November 24th. Friday, 11:39 AM.

"Winter break soon. You're going home, right?".

"Yep, I can't wait", Maria replied, closing her notebook. "Have you sorted out your plane ticket?"

"No, not yet", Tanisha replied. "It'll be sorted out tomorrow or Sunday".

"I really wanted us to go back together", Maria said. "Another plane trip together would've been fun". Maria and Tanisha came to Astral Academy together and stayed in a hotel until they enrolled there.

"Not all of our parents are famous actors who can sort things out with a snap of their fingers", Tanisha joked.

"Hey!" Maria playfully hit Tanisha on the arm. After that, she leaned back in her chair and looked up, "I can't wait to see my family. I miss getting woken up by my brothers in the morning".

"I'm surprised they haven't visited you", Tanisha said, writing in her notebook.

"They would've, but they couldn't find the time," Maria replied. "We've also been busy, so I can't complain".

"What's the longest you've been away from your family, apart from this?" Tanisha asked.

"Around two weeks. I was filming for a TV show", Maria replied, thinking back to the time she used to film.

"Really? I thought it would've been longer".

"It was going to be a month. They gave me an option to do more scenes, but I didn't want any more".

"How old were you?"

"I was twelve. I think I remember telling you when I came back".

"I don't remember any of this", Tanisha said, trying to jog her memory. Who were you staying with?"

"My uncle and my aunt".

"I remember you missing a couple of days in high school, but I don't remember much from middle school", Tanisha said. "When do you go back?" she asked, closing her notebook.

"Winter break starts on the 14th, and my flight to California is on the 16th", Maria replied, picturing the dates in her head.

"Are you staying there the whole month?"

"Yeah, I'll be back by the 13th (January)", Maria replied, already looking excited.

Tanisha smiled, happy that Maria was looking forward to seeing her family. She looked around the classroom. "This classroom is weird. I don't like it".

They weren't in their usual classroom; they were in a class they had never been in before—a classroom on the other side of campus in an older building. The classroom was old, dark and gloomy. Ms Green was supervising their class. Currently, they are doing self-study. But I'm guessing you can tell not much self-studying was going on. Ms Green knew this but let them speak amongst themselves. As long as they weren't too loud, she didn't mind. She had her own work to do, so she didn't want to be disturbed.

"I get what you mean, but I like the desks. I don't have to lean over to talk to you", Maria replied, leaning closer to Tanisha. Instead of singular desks, there were double desks.

"That's one good thing about this class", Tanisha said. She was still looking at people in the class. Wondering about their situations and plans for the holidays. "Do you think everyone is going home over the holidays?"

Maria looked at her funny. "Why wouldn't they?" she naively asked back, not understanding her. Wasn't it obviously? Who wouldn't want to go home?

Tanisha realised Maria wasn't thinking like she was. "I-I don't know", she stopped herself from explaining.

She knew Maria could be naive like this. Who could blame her? They were at a prestigious school, so you would think everyone would have money and a high-class upbringing. But that isn't the case. Not everyone in this academy can afford to go back home. Not everyone would want to go back home. Some people probably came here to get away from their families. However, Maria was ignorant of this. Maybe it was better that way.

"Do you think Malakai will go home?" Tanisha asked out of the blue.

"Huh!?"

"Why do you look so surprised?" Tanisha asked, a little startled by Maria's reaction.

"Because you're asking about Malakai", Maria slowly said, looking at her like there was something wrong. "Normally, you don't want anything to do with him".

"I don't hate him, my feelings towards him are ... complicated," Tanisha said, trying to express her thoughts.

"Complicated?".

"I don't want to dislike him, but I can't like him", Tanisha tried to explain. "Everything he does seems to annoy me somehow. Sometimes it's my fault because he doesn't do anything wrong, but I'm still annoyed at him".

Maria tried to understand, and she did a little. She knew Tanisha was overprotective of her, and seeing Malakai get close to her may have made Tanisha cautious of him. She was always like this when boys tried to get too close to her.

"Why are you asking about Malakai?" Maria curiously asked.

"He's the only foreign student in our class. Everyone else here lives in America", Tanisha replied. "Other classes have more foreign students. Like 1-B has someone from Japan and South Africa and 1-A has someone from Sweden and Germany. Each class has three to five people from different countries. We've only got Malakai, who's from England, which is so boring". Tanisha went on a mini-rant.

Maria hadn't seen Tanisha rant like that in a while, so she was left a little speechless.

"Don't you think that's a little bit special in a way?" Maria said. "Our class has one foreign student, and it's Malakai. The person number one on the leaderboard".

"He's not going to be first forever, he said it himself", Tanisha replied, resting her head on her palm.

"But even still, everyone knows who Malakai is now. I think that's why he did that speech, to make sure everyone knows who he is".

"I think he was just being arrogant and an attention whore”, Tanisha said, rolling her eyes.

Maria giggled, "he's having fun", she replied. "Anyway, why are you asking if he is going home or not? Don't you think he will?".

"I don't know. I've never seen him look sad or homesick", Tanisha replied, sneaking glances at Malakai. "Both of us have been homesick and sad about being away from our families. I've seen people in our class feel the same way, too, but he never looks like that. I've never seen him sad or act a little bit homesick".

"You don't know how he feels. He probably feels sad and homesick when he's alone in his dorm", Maria said, also sneaking glances at Malakai. "I'm sure he wants to go back. He's always on the balcony late at night".

"You still wake up in the middle of the night to talk to him?" Tanisha asked with a worried look.

"Not as much as before, I'm more tired these days. And I didn't wake up on purpose, I was always thirsty", Maria told her to clear suspicions she woke up on purpose just to talk to him. She looked down at her desk in thought, "Whenever he's on the balcony, he just stares at the sky, sometimes with earphones in, listening to music. I'm sure that's when he thinks about his family".

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"Calling them would be pretty hard, too, because of the time difference", Tanisha said, putting herself in Malakai's shoes. She shook her head, "It's hard to read him. When I look at him, he's always smiling and acting like an idiot, but he's somehow beating people from 1-A. I don't understand it".

"You should talk to him more", Maria replied. "The more I talked to him, the more I understood him".

"His mind or his accent?" Tanisha joked.

"Both", Maria giggled. "His accent isn't hard to understand, it's when he talks fast, that's when it's hard to understand".

Tanisha wasn't convinced by what Maria was saying. "Okay then. What have you understood about his mind from talking to him?" Tanisha asked, not taking her seriously.

Maria gently smiled. "He just wants to have a good time. Everything to him is fun", she calmly replied. "He told me everything that will happen at this academy will be a memory he could look back on. He wants to make memories".

Tanisha looked at Malakai, who was talking to Delilah.

"Having fun. Is that all he wants?".

Meanwhile at the back of the class. Four students put their tables together to make a table of four.

"Have you lot ever played blood money?" Malakai asked, bored.

"No/What's that?/Nope", they all answered.

"You spin a coin vertically on the table, and you have to catch it between your index finger and middle finger. If you don't catch it, everyone flicks the coin into your knuckles", Malakai explained, looking excited. It brought back some childhood memories.

Everyone looked at him, disturbed.

"What type of game is that? How is that fun?" Delilah asked, not seeing the fun that could be gained from this.

"It's fun, trust me", Malakai replied, wanting to play.

"Do you have any scars on your knuckles?" Benjamin asked, looking at Malakai's hands.

"Nah, I was too good. I always caught the coin", Malakai replied, showing the back of his hands.

"I wanna play", William said, eager to play. "Does anyone have a coin?" he asked.

All of them shook their heads.

"I guess Americans don't really carry coins", Malakai said. "Wait, don't you lot have nickles and quarters?" he asked.

"We do, but why would we carry them when we can pay with our phones?" Benjamin replied.

"Damn". That idea was in the bin. They had nothing to do again.

"There's some kids here whose parents are millionaires. Why don't we rob them?" Malakai said, letting his intrusive thoughts fly.

"Why would we do that? We don't even use money here", Delilah replied, shutting another idea of his down.

"You're right", Malakai said. "We could still rob them, though. Get some money, innit".

Screeeech!

"Good morning everyone!"

Everyone in the class jolted, even Ms Green. The speaker suddenly turned on, and someone started talking.

"It's Mr White here. I hope your self-study is going well".

"It was going well", Lucas muttered, lifting his head from the table and rubbing his eyes.

"I'm sorry to interrupt, but I have an important announcement. Challenge 4 will happen at 12 PM today".

"12 PM?!" Everyone looked at the clock.

"A challenge is happening in ten minutes?" Tanisha said.

"This challenge is a simple one, it's nothing like the others. All you have to do for this challenge is find someone with the same picture as you".

"A simple challenge, I hope it is", Malakai said, yawning.

"At twelve, all of you will receive an email. The email will have an image. You then have to find someone with the same image as you. Here's the twist, the challenge lasts until 3 PM. Every hour, your image changes".

"What?" A lot of people were confused.

"Let me explain how it works. At twelve, you will receive an email with an image. You must find someone with the same image. If you do, you have to go to the main office to get it checked. Once it is checked, you have completed the challenge. However, I said the image changes every hour, meaning if you haven't found your partner by 1 PM, another email will be sent to you with a different image. You will then have to find someone with the same image as your new one. Your old image will be useless".

"That makes sense. Having three hours to find someone with the same picture as you would be easy", David said, liking the challenge.

"That's why we're in this classroom as well. We're on the other side of campus. All the other classes are probably far away, too", Lucas replied.

"For finding your matching pair and completing the challenge you will get 1000 points. Finding your partner in the first hour will not get you more points. As you are still in the first year, we thought that would be too much".

"If points were decided on which hour you found your partner, that would've been stressful", Maria said.

"The second and third years probably have that rule. It will probably be the same for us when we become second and third years", Tanisha replied.

"Those are the instructions for the next challenge. Good luck everyone".

The speaker turned off, but the noise didn't. Everyone started talking, loudly.

"Three hours to find someone with the same picture as me, that's free points", Willaim said, stretching his arms.

"This challenge is useless, everyone's gonna get points", Malakai complained. He couldn't be bothered for a challenge today.

"I think that's the point", Benjamin said. "The last two challenges have been a lot of work, this one seems chill. I feel the next one will be a big one".

"The calm before the storm", Delilah quietly said to herself, pulling out her phone.

Malakai noticed Delilah pulling out her phone. "Who you texting?" he asked, trying to see her screen.

"Akari. I'm going to ask where she is ", Delilah replied.

"Shiii, let me see who I can ask", Malakai said, also pulling out his phone.

William saw Malakai's phone and squinted his eyes. "Do you only use the phone the academy gave you?" William asked, seeing his phone.

"Yeah, my other phone is back in my room. I don't even use it, I don't need to", Malakai replied, opening his contacts.

"What about calling your family?" Delilah asked.

"I use this phone. I need to change the sim for the other phone, and I can't be arsed to do that".

"You're so lazy", Benjamin commented.

"What do you mean? I transferred everything to this phone anyway", Malakai shrugged. "This phone is useful. This is all I need here".

"The academy did give us this phone specifically for this academy", Delilah said.

"Yeah, but it's still goo-".

Ding!

The challenge started.