5 One Red Flower

Catching sight of the looming Main Building before him, Darren leaped off the bus with glee. Though towering as a high and majestic mountain, it was anything but intimidating to him, acting like the home he never had each school year. Lips curled into an aching smile, he traveled to the baggage claim section of the bus, scanned his fingerprint on the Royal compartment, and was reunited with his luggage once again, not a single scratch or impurity on the slick black leather even despite the rough journey.

Next to him, Sal clicked her tongue as she slid her bag onto the sidewalk, her mystical eyes like strange stones glued into her eye sockets. She gestured for him to follow her, and that he did.

As the pair journeyed amongst the sea of students, they were alone, strangely. No other acquaintances were bugging them. It was just Darren and Sal, the scent of fresh roses caressing the air, and the cool breeze sending the leaves cascading every which way. Almost like...a date?

-No,- Darren thought, banishing the idea from his mind. Sal was his best friend. It was immature to think that way about her, or anyone really. Besides, this was their school. Not exactly the best place for a romantic get-together...not like he thought of Sal that way, of course.

"Earth to Darren?" Sal asked as they passed through the black wrought-iron gates that kept the students and barred outsiders. Darren jumped, snapping his gaze over to Sal.

"Er, sorry…" he muttered.

Sal laughed at him. "You've been abnormally quiet," she observed, tossing a wispy lock of hair from her face. Darren just nodded. That's all he could do amidst the beauty of everything--especially when the girl from earlier was passing by again, this time with the new boy by her side. He kept gazing at her, mesmerized. She looked even more luminous outside, and her complexion was that of a goddess who had just waltzed alone in the sun's rays.

"DARREN!"

He sucked in a breath of air and looked at her again. "Sal!" he imitated, grinning.

Sal rolled her eyes, and an awkward pause choked the air.

"Soooo...what classes are you gonna take this year? Any new electives?" Darren asked, shattering the silence and attempting to drive her mind away from anything else she would dare to ask him about. Sal laughed and hummed in thinking, weaving her fingers together in front of her person.

"Well...I'm going to try Art this year. I'm no good at it really, but I just want to do something else for a change, ya know?" she answered. As he nodded in response, the air-conditioned building invited them in at last, leaving the stench of gas and heat from the bus behind as just a memory.

"What about you?" Sal added, smiling with mutual relief at the change in climate.

Having known this question would be asked of him as well, Darren had already known his answer. "I'm taking Cooking. I'm sick of just having to order stuff, and as you said, it'd be nice to try something new…"

As Darren finished, a welcoming chime reverberated into the main hall, signaling an announcement from the staff.

"Welcome back, Phantoms! Please turn on your Scripts and follow your schedules at the times described. Throughout the day, you will be called to the Sleeping Chambers by Year to claim your dormitories! For Freshmen, please use the map on…"

Darren tuned out the cheerful feminine voice and went to get out his Script, having heard the same message every year. Nothing ever changed in Fassore anyway.

He raised an eyebrow at his schedule, which was the following;

Student: Darren Matthew Blaque (Semester 1)

~Breakfast~ (5am-6am)

Period 1- Art (Elective Building)

Period 2- Chemistry

Period 3- PE

Period 4- Calculus

Period 5- English

Period 6- RC Magic Studies 2 (Elective Building)

Period 7- AP History

Period 8- RC Public Speaking 2 (Elective Building)

~Lunch~ (12:50am-2pm)

Auxiliary Period 1- Coding and Computers

Auxiliary Period 2- Physics A

~Study Hall~ (2pm-4pm)

Extracurriculars: None, consult your Guidance Counselor for more information

**The Dances are from 8pm-12:30am on Fridays!

Frowning, he showed the screen of his Script to Sal, hoping she would notice what his eyes had snagged on upon viewing it. Cooking class wasn't to be seen anywhere, and he recalled specifically requesting a full-year Cooking elective. But to his surprise, Sal's eyes lit up with glee. Darren was initially confused, but when he glanced at her Script…

-Same Computer class again...and same Art class?-

"What's even going on?" Darren asked no one in particular, stifling his laughter. Sal knew he was the worst drawer, possibly even in the history of the world, and he would die before taking a course of that medium.

She only shrugged, wrapping an arm around him, and laughed as if it was nothing. "Not like it's a bad thing, right?" she replied, beaming. Admittedly, Darren was caught off-guard by her unexpected reaction and internally frowned, but he laughed it off with her on the outside.

The bell sounded at last, and the Freshmen were called to the dorm building to claim rooms first. All at once, a anaglomation of confused faces led by rushed staff members stampeded through the hall to the back exit, leaving the students who actually knew what to do behind to travel to their first period abodes. Sal had immediately grabbed Darren's hand and yanked him over to the same back exit door that led to the Elective Building.

As he trailed behind Sal, his shoulders began to ache from carrying around his backpack, and a portion of his brain was now wired to make sure his suitcase didn't drift along on a different path than he was. After all, the first day was the worst for him in that everyone had to carry their storage equipment everywhere, and he chose to use old tech rather than new tech. Honestly though, he didn't mind, especially while being able to savor the views of the beautiful campus.

As the two walked side by side, they were treated to the sight of the Castle Gardens on their left, and the flamboyant and glittering Event Building on their right, which is where the dances would be held. The buildings themselves, all of them, looked a bit more quaint on the outside but as soon as you took a step inside they would appear to be more regal than a castle.

Darren would know, he lived in a castle.

There were teleporters to the different buildings inside the Main Building, but Darren, Sal, and others like them preferred to walk to their destinations for the first few days just in case the teleporters were shut down for maintenance at all during the year.

The Elective Building was more modern-looking, being far more tech-centered and geometric than it's sisters. The windows were high, teleporters simply crafted, and it housed a diverse arrangement of students from computer nerds to aspiring actors.

"Is this it?" Darren asked suddenly as the two friends found themselves in a hall painted with vibrant colors. Sal gave an affirmative nod and led him further down the mesmerizing corridor, taking a few stops along the way to take in the sights the hall had to offer. The walls were all composed of murals from previous years, all in different mediums, scales, forms, swirls, everything possible in art.

But as they traveled further, the walls faded to the same pure white as earlier. Of course, the mural was not complete. We might be adding to this, Darren thought as he recalled the vivid colors and patterns, working together in perfect harmony. He already knew that he would probably be the one to ruin the entire painting.

And there it was, Room A-2. Through the windows, he could see there was a variety of different people inside the classroom. Some kids were dark, with a bolder and more contrasting aesthetic, and others were softer with their appearance, more pastel and almost cutesy. As per usual, there was also the variety of species--ranging from fairies, what looked to be sea-dwellers, and other interesting beings. They all appeared to be occupied with themselves, having small talk with one another while they waited for the class to begin. Darren felt a flat stone slowly sink to the bottom of his stomach. Truthfully, he wasn't quite sure if he would fit in.

Sal had noticed his uneasiness. "Hey Darren, let's go in. Class is about to start."

He nodded without uttering a word and followed her inside. A strange smell laced with paint and paper mache flooded his nose. The classroom was just as decorated as the hall, if not more, different mediums of art all collaborating with one another on the walls. It's inhabitants didn't seem to be paying attention to Darren and Sal, luckily, and the two took neighboring seats in the back of the room.

The same cheerful voice from earlier bursted from the overhead speakers, silencing the class.

"Welcome to Juniors Enchanted Art, Room A-2! As protocol states, we will be taking a pre assessment. Shortly, your desks will transform into easels and paint trays. Please do not tamper with the magic or you will receive a Detention."

Sal grabbed his arm suddenly and hauled him upright as the table began to glow and vibrate. The molecules of all the tables morphed into easels all at once in a bright white light, complete with fresh canvases and paint. Not an uncommon sight to see in Fassore, but still pretty cool nonetheless. He saw a burst of color and looked to the EISTU, Excellent Independent Study Teaching Unit, to find a photograph of a bright red flower sprouting from dark soil, it's petals dappled with water droplets.

Now, how was he supposed to replicate a photograph?!

By the looks of things, even Sal had already gotten started, using a pencil to sketch out the basic outlines as everyone else was doing. He couldn't help but wonder if she was as lost as he was. In truth, he did secretly hope that was the case, and did his best to imitate the other students. The graphite rolled on the paper in a different way than a typical pencil, almost crumbling to nothing with the right amount of pressure. He drew petals--or trembling blobs that attached to another misshapen circle in the center of them all, and a stem that looked more like a kingdom's demolished border than a form of nature.

By the time he had finished his sketch, the other students were still meticulously working on their first or second petal, getting the shape just right and honing their artistry on only one element. Here, Darren wasn't a diamond in the rough, he was the coal amidst crystals. Even Sal had facets of her own, her sketch not as thought out but still acceptable nonetheless. Taking in a leisurely breath, he began to swirl paints around on his palette, trying to mimic the red in the picture. Not too orange, not too pink either, just a plain red.

...Red.

As he stroked the brush against the canvas, watching eagerly as the paint flaked off against its rough, clean surface, he only saw red. Red. Darren wasn't even sure if he was painting correctly. He began to burnish the paint mindlessly against the edges of the canvas, his eyes glazing over as he became trapped in his subconscious, all other colors mushing together just to create more red.

-I'm such a good artist!-

"Uh hey dude, you realize only the petals are red, right?" one of the guys at a neighboring table asked discreetly, ignoring the dirty looks he received from the people who were trying to concentrate around them. A jolt crept across his skin as he snapped back into reality, moving his face away from the canvas.

"Y-yes, sorry--" Darren started as he gazed upon what he had created.

-What the hell.-

A flower. Completely red. The soil surrounding it. Red. Only red. Nothing else.

-Okay, calm down,- he reassured himself, -it's just a color. It's not real. Just hit Submit on your Script and it'll be up to EISTU to determine your grade. You won't see it again.-

So he did just that, and when the canvas melted away before his eyes he could finally breathe again. But there was only one last thing to take care of.

"You're already done?!" Sal lip-synced, as predicted. Darren only shrugged and left her to finish up on her own, pulling up a game on his Script and clicking away at the screen for the rest of the period, now embracing yet also disliking the enigmatic silence of the Art class.

~:~

"Oh my gosh, we finally survived," Sal commented exasperatedly, hunched over from exhaustion as the two waited to claim their dorms outside of the Chambers Building. The golden brown lacquered wall clock on the front wall of the building read "2:13". He really wasn't sure about Sal, but to Darren the school day had been as normal as it could be apart from his ominous painting. He almost found himself worrying about Sal, as her movements had grown more and more buffered and fatigued every time he saw her, but brushed it off as first day jitters.

"Hey, is Amber okay? I haven't seen her at all yet," she interrupted, thoughtfully twirling yet another strand of her hair around her finger.

He shook his head and moved up in line as he noticed it was his turn to claim a dorm. "No, I thought she would've talked to you if she was going to be absent," he replied as he scrawled his name next to "208" and checked "Royal". The ink automatically vanished upon verifying he was of royal blood, as was policy to avoid stalkers. But it wasn't much use to Darren as he and Sal always decided to be roommates anyways, and groupies would find him through her. He would've been surprised that people were minding their own business today, but then remembered about his other friend's absence. After all, Amber was the unofficial leader of the Darren Blaque groupies.

An electric haze spindled across Darren's nerves as he was wrapped up in the fizzing light from the teleportation pad out front, and before he knew it he was in his dorm for the year. It was the same layout as previous years, quaint and cozy with a cobblestoned balcony patio out back, and the two room doors facing one another in the hall. He usually took the left and Sal took the right according to their tradition.

"So, ready for this year's hell?" Sal joked beside him. He sighed and nodded without a word, then entered his dorm. Sure, the room number was different but the dorm looked exactly as it was left from the magic encrypted on the Script. He drew the curtains and stared out through the glass, basking in the legendary view of the castle gardens.

"Yes!" he whispered. At last, a room with a view.