1

"Awaken now." The sudden burst of a phosphorescent white flood, initiated by a flicked switch at the far end of the dorm, eradicated the sanctuary of darkness. Groans of protest rose from the occupants of the four beds, but their matron remained unswayed, proceeding down the hallway. Door by door, she repeated her sharp wake-up call, until the entirety of the north wing was brought to life. The merciless cold of winter, the cruel companion of the nascent academic year, embraced the ancient building. For the older students, the frost was only an additional layer to their numbing familiarity with the harsh routine of Morecombe Academy, a place where home felt like a fragment of another life, met only two or three times a year. It was the price they paid, the tuition for a Tracer's coveted education – a period of familial exile.

Damien, the newest inductee to the academy, disentangled his legs from the top of the bunk, letting them dangle in the void. He watched his comrades, Miles and Peter, stir from the comforting cocoon of their beds and commence the daily challenge of morphing into the uniformed symbols of Morecombe. It was an attire that was as uncomfortable as it was outdated, but it set them apart – distinguished them as extraordinary, as powerful. Being a stranger to the academy, Damien had been ushered swiftly into the numbing monotony that governed most boarding schools. The rigorous discipline of intense practical lessons in Tracing had revealed an unexpected facet to his gifts, showing him that they were not always a blessing. England's constant wet and cold, a harsh contrast from the hot, dry climates of his childhood in Australia and the US, only added to his longing for the comforts of home. Straddling the edge of his bed, he observed the morning routines of his dorm-mates, succumbing to a daydream, oblivious to the impending collision of a hurled pillow with his face.

"Time to get moving, Joey," Nicholas quipped, his grin wide with satisfaction at the sight of Damien's grimacing face and the echo of suppressed rage in his eyes. Damien's distinct Australian accent, a novelty in the echoing corridors of the ancient English academy, had quickly earned him the nickname. A hot tear pooled in the corner of his eye, partly due to the physical shock and partly due to his unexpressed fury, eliciting a burst of laughter from Nicholas.

"Enough, Nicholas," Miles intervened, his push enough to halt Nicholas' laughter.

"Aww, how sweet – defending your boyfriend?"

"Cut it out, Nick," Peter chimed in, too late realizing his mistake and quickly creating distance between him and the larger boy, well-aware of his disadvantage in size and strength. Nicholas pivoted to face him, his intentions clear, but were interrupted by the matron's abrupt entry.

"If you boys aren't uniformed by the time I return, hell will be the least of your worries. Now, get moving!" The stern look of the elderly woman dispersed the brewing conflict. Damien descended from his bunk, wiping his eye, the first taste of the unexpected trials that lay ahead of him. Nicholas' instant hostility was an unsettling welcome to the new term, his motives unfathomable to Damien. As a newcomer in the sixth form, he was braced for the challenges of integration among a group that had grown up together since their early teens, but Nicholas' unwavering enmity was beyond his expectation. Nor was Nicholas alone in his antipathy – scores of students either showed indifference or outright hostility towards Damien, stoked perhaps by the rumors of him being a prodigy. Viewed as a self-assured wunderkind who didn't recognize his place-last three paragraphs included to maintain continuity.

The rest of the day passed in a blur as Damien carried on sulking. At least twice, girls were sent to him as emissaries for Elizabeth, and echoed the sentiments he had received at the end of her slap earlier that day. By the evening, when once again the heating was non-existent, and the freezing slab of his bunk bed beckoned, he was seriously considering leaving the school. He stared out the window, in the same way he had done in the morning. Everything seemed so cyclical in this place – nothing different, nothing changing. He considered the irony of this, considering what they were here to learn, and sat idly staring until something caught his eye again. The creature, again! The same thing he had seen this morning. He definitely saw it now, clearly. It was a grotesque, hunched thing with sharp teeth, moving in an unnatural way, seemingly frightened of coming closer to the house. Its limbs were crooked and scaly.

The twilight faded into obscurity, its pale charm replaced by an oppressive blanket of darkness as Damien grappled with the arctic chill, his gaze riveted to the monstrosity. The dull radiance of the moonlight lent an ethereal quality to the grotesque figure lurking on the periphery of the Academy grounds. Its crooked, misshapen form was shrouded in an unholy aura, the sharp glint of its teeth a chilling warning of the horror it held within.

Wrapping himself tighter in his worn-out blanket, Damien shivered, the cold now a mere side note to the icy dread creeping into his bones. The creature's presence was a shadowy whisper of danger, a macabre anomaly in the otherwise traditional, if not slightly austere, setting of Morecombe Academy.

His mind swirled with a barrage of questions, each more troubling than the last. What was this creature? Why was it here? Was it dangerous? The curiosity mingled with fear, a toxic concoction that kept him from turning away, his gaze rooted to the monstrosity lurking in the frost-coated undergrowth.

His gloved hand rose of its own volition, pointing out the window, his voice a mere whisper in the bone-chilling silence. "There, can you see it?" His question was met with puzzled looks from his roommates, their attention pulled from their mundane bedtime routines.

Peter squinted at the window, his brow furrowed in confusion. "See what?" He retorted, the sleepiness in his voice evident.

"There," Damien repeated, his voice shaking with an unspoken mix of fear and excitement. "There's something out there, some... creature."

His words were met with hushed laughter, their skepticism evident in the rolling of their eyes. But Damien was unfazed. He knew what he had seen, and the image of the grotesque creature was seared into his mind, a chilling reminder of the sinister underbelly that resided within the academy's rustic charm.

As the night grew darker, the creature faded into the inky blackness, leaving a trembling Damien with nothing but the cold comfort of his questions and an inexplicable fear. This was just another layer of the enigma that was Morecombe Academy, a mystery that was beginning to feel like an oppressive weight on Damien's weary shoulders.