch, Davis explained what he tried in the lessons. How he tried to make himself invisible, conjure butterflies and gold coins and even of his attempts to set fire to some papers. They cracked more jokes and enjoyed a delicious lunch.

Stroking his bloated belly, Gerrit stood up and made his way towards the entrance. His lunch portion was tiny but Davis refrained from mentioning the fact.

“Come on, last class for today.”