Most popular kid

It was soon noontime in the orphanage. The rumors about Oliver's unsuccessful attempt of escaping the dormitory had reached all through the orphanage, and now everyone was talking about it. It was a Saturday, so everyone was either hanging out or doing one recreational or extracurricular activity or the other.

Meanwhile, within the empty school block was Olivia Anderson, walking purposely alone in the quiet hallway. As she approached the locker area, she headed straight to a particular locker in the row by the right. At the top of the locker was an initial; O.L.

"Here, we are," she whispered silently to herself, "now let's see what you're hiding."

Having tried the locker door and found it was locked, she immediately brought out two paperclips from her hip pockets, straightened them, and inserted them into the lock. After a short while, the door was opened, and she began to search for whatever it was she was looking for, flipping through book after book.

Suddenly, a sound was heard from the passage. She paused and listened closely, immediately shutting the locker door.

Soon the footsteps she was hearing became so close. Someone appeared from the corner, It was Max Robert; Oliver's roommate. As soon as she saw him, she heaved a sigh of relief.

"You scared me," she muttered casually.

"Sorry about that, I didn't mean to sneak up on you," Max said.

"What have you got?" she asked him

Max brought something out of his pocket and handed it to her.

"Where did you get this?" she asked him, with an abrupt look of surprise and curiosity.

It was a silvery chain necklace that had a black glittery locket as its pendant.

"I took it from his drawer this morning when he was away. I still can't understand why he's so secretive and overprotective about it, that's why I thought it might be of help," Max said.

After studying the object for a while, she dipped it into her back pocket.

"You know you still haven't told me what you find so interesting in this dude?" Max asked, "To me, he's just another loser."

"I know, and who says I find him interesting? Anyway, you won't understand," she replied shortly.

"Ever since that boy arrived here, I've been feeling this really weird connection with him, like there's something about him that I need to know," she explained.

Max was staring at her like someone lost in translation.

"I know I sound a bit awkward," Olivia said, "but… all my life I've always felt this unsatisfiable emptiness inside; like a missing piece of a jigsaw that isn't all that colorful, but is needed to complete the puzzle, but then all of a sudden this boy shows up, and for the first time, I feel I'm so close. Everything seems to be pointing toward him, and I just can't help it."

"Well, whatever you say," Max said, "just know that something is not right about that boy. Did you know he has this really strange tattoo on the side of his chest? He claims it's a birthmark."

Olivia immediately stopped searching and turned to Max.

"Did you just say he has a tattoo on his chest?" she asked, with curious inquiring eyes.

"Mm-hm," Max replied, "It was some sign, I don't really recall."

"Like a star?" she muttered, almost inaudibly.

"Yeah, it was a star," Max said, "and somehow you got it right." He sounded really surprised and curious.

"Lucky guess," she quickly said.

By now everyone was running wild with the rumors about yesterday night, several questions had been stirred up, and some folks even came up with their own theory, that the accusations about Oliver having something to do with Alex's attack were true, and that it was what prompted him to attempt escaping.

After searching almost right about everywhere possible for a place to think without hearing any gossip or side talks about him that could pose as a distraction, Oliver finally found somewhere. It was the rooftop of the dormitory building. Little did he know he would find solace in the strangest of places. Here, he was finally away from all the noises and tension.

He hadn't been to the rooftop before, It was surprisingly calm and quiet, and he could also catch glimpses of the magnificent view across the outskirts of the Melrose woods, through the vintage layouts of the neighboring town, and beyond the gold-lined horizon.

"I guess I've always underestimated your vastness, Melrose," he muttered to himself, overwhelmed by the large landmass the orphanage covered, almost large enough to be a town itself.

As he sat down on the bare ground with his back leaned against the short border wall, and his legs folded together, a heavy weight of thoughts settled upon him. Today was to him, most likely the most unfortunate of all the other birthdays he's had. He had never been a fan of birthdays. Ever since he grasped that death was an inevitable phenomenon and that the period of arrival to the final destination was inversely proportional to the number of years lived, he despised growing older. On his sixth-year old birthday, he wished never to grow old or die, that he would remain his young self forever and live so many years like vampires or warlocks like Uncle Damian who had been alive for literally centuries before his execution by the HCI. Now he knew his wish then was meaningless, as vampires had gone extinct about centuries ago, and warlocks were currently among the list of endangered species like werewolves and Man-Aves, soon to be wiped out clean from existence.

Today, however, he was inflicted with so many adversities, adding to the one the day already represents. There were so many problems yet unsolved, questions yet unanswered, and mysteries yet unraveled. Most of all, he was in a very high state of worry. His decision not to leave the orphanage yet was for the purpose of making sure Felicity never became a victim of the werewolf, just as predicted in his visions, but he had so many other things to worry about as well. Ugly was still nowhere to be found, and he was banned from visiting the town or being anywhere close to the woods. In other words, he had a highly restricted and limited movement, which means finding Ugly was almost impossible. Apart from being banned from going to certain places, Oliver was also physically restricted from moving to an extent, as his leg was in a less than one hundred percent state.

Oliver still had it in mind that very soon accusations of parricide would be laid upon him, and he would have to face the dread of having everyone eventually believe he was some deranged serial killer, even the girl he was meant to protect. As much as he was very nonchalant about others' interests and thoughts concerning him, being accused of being behind the death of his parents, was so far, his biggest fear.

Now Oliver was wondering, if he was going to save Felicity from the werewolf, then he had to find out who it really is with solid evidence. Though he had one suspect, he had not found any undisputable proof yet. The ones he had could easily be misjudged as coincidences, so there was a need to dig up a little more that could make them clues, and then evidence, but there was limited time, and the beast was still at large.

Oliver had begun solving some math on his small notepad when he heard a sound from the roof entrance door. The door was slowly pushed open from behind, and someone walked through. It was no other person but Felicity. She was surprised when she saw him casually seated there.

"Never expected I'd see you up here," she said, "I searched literally everywhere for you."

"I uh, I needed a little privacy," Oliver managed, "It's getting really crazy down there."

He was hoping she wouldn't ask him about yesterday night, but the odds already seemed high.

"Yeah, you are the most popular person in the orphanage right now," Felicity replied.

"Nice choice of hideout, by the way," she added, as she came close and squatted next to him.

There was an awkward moment of silence now, Oliver noticed she had been staring at his injured leg but he remained mute.

"I heard what happened," she sounded in a low solemn tone, "Sorry about your leg," she added.

Oliver felt like saying something now, but he found out he had become totally tongue-tied.

"They say you were goings to leave last night," she said, then turned to him, "Is it… true?"

He remained silent at first, but then both their eyes met. She had this serious demanding look.

"Yes… it's true," he muttered hesitatingly.

She slowly looked away from him and redirected her gaze to the ground without uttering any other word. The expression on her face looked like a mixture of thoughtfulness, disbelief, and disappointment. There was silence for a while, Oliver sensed she wasn't happy.

"If you're gonna get upset with me, you should know that I had already changed my mind before I was caught by Mr Garret," he explained.

Felicity turned to him in surprise.

"And why would you think I am upset with you?" she asked.

Oliver was puzzled for a moment.

"I don't know," he replied with a shrug, "aren't you?"

"Of course not," she quickly cut in, with a slight smile.

"I am not upset about you trying to leave, Oliver. You've been going through a lot the past few days, I'm sure if anyone else were to be in your shoes, they would have done the same," she explained.

Oliver didn't make any other comment, he just kept solving on his notepad.

"Why'd you change your mind?" she asked him.

He glanced at her for a moment, then he quickly looked away.

"No reason," he answered casually.

Felicity let out a silent chuckle.

"You know that is so not convincing, right?" she said, "You finally had a chance of escaping this shit hole orphanage, but you turned it down. There must be a reason, but it's okay if you don't want to talk about it."

"I have an unfinished business here, I couldn't abandon it," Oliver finally said.

"What kind of unfinished business?" she asked with a thoughtful gaze.

"The kind that requires finding a certain lycanthropic beast," Oliver answered.

"You mean the werewolf? I thought Principal Moses said there wasn't a werewolf?" she asked.

"And you really believe that?" Oliver asked.

She shrugged.

"Why wouldn't I? It's the principal."

"He only said that to give everyone some false reason to believe that here is still some safe heaven, but it's not anymore," Oliver explained.

"But… why would he do that?" she asked thoughtfully.

"He doesn't want to draw the attention of the government, because he's protecting the one thing he cares about the most; his name. He warned me to leave things for the authorities to handle, but I don't tire that easily. I'm gonna find out who this werewolf is before someone else gets hurt," Oliver said.

"Oliver, this sounds like really dangerous stuff to me, don't you think you should you know… take things a little slower," Felicity replied, "I mean… it's not like any of this is really your priority."

There was no response from Oliver. He just continued with his solving.

"I'm worried about you," Felicity said, breaking the silence.

"It bothers me seeing you getting into trouble," she added.

"You shouldn't trouble yourself," replied Oliver, "I know what I'm doing."

"Oliver, the point that I'm trying to make is that you don't have to bear all these burdens all by yourself. You've got me, and there's also Jasper. We're the few against the many, remember. We watch each other's backs, we need each other," she explained with concern in her eyes.

On mentioning Jasper's name, Oliver's mood had taken a complete U-turn, and Felicity seemed to have noticed that.

"Is there an issue?" she asked curiously.

"No. Why'd you ask?" Oliver replied casually.

"I'm wondering if you may have had a fight with Jasper," she said.

Oliver was surprised at her statement.

"Why'd you think so?" Oliver asked, "We never fought."

"Then why do you keep putting on the scowl whenever I mentioned him? I noticed you've been doing this for some time now, you even did it moments ago when I mentioned his name," she said.

"I don't know, Felicity, maybe I've had quite a lot on my mind for a while now," Oliver replied.

"Or maybe you just don't feel like talking about it, and I understand. I know Jasper can be really off sometimes, but he's a good friend. You two better settle things with each other," Felicity said.

Oliver sighed.

"Alright, I'm gonna consider that," Oliver responded, just to make her feel satisfied.

"Okay, since that one's settled, no more werewolf talks," she happily said, "Let's talk about the good stuff."

"Cool," replied Oliver, still busy with his math.

"Do you do anything else with your free time but solve math and Rubik's puzzles?" Felicity asked.

Oliver stopped writing and glanced at her.

"Those are both mental activities," he replied, "They help me re-collect my thoughts."

"Well, as my dear mother always says; a little work, a little rest, and play," Felicity said.

Oliver thought for a moment, then said;

"The rest part I can consider, but the other I'm not sure," Oliver replied.

"Come on, just a little fun," she pleaded, "I won't bite."

"Alright then, just a little fun you say," Oliver said.

"Great!" she exclaimed grinning widely in excitement.

"So there's this really cool VR game store that's new in town, the games there are so dope. We should go, I swear you're gonna love it," she said.

"Sounds like fun," Oliver said as he glanced away.

"I wish I could go," he added.

"What do you mean?" Felicity asked, with her brows wrinkled with worry.

It was at this point that she realized the issue at hand.

"Oh, no…" she muttered in disappointment, "I forgot about your leg."

"That's not even the main problem," explained Oliver, "The principal stripped me of my off-campus privilege, so I can no longer visit the town."

"No he did not?!" exclaimed Felicity in disbelief.

"Come on, you can't be serious," she said.

"I'm serious," replied Oliver.

"But this is so not fair. You clearly didn't do anything that bad, you even changed your mind not to leave anymore," she said.

"Sadly, no good deed goes unpunished," Oliver said, "my uncle Damian taught me that."

"I'm sorry it had to be like this," he told her, "You should go on, I don't want you to miss your fun because of me."

"I'm not going," she replied.

"Why not?" Oliver asked her.

"Because I've changed my mind," she replied.

"I don't think I even want to go out anymore. Besides, the game requires two people, the solo ones are so boring. Although, we can still think of something else," she said, "In the meantime, I got something for you."

She brought out a small black box from her pocket and handed it to Oliver.

"Happy birthday!" she said, smiling shyly.

Oliver was surprised how she knew it was his birthday since he had never mentioned anything about that to her.

"Wait a minute, how come you know it's my birthday?" Oliver asked, thoughtfully.

"Oh, I saw it in the class register," she quickly said before he could finish.

"Aren't you gonna open your present?" she asked him, with wide impatient eyes.

Oliver opened the box. Inside it was a small green glittery gemstone.

"What is it?" he asked curiously.

"It's a gem, silly," she answered jokingly.

"Well, what kind of a gem?" Oliver asked.

"I don't know. My dad found it along the Caribbean shores, he called it a wishing stone, said that it can make your wishes come true, just like a star," she said.

"I think I know what gem this is," Oliver said, "It's an alexandrite. This is no ordinary gem, it's a very rare gem. Are you sure you want me to keep it?"

"What are you saying? Of course, I want you to keep it," she replied.

"Do you like it?" she asked shyly.

"Yeah, I do, even though I don't believe in wishes or magical stones," Oliver replied.

"It's… beautiful, really beautiful," he added, as he closely observed it.

Felicity lay on the bare floor on her back, facing the sky.

"I think I just got an idea of what we can do," she said.

"What is it?" Oliver asked.

Tapping on the floor beside her, she signaled to him to come join her. Oliver obliged without hesitation. He kept his book aside and laid down beside her.

"I could imagine thousands of images by just staring at the clouds, I can even form a whole story with them," she said in a low voice.

"Wanna hear a story?"

"I'm all ears," Oliver replied, gazing calmly into the sky.