Rising Dreamers Academy was in the outskirts of the city nestled between two cliff faces. Behind it was a large cultivated forest that even during the days of the Coal Empire was used to train up potential Dreamers.
There were several buildings that made up the Academy. One giant one with two levels that made up the classrooms. A gymnasium for practical training. The cafeteria, and the dorms for the boys and girls. There were a few more but the book hadn’t specified what they were.
The cab driver dropped me off at the gate, giving me a “Good luck kid,” before speeding off. At the side of the gate was a small booth where an older woman sat smoking a cigarette, that wasn’t what drew my attention however. It wasn’t even the looming building or the two cliffs on either side of the Academy.
It was the unreasonably buff man sitting on the arch over the gate eating an apple. He had on a tight sleeveless shirt and loose pants with a pair of sneakers on. I stared at him and he smiled and waved at me happily.
“Yo! You need to check in with that lady over there, give her your letter of acceptance and she’ll clear you to enter.”
I moved my gaze to the woman who was giving me a dead eyed stare, the kind that meant she wouldn’t bat an eye if I keeled over and died right then.
“I will wait a few minutes,” I said.
“Why?” Both of them asked at the same time.
The man sounded interested, the woman annoyed.
“She is smoking, research shows that even those near a smoker will have their health affected by the inhalation of the smoke,” I explained.
“Yes! Finally someone who cares about their health! You know there was a kid that showed up here today drunk. Drunk at fourteen? How do they ever expect to grow big and strong if they put literal poison in their bodies?”
I agreed with the man but said nothing.
“So do you like exercising then?” The man asked.
“Not particularly, though I do so to keep my body healthy.”
“Ah, a shame then. You should learn to love keeping your body in great shape. After all, it's the vessel you will have for the rest of your life. Ms. Dule can you please put out your cigarette for this young man please?”
The older woman grimaced but snuffed out the tip of the cigarette, blowing a puff of smoke in my direction out of spite even though I was too far away for it to reach.
Once the toxic fumes had dissipated enough I walked over and pulled out my acceptance letter. I could still smell the pungent smell and grimaced. Ms. Dule opened the letter and looked through it quickly. She then placed the letter on a flat slate which glowed green for a moment.
“Ok Mr. Monty Niko, or do you prefer Niko Monty?” She asked, referring to the old way Empyreans would call themselves with last names first.
“Monty Niko is fine.”
“Alright Monty Niko, your room number is o forty two on the first floor of the dorm. You will need this card to get through the school gates from now on. When you can start projecting Intent out of your body you will no longer need it. You’ll put that button on your uniform to prove that you are a student at the academy as well as your year. Breakfast is at six and orientation is at eight in the gymnasium. I hope you have a good stay at the Academy.”
That was it?
She handed me a slick white card with seemingly hundreds of geometric black lines and a bronze button with Sun Stone inlay in the form of the letter D. So the door functioned off Stygoscript as well as “Intent.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
“Fuck off.”
Did I do something to make her angry? Wait, so was her earlier statement about having a good stay sarcasm? I mean sure there was a death rate, but wasn’t she wishing me luck or something?
I wasn’t good at picking up on those things.
I walked over to the gateway, seeing a little crystal where I should place my card, but before I could, the man overhead called out.
“I gotcha, no need,” he said.
Then his leg glowed green and he kicked the top of the gate with the heel of his foot. A green wave rippled through the gate and it slammed open. The sound boomed out as though a gong had been struck. Obviously the man had used too much power because he had to hold on as the top of the arch wobbled from the impact.
“Oops, sorry about that.”
“Mr. Rider, you have done that every single time a student has come through today. Please stop acting like it was an accident, and please do not damage the door.”
“Aw come on Ms. Dule I just want the newbies to see a bit of Dreamer magic on their first day, no need to be a spoil sport.”
“Your attitude as a teacher is abysmal.”
I had suspected from the beginning the man was a Dreamer, why else would the check in lady be okay with him just sitting up there. Was she a Dreamer too? No, surely a Dreamer isn’t relegated to gatekeeper duty.
“Tsk, just head over to that building over there. There should be someone that will show you to your room. Happy to have ya!”
I walked off glancing back, my mind whirling at how it was possible for a man's leg to suddenly glow green. It didn’t seem logically possible, there were no organs on the human body that could produce light. Well there had to be something. The definition of Intent was determination to do something.
This book's true home is on another platform. Check it out there for the real experience.
So did it come from the brain? But how would it then light up his leg? Through the nervous system? And why green?
The dorm building was six stories, and made of dark gray stone. Almost every window was still alight from the people inside.
A bit of nervous excitement ran through me, they said that Dreamers were weird. I was weird, the man that was sitting atop the gate had been weird, friendly, but weird. Perhaps I could find someone of like mind, a friend.
A bit of shame filled me when I realized how pathetic that thought was. Pushing through it I entered the front lobby.
Sitting in front of the desk was a young boy around my own age. He was Solarian, with wide shoulders and close cropped hair, his skin was more tanned than the typical city Solarian meaning he most likely spent a lot of time outside. Based on his clothing I guessed he came from a farming family.
Beside him was a Empyrean girl, but she had just glanced at him then back down at the book she was reading.
“Hey, another first year?” the boy asked.
“Yes.”
“...”
“...”
“Uh, sorry I’m Brax, I’m also a first year, but because I arrived first this morning I was told I was supposed to show you around,” Brax said getting up and proffering his hand.
“Thank you,” I said, shaking his hand.
I could feel the strong grip of someone that had lived a laborious life.
“... So what’s your name?”
“I apologize, my name is Monty Niko.”
“Well let’s get going then.”
The cafeteria was in the back of the building and had two levels, one for first years and one for second and third years.
“In the first year we get our food here, depending on the status of your enrollment the price will be tallied on to your total. In second and third years this is also true, but you can just leave the premises to get food too,” He said, reading off a piece of paper in his hand with a dead voice.
“The gymnasium is where we will meet tomorrow at eight, it's the big ass building with only one set of doors in the front. There are eight bathrooms per floor for the first years.”
“What about the second and third years?”
“No clue. Boys are on the first floor and girls are on the second floor, everybody has their own room, but it's small as shit. Ok that’s it, let me show you to your room.”
Brax took me back to the lobby, where the Empyrean girl from before was talking to a short Solarian girl. Brax ignored them and just continued down the hallway and I followed.
He took me down near the end of the building on the left side.
“Alright Melly this is it.”
“Monty.”
“Huh, oh, my bad Monty,” he said, shrugging.
There was a place for my key card and I placed it on the door. I felt a pulling in the center of my body and my shoulders sagged slightly. The Stygoscript had pulled from my stamina to unlock the door so it felt as though I had just done ten push ups. I doubted the gate out front didn’t have its own power source, there was no way a normal kid could power that with their stamina without leaving some damage.
“Hey Monty?”
“Yes?”
“You seem like the kind of guy that doesn’t have many friends, well I’ve always been pretty good at making friends. So how about you follow me and I could help you out there.”
That was random.
“Right now? I would like to sleep.”
“What? Sorry I didn’t mean right now I just meant I could help you out in the future. What do you say?”
Then why did he say follow me? A part of me wanted to say yes, but the words follow me were keeping me from doing so. It was a loose thread, an imperfection in the watch, a sign of a deeper meaning. Follow me.
One, could mean tomorrow, he had met a lot of people today if he had indeed been showing people to their rooms all day. That meant he could joke around and grow close to other kids that had just arrived for the first time and didn’t want to feel alone.
Two slip of the tongue, he had meant he could help him out sometime to find some friends. It could be something like a dialect or similar phrase back in his home. Perhaps his brain had just not supplied him with the proper words to say what he wished.
Three, follow me equaled follower. He wished to lead a pack, and who better to start that out than the anti-social looking nerd. It would be a stepping stone to have someone who did not have a good chance at emotional connection do your bidding.
I analyzed all that while Brax just looked at me with a frown.
“Well?” He asked a bit impatiently.
A sign of three being more likely.
“One moment please.”
I continued processing the different options to choose a good answer. Brax got visibly annoyed by my silent stare. Should I close my eyes and think?
He opened his mouth again to say something, most likely something that will further prove option three as the likely candidate if his expression was anything to go by.
“I will keep that in mind, however I would like to see if I am capable of doing so on my own,” I answered.
“You could have just said no instead of wasting my time. Acting like a freak and just staring at me like that.”
Freak, did that mean that once again I was the odd man out? Or was it just that Brax was a bit more on the normal side, perhaps he was the only one with such a normal personality and everyone else was more like me.
Then again would a normal person ask someone they just met to be their lackey?
“Fuckin’ stop looking at me like that,” Brax growled and shoved me with a hand.
I fell on my ass confused, I had zoned out again. Was it really so weird to fully think out your answer to a question instead of answering instantly?
I knew the answer of course, I had known it for years whenever another kid or an adult would ask me something and I would just stand there thinking about what to say for several minutes. Apparently my parents had even considered that I was slow for the first few years of my life, maybe they still did.
Brax left, grumbling to himself.
I stood and closed the door, darkness filling it. From my pocket I pulled a small tube-like object and popped the cap open. Yellow light spilled out from the Sun Stone inside. The mirrors on the cap and rest of the inside of the tube made it to where the stored sunlight reflected back into the Sun Stone so it could keep its charge as long as possible.
I found a lamp on the desk and twisted the dial on the base to let out a small amount of sunlight from the Sun Stone inside.
Then I picked up my suitcase that had fallen over and set it on the desk. I looked around for a moment and noticed how small the room was. It was almost more of a closet than a room.
I was tired and a part of me wanted to just pass out on the bed then and there, but the itch of imperfection kept me from doing so.
I took the clothing from my suitcase, which contained normal clothes and sleepwear and put it on the shelf, hanging the shirts next to the school uniforms that had already been on the rack. We had to submit our sizes beforehand so they could prepare the clothing.
The clothing was a purple coat with green trim, a green vest, a red tie, a white shirt, and blue pants. I felt like a clown wearing such vivid colors.
Once that was done I took out the final few boxes out of my suitcase. It was my watchmaking equipment as well as a few watches I had made myself. I set them onto the desk and decided I had done enough for the night. Now it was okay to sleep.