The 'friends'

"..." The entire hall was filled with a loud silence; even the quietest whispers would have a high chance of being discovered.

"Now, calm down, children don't be too excited~ Also, another thing I would like to mention is the exams~."

Her high-pitched voice was like a nail on a chalkboard for my ears, making a lot of us wince.

"As you all know, the exams are very, VERY crucial to your graduation. I'm sure everyone here would love to graduate,

Why don't you~"

We all know that question was rhetorical; she doesn't expect a verbal response nor for us to respond at all. And even if we did, our answers would somewhere read along the lines of

'If we don't manage graduating, you will 'expel' us.' and of course, expulsion is considered being on death row.

Here, it's pressuring, to graduate, to study, to always be observed like a military compound... For kids, if this was a book, it could be the 'How to fuck up your kids and make them hate you to death 101'

I've seen people with white hair, not from their abilities but from the stress; they were younger than me too.

The Headmistress said something about new students, but I didn't hear a word. I was too wrapped in my own thoughts.

Today it's the last day of the tests, tomorrow is the day when we move up, or rather, I move up, as it's my birthday. You can only move up on your birthday.

"3rd years!" The Headmistress announced suddenly.

All the 3 year olds stood up and individually collected their food at the counter and sat back down at their section of their table. We usually prefer to stay with people in the same age group.

"4th years!"

The 4 year olds did the same.

"5th years!"

Then the 5-year-olds, and so on.

"12th years!"

The last group on table 3 stood up at the same time.

We all lined up at the counter, grabbing our trays as we reached the start of the collection point.

When my turn came, I picked up the tray, moving along the line as I did so. I felt the cold metal against my fingers. I reached the first server. she plopped this strange stew(?) on a plate and passed it onto my tray, it smelt like fish and oats but burnt. Really burnt. I moved to the second server, and he gave me a carton of milk and a little plastic bag of carrots. The third server gave me a small biscuit with a paper package, the type that comes with pastries, it once again added to heavy load of food... that I'm about to reluctantly swallow down.

I walked down the side of table 3 and eventually reached my placement and sat down. I was at the front of the table nearest to the stage.

A boy came and sat right next to me; his name was Cain Learcher. He's an annoying little prick that won't stop bugging me. What's worse is that his birthday is on the same day as me. Meaning that I'll never be able to sit away from him for once.

Not even for a day.

"Hey there, Harpy~" He snickered, my god one day I'll shut him up so hard he'll-

"Shut up. Stop calling me a Harpy. I 'implore' you to stop referring me as a creepy woman-bird from Ancient Greece." I sarcastically stated, as if I was explaining what the alphabet was.

"Something so beautiful could become a ferocious beast. I think it suits you just fine." He snarkily teased.

I was extremely urged to just stand up and smack him with my tray, but I could not. Not because I don't actually want to hurt him; it's because I could get punished or, worse, expelled.

(H*rmonie Gr*nger type shit rn)

Another boy and a girl came to sit with us. The girl in front of me and the boy beside her

That's Aidan Walter and Mara Flitzbert, Mara tells us not to make fun of her last name so we just do it secretly, we call her Flitsy, I don't really call her that she's too sweet for those names, I don't understand why the boys are so scared of her though? She's perfectly nice to me.

She has long baby pink hair and artic blue eyes, an adorable little creature. Her ability was to talk to animals, all types, including humans since technically we are animals too, meaning she's the top of the class in our language lessons. And so obviously, her ability was called Communication. Not much creativity there, huh.

This was our group. All the students here made some types of groups, but most of the groups are more in number than just measly four people. But all in all, we're all quite powerful, so people can't actually criticise our small group because they'll eventually be proven critically wrong that not even flex tape can fix their pride.

Aidan was that usual muscle head that doesn't stop asking to fight you. But he doesn't bug me as much a Cain, so I can bear him. He has short blazing red hair that can easily catch your eyes and crimson red eyes, equally as eye-catching. His ability was to control flames; it was called

'Flame Manipulation', but I call him Sparky as a nickname.

And Cain? Hah. That guy always chases me around, calling me 'Harpy' he now even rubbed off on my cute Mara. And Aidan I guess. Now, all 3 of them call me Harpy.

Mother. Why did you, out of all the names in the world, decide to call me Harper?

Harper Whitlock.

Cain has short wavy glimmering silver hair and light brown skin; it glowed under the sun as if coated with syrup. His iris are a pitch black, and if you stare into them long enough, I'm sure you would feel quite a creep slithering down your spine. His ability was nearly on par with mine, it was called Copy and it was the ability to copy other dex's abilities, but the 2 requirements are to personally see the ability he wants to copy at least once, and he needs to be touching them when he can finally copy the ability, though the downside is he can only use the ability for exactly 24 hours after the copy.

Yes, these people are my group, or rather,

my friends.