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Round of the Art Table
Chapter 3: Meet and Greet

Chapter 3: Meet and Greet

Beep. Beep. Beep!

A new week was upon Victoria as she woke from her dreamless rest, and she was, to put it mildly, quite upset. She had gotten used to ordinary events that played out everyday during the hot months, where she woke by midday and was awake after midnight. Her parents didn’t mind; they were luckily neglectful in this aspect of her life, similar to other aspects, but unlike the others, this was an upside. She did her daily morning tasks, before grabbing a small bag to store everything she needed during the day. Leaving from the front door, she walked to the nearest train station, one which appeared to have been underfunded, due to its dilapidated appearance. She waited for a couple of minutes, where a rush of light surged through a tunnel, and suddenly appeared a large metallic train, stretching for many meters along the metallic tracks, and boarded it.

On the train, there didn’t appear to be much to do, so Victoria went on her phone, where she noticed a large amount of notifications, numbering in the hundreds. They appeared to all be from Lucas, and from the start, it appeared that he was rather apologetic about him breaking into her house. The latter half, however, turned to him making thinly veiled threats, but the threats themselves were paper thin, as well. She decided to block him, right then and there, and begin a new chapter in her life. This wasn’t her first breakup, and certainly wouldn’t be her last, but she decided to hold off on romantic relationships, and focus more on platonic ones. Despite trying to keep it secret, her parents accidentally revealed that she had a couple of relatives, who she was interested in getting in touch with. She also knew Andrew had a couple of friends, and believed that they may be fine with her, considering her previous success with her only friend.

After realizing the train had come to a stop, she got off, where she began to walk towards her new school. The school was no marvel, appearing to be a box, taped with steel beams and translucent windows. Today was a dry day, heated with the energy of the star, which shined harshly on the cracked asphalt. Upon entering the building, Victoria met a pantheon of wrinkly people, attempting to greet the people as they came through. She walked to the right side, before entering a series of hallways, shifting from brick to concrete. She walked past a rickety elevator, and found a large room, which swarmed with navy blue lockers. She saw her class past them, and began to shuffle towards the door, which clashed with the colors of the surrounding walls. Before she made it however, she saw someone who wore watermelon attire, who froze in place, similar to her. After a short moment, Lucas began to speak:

“Hello, Victoria!” and that was all.

Victoria began to postulate that either Lucas had forgotten about his plan of revenge against her, or she had misunderstood him as a vengeful person. Either way, they made their way into the classroom, where the bell had rung seconds before. Victoria decided that she should forget about yesterday, and focus on her current surroundings. As her first class, Computer Science, even if she didn’t know about the schedule, it was evident that this class was intended to serve this purpose. Lines of tables, with more lines of computers and even more lines coming out of the computers. There were posters hanging from the wall, half of which were binary related, and the half was something about basic knowledge of a computer. On the sides, there were yet more tables, lined with printers and other utensils instead.

As Victoria looked around the room, a slight noise caught her. She turned around, and saw a man with wavy hair and eyes that popped out, not unlike a cyclops. His skin a milky brown, stretched over an imposing body of high stature and good posture, a sign he did not have chronic back pain. He wore a simple combination of a white shirt and some loose fitting pants. When Victoria noticed how he seemed to be smiling for as long as she looked, she was uneased.

“Hey! Nice to meet you!” Victoria did a literal jump backward when she heard this; it was rather loud. “What’s your name?” asked the teacher.

“Uh, my name is Victoria.” Victoria answered. “What’s yours?”

“You can call me Mr. Justin!”

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

“Well, um, Mr. Justin, is this the Computer Science class?” As she asked, people began pouring through the doors of the makeshift classroom, forcing her to move.

He quickly answered, yes, before attempting to greet the hoard of the students filing in. As Victoria sat down in one of the many seats, two people she had never seen before sat besides her. One was a cheery appearing girl with a rosy complexion. The other was a small boy with multicolored hair and lanky appendages. He stood out, oddly enough. Before she could introduce herself to them, the room was filled with people, new and old, as the ring of the class beginning signaled.

“Hello students! Welcome to the CS class!” Mr. Justin announced. Taking notice of their attention being directed at him, he continued, “You may call me Mr. Justin, and let’s get into it!” He then began to flick through a slideshow, full of saturated, bright, and noisy colors. A perfect mix to hurt Victoria’s eyes. She began to doze off until noticing him announcing their current assignment. “-tlizing a similar slide format to mine, you will make an introduction to yourself, of which inc-'' after which, she stopped listening. Deciding to begin, she found the website he was using, and began to create one. She gave a name to it, and began to decorate it with her personal details. This hour, she had spent her time slowly polishing the product, adding some of her past art onto the slides.

Once she believed she was nearly done, she began to spy on other people. She noted a few unique individuals. A person who was currently gorging themselves on fried, oily food; a frizzy haired person with glasses; and a very small boy with eyes not dissimilar to those of Mr. Justin. She also saw Lucas, who was sitting next to the person currently eating, deep into creating a few very red slides, with small black specks dotting the screen. After an hour of more spying on her targets, the time was up for people to start coming up with the presentations. The first person to come up was her first target, a large girl wearing a pink tracksuit, with thick orange braids atop of her head.

“First, introduce yourself to us,” asked Mr. Justin.

“Ok, my name is Malaya Droflaw, and here is my show.” She scrolled through slides populated with foods and a love for the theatre. Victoria didn’t think much about it, thinking of her as a bit obnoxious, due to her propensity for performing arts. She had never gotten into them as much as she did with visual arts. After she left, a similar routine played out with the others who remained. Then one of the people beside her got up. It was the girl. She got up to the front of the room, before practicing a similar routine to the others.

“My name is Amalya Nelon, and here is my presentation.” Victoria was instantly enamored by her presentation; for it appeared that Amalya shared a love of art as well. She scrolled through like others before her, but the content found on these slides hypnotized Victoria is their sheer beauty. Victoria decided that befriending this person would be great, considering their similar interests, even if her parents may not approve. As Amalya sat back down next to her, Victoria excitedly introduced herself to them.

“Hey Amalya, good presentation you just had!”

“Thanks, I guess. What’s your name?”

“I am Victoria.” introduced Victoria. “What are your hobbies?”

“My hobbies are cooking, specifically making scrambled eggs. There’s just something so satisfying-”

“And? Oh, sorry! Didn’t mean to cut you off,” apologized Victoria.

“No need to say sorry, I got a bit carried away there,” explained Amalya. With each second, Amalya was growing more likable, but also less relatable. She had an aura of perfection that Victoria did not think she could ever achieve. “Anyhow, my other interests are drawing-”

“And?”

“Painting-”

“And?”

Amalya sighed. “-and sculpting.” Once Amalya finished, Victoria squealed very high, in obvious excitement.

“Wow, that’s all of my interests as well! Except for the cooking part.”

As they continued chattering, the class continued on without them, and with a growing number of finished individuals, and a minority of people who haven’t gone yet, it would be soon time for Victoria’s other neighbor to go. As well as, unfortunately for her, herself.