"Friends?"

The cafeteria was beautiful, not of the world but still comforting. Amber had expected expensive chandeliers and golden cutlery like Academies from those fantasy movies but here was different. Peacefully different.

When she walked into the cafeteria she stopped to look around at her strange surroundings. New faces flooded the room, all seated on wooden rectangular tables. The flooring was tan tiles, the ceiling wooden.

She shifted on her feet when they turned to watch her, their conversation dying. Murmurs erupted through the room and she shrunk even more. 

'I'm already embarrassing myself.' She decided to make a move, still feeling their eyes on her.

She looked around, the place was practically full, and sitting at a random seat may be too awkward. She could tell that by their faces they didn't want a new member at their little table groups.

She fiddles with her fingers, still looking for a seat when she hears someone call her name from the far end corner.

"Hey! Your Amber, right?" Amber looked into the corner where she saw the girl she met at the lines, Elise was her name. 

"Come sit with us." She called, gesturing to the empty seat next to her. 

There were five other students seated at the table, two on the single chair at the end, and two chairs on both sides in the middle. 

Amber took the empty seat next to Elise only staring nervously around the cafeteria from the silence of the table.

Finally, someone spoke, "You know this girl Elise?" A girl asks from in front of her seated next to a guy. She had dark green hair, deep grunge makeup to make with her overly detailed brown shirt, and also a nose ring. Her lips were painted a dark brown and she even had a skull tattoo just below her neck.

'I see that grunge makeup is still a trend, even for these people.'

Elise sent her friend a single nod, "Mika, this is Amber, we met yesterday at the line-up, Amber this Mika one of my dearest friends, she's quite  a bubble gum despite her image." 

Amber smiled, "Nice to meet Mika, love your hair." 

Mika shook her head in approval and stared at all of her friends, "At least someone thinks so."

"Amber, next to Mika is Shane, Mika's boyfriend—" Elise points to Shane, who waves his hand with a gentle smile on his face. He and Mika looked the exact opposite, Shane had dark messy brown hair, a slim face with deep contours and wore a plain red t-shirt, his features and expression were very gentle, his contoured cheeks caused by his slim face was the feature that made him look a little manly.

She waved back at Shane and he sent a smile filled with teeth.

"And on both ends to us is Leah and Kade—" Leah looked full of sunshine, curly light blonde hair, matching her peach skin tone, blushed cheeks with hazel eyes to go with the little freckles on her forehead to her nose and a small button nose. She wore a pink off the shoulder with straps that complemented her rosy cheeks.

"Hey, Amber." Leah grinned, dimples drilling into one of her cheeks, "Welcome to the Academy!"

Kade didn't say anything, he was really good-looking, having black hair flipped on one side, furrowed eyebrows, and a strong tense jawline.

"Nice to meet you Kade—"Amber waved at him and he removed his focus from his food to look at her, only staring into her eyes and over her entire body, with a slight smirk on his face.

"Excuse him. He doesn't speak too much." Leah explained with a shrug and then another dimpled smile formed on her face, "So you're in our group. The shields."

"I guess." Amber nods, remembering yesterday's events and how she didn't fit into a group, so she was just put in one instead. That group is the shield.

"She doesn't really look like a shield." Mika joined in, leaning her hand on the table to examine her," She looks like she came from one of those rich families…" She raised an eyebrow.

"Rich? No, I'm definitely not." Amber laughs, looking back at her home on Earth where she's pretty much a normal teenager. "The only thing fascinating that happened in my life so far is coming to this place, trust me."

"If you say so." Mika rested her case, putting up her palms and leaning back in her seat, to which Shane rolled his eyes at her.

"Just because she's pretty doesn't mean she's in a rich family babe." Shane tried to reason with his girlfriend who raised an eyebrow at him.

"So you think she's pretty, huh?" Mika scolds him, and he flinches, raising his hand to protect himself.

"Babe, you know I don't mean it like that." He put his arm around her shoulder and planted a kiss on her flushed cheek. 

Amber laughed at the couple, a smile staining her face. It's good to be out of the room and talk to people, once in a while and stop her worries about never returning home.

"Come on." Elise grabs Amber's arm lifting her from the chair and to her feet"You must be hungry. I'll show you what actually tastes good around here." Elise leads her to the cafeteria food display area to the end of the room and Leah follows behind them.

Amber's shoes dragged, drawing even more attention to herself. At the end of the room, there is a large display counter with glass shields allowing the students to choose their food. Behind the counter stands a bored looking lady, a wooden spoon in her hand just wanting everyone to order and get away with her day.

Amber smiles at the woman but she doesn't return, only furrowing her eyebrow begging her to quickly do whatever she wants.

The food actually looked good. Amber licks her lips at the trays of different foods in front of her. From greasy to healthy.

Elise spoke for her, "She'll have a tray." She takes a tray and hands it to Amber, "Take what you want, anything within these six containers is really good." 

Amber takes the tray from Elise and begins filling it with all the goodies; an apple, triple meat sandwiches, baked potato fries, a box of grape juice, and a strawberry tart.

"With all that food, you'll seriously not be able to walk or protect yourself."

Amber turns her head where she sees, Sage the same girl she met at the table, she frowns seeing the girl's disgusted expression once again

"Excuse me?" Amber asks, her eyebrows knitted together in confusion.

"So it's through that they let you in the shield group, huh? I mean it makes sense, your disgusting manners would've gotten you anywhere else." She wrinkled her nose, and the guy and girl that came with her chuckled.

Amber stayed silent and only looked away from her tray when she said, "Show some respect for yourself and the people around."

"Don't talk to her like that, Sage, she did nothing wrong and you know that your Reds aren't supposed to be around our Greens."

"Whatever, we were leaving either way." She walked out of the room and Amber got a glimpse of her back.

She sighed and Leah placed a hand on her back, "Come on let's go back to the table, don't let Sage get to you, you'll learn to know that it's what she does."