Chapter One

After all these hours of anxious waiting, absolutely dreading leaving the comforts of my home behind, I was finally here. The place I will be spending the rest of the year. Havenpoint Academy: Hostel and High School.

The building I was now approaching was a tall, looming red-brick building with big Victorian style windows. You could tell it was an old building by looking at it but it was really nicely maintained for its age. The compound itself was large and well-kept with well-groomed gardens. After weeks of living as a hobbit, I was bound to immediately get sunburned the second I stepped out. Oh how I wanted to return back to the confines of my not-scorching-hot-home, but it was too late for that... mostly because a random girl in the crowd had, for some reason, decided to jump me. She haphazardly charged at me, almost tackling me to the ground. I was caught off-guard, as one does when you get vigorously embraced by a somewhat younger-looking girl who looks like she spent the morning trying to beat the world record to most amount of caffeine consumed by one sane person.

This year was off to a great start. Still startled I attempted to regain my posture while trying to figure out what just happened and why I was tackled.

But before I could inquire anything about it,

"I've caught a FRIEND!!!! A LIVE ONE TOO can you believe it??" she then asked, sticking her face closer, obscuring my view of anything besides her ginormous brown eyes. I was too shaken up to say anything besides,

"Uhm sure. Congrats"

"You're staying by me for the rest of the year."

My mom was worried I wouldn't make any friends at school... I guess that problem solved itself. This did probably mean I was going to interact with humans (or whatever she was) for the rest of the year. I wasn't hoping to in case you were wondering. I was now stuck with a loud, clingy maniac for the rest of the year. I was too tired from travelling all these hours to protest, so I just went along with it.

She was wearing a t-shirt with 'YOU SCREAM I SCREAM WE ALL SCREAM FOR ICE CREAM' printed in bold with faded blue jeans with knee-high boots. The ends of her short unruly hair were tinted a shade of neon purple. Kinda crazy for well..a crazy person.

We walked together towards the reception where the students went to get their house's pins, books, respective dorm numbers and other supplies we weren't given beforehand.

I was handed a paper bag with my supplies, the dark blue school tie, a timetable containing the school and cafeteria timings, a little plastic card denoting'404',the numbers what I could assume was my room number, and a shiny ignis house pin.

The pin depicted a fire symbol contained in our school's symbol, golden wreath with 'Havenpoint Academy' written in fancy lettering below it.

I looked over at my newly found 'bestie for life',who was now loudly humming 'Heather' by Conan Gray. She was thankfully in aer house which meant she was not going to be in my dorm. Before I could look away she snapped her head at me and said,

"The name's Rayners by the way. Aidene Rayners" and stuck out her hand,

"Anne Gray. Erm, nice to meet you?" I said as I shook her hand trying to appear unfazed.

"Oh, you're in Ignis house huh? Too bad we can't be roomies. Doesn't matter, we can still be friends outside the dorms."

She almost looked genuinely upset knowing she wasn't able to stay in the same room as the girl she just attacked, which may or may not have melted my rock cold heart a little.

"Uhm, yeah of course we can still be friends outside dorms."

Before we could continue this conversation, a loud ear-splitting screech came through the intercom, making everyone gathered in the room cower a little. The screech then transformed into a hoarse voiced man saying "Testing, testing" and then tapping the mic.

"According to our staff, nearly all of you have collected your supplies from the counter. Everyone who has gotten their dorm numbers and house assigned, is requested to stand in front of their banners, from where you will be guided to your respective rooms."

We did as we were told as the last few late arriving students rushed to get their supplies.

"Feel free to contact the reception in case of any inqu..." the monotone voice behind the intercom droned on.

A few older students hurried about, handing out little booklets that looked like brochures. Once I was given mine, I opened it and it was a sort of guide explaining the rules, history and achievements of the school. It had a map of the school in the back, which I could probably use sometime, so I stuffed it in the back of one of my bags.

It was around 5:00 pm now and the weather was really pleasant, so it was unlikely I would now get barbequed alive in the heat. Someone, who I assume is a teacher, guided us to our dorm building. The dorm buildings were behind the main school building, where we came from. It faced a huge pine forest. The massive pine trees almost seemed towered over our buildings.

The dorm buildings were arranged in a semi-circular formation. They were distinguished by houses, of which there were four: ignis, aer, aqua and terra. Each building was marked by two banners on either side of the entrance depicting the house symbols, the same as the ones on our pins. They had a few similar features to the main building, like the red-brick walls and the windows, but this was a little less academic. It felt more like a place people live. The Aer house building was next to mine so my new friend was at least living close to me.

I rolled my suitcase into the teeny elevator and hitched my shoulder bag. According to the card, my room was on the fourth floor in the fourth room facing a lake somewhere in the forest according to the map. The carpeted hall spelled like pine and was lengthy enough that I was already gasping for air a little. It had doors on either side, and room 404 was at the furthest end of the hall.

I took a deep breath, prayed for good roommates, and slowly pushed open the already unlocked door with my shoulder. The room was considerably more spacious than the dorm I had seen in other hostels. There was a single, huge panelled window at the opposite side of the room. The wooden flooring strongly smelled of pine. There were 3 beds in all, 2 to the right and one to the left. Each bed had from what I could assume was a study table by its side and a simple wardrobe on the other. Most of the furniture in the room was most likely made from solid wood and was for most part unelaborated and simple.

The bed to my left appeared a bit more dishevelled than the other two, which probably meant it was already taken. I walked a bit further into my home-to-be for the rest of the year. The books scattered beside the bed confirmed my assumption. I walked over to the bed at the end of the room, closer to the window. I sat myself down on the spotless white sheets. The bed was already made by someone before my arrival. I looked out the window and took a deep breath. The view was stunning. A massive crystal clear lake was spread across the floor of the pine forest glimmering in the setting sun.

As I was taking in the view I heard a voice came from behind me,

"You must be the freshie."

which made me jump a little (And that may or may not be an understatement.).

"Oh hey, did not know you were here."

"Sorry if you scared you by the way. I'm Penelope Knight aaand I'm your roommate for this semester." She said as she shut the bathroom door behind her.

"Nice to meet you. I'm Anne Gray."

The girl was probably a junior since she seemed to already live here and also called me 'freshie', which I suppose stood for freshman. She had long black hair hanging almost to her waist and had healthy, tan skin. Her eyes were a deep shade of green, which was kind of mesmerising in a way. She was wearing pajama bottoms over the white school shirt.

"Welcome to Havenpoint Academy. You better unpack now. We have to leave for dinner in about an hour."

"Oh thanks. Aren't we supposed to be having another roommate?"

"Yeah we are. Wasn't she supposed to be with you?"

"I guess she's either late or not attending then."

After that I unpacked all of my clothes, the rest of the uniform, black shoes, khakis and the white shirt and blue blazer, and of course the huge pile of books and other personal bric-brac, while Penelope sat at her desk looking through her phone.

I was just going through some of my textbooks when a bang came from the door, jump-scaring both of us. It was thrown open by someone, almost covered in what I assume was luggage. This was our roommate. According to calculations there was around 10 minutes for us to leave so it would have been some kind of miracle if she managed to unpack and get ready in time.

And well, she didn't she just kind of threw her bags in the general direction of the closest bed and then looked around while wheezing.

"Heuh, huff aah uh hi roomies." she said and then continued to look down and gasp for air.

"Erm, are you okay?" Penelope asked.

"Ye- yeah I'm just fiiine." She said sitting herself down on the bed.

We got her some water and before we could help her unpack or do anything else for her, it was already 7:00 pm. We were scheduled to leave at 6:45 pm and would definitely be late if we stayed any longer. We collectively decided it was better for everyone to unpack after dinner.