Ciar was a lot more excited than Leonidas was—for a logical reason too, his current roommate was a pain in the smart-ass son of a bitch and the other was two years below them, with Leonidas moving in it'd be a lot easier to avoid him and have someone his age to talk to.

  "Everyone that goes here is a weirdo," He thought but assumed Leonidas might be different and the most normal since he hadn't said anything weird or portrayed unusual behaviour, unfortunately for him he was dead wrong.

  "Well come on, let's get moving." said patron Paul eagerly trying to escape miss Irene's jabs at his ego.

  "Bold of you to talk when you aren't carrying even half the load and you're older than both of them combined." She shot at him again.

  "She honestly isn't giving him a chance to breath." The two boys thought, they both collectively put a hand on his chubby shoulders and looked down at his 5'2 self in pity.

He shrugged them off and left the room to wait in the corridor, Leonidas put his uniform in one of the bags and they both gathered the rest of it before leaving to join him outside.

  They took a right and went back down the passageway with the rose wallpaper, then took a right again and came back to the landing.
  The trio descended the stairs till they reached the first landing, Leonidas and Ciar were about to take a step forward but Paul stopped them, they looked back and saw that his face had gotten even redder which should virtually be impossible.

  "Let's use the back door." He said avoiding their gaze.

  "Why?" They asked in unison.
  "It'd be better and we can't go through the entrance carrying this much bags, just think of the number of students out there that'll obstruct our way." He said quietly.

  At first, they thought he was just ashamed to let people see that they were carrying most of the bags but then they saw him inconspicuously look over the railing and stare down intensely—the only person below them was miss Sophia.
All of a sudden, the pieces fell into place, "Ohhhhh" They exclaimed, "He has a crush on miss Sophia." They thought to themselves finally understanding his embarrassment.

  "But the back path is very long and tedious." Ciar said.

"We're carrying most of the luggage anyway, how shameless can you get?".

  "Ciar is right, but I just can't face my beloved Sophia in this pathetic defeated state— She thinks of me as such a manly man [[This information is false]] so I can't let her down." He thought.

  "It doesn't matter, let's get started or we'll never reach." He said to them in a final tone.

  The first landing had a platform on their left—since they were descending and a passageway to their right, on the platform was another flight of stairs parallel to the one they were facing right now and it led to the other side of the building.

  They turned to the stairs and descended them, at the bottom was a waiting room with six(6) leather armchairs, three of which were already occupied.

The first one near the wall beside a room labelled "INTERCEPT", sat a little girl with what appeared to be her father on the seat next to her, she looked to be around 12 years old and was playing a game on her dad's phone while he looked around nervously.
  The man looked to be around thirty with thick black hair and eyes with bags under them, he was sweating profusely while chanting under his breath, "Will everything really be ok? they aren't going to do anything to us right?".

  There was a three-seat difference between him and the other guy that looked like he was on something, he looked droopy and had bloodshot eyes he tried to cover with a pair of shades, his skin was also very pale to the point that he looked transparent.

   "What's intercept?" Leonidas asked leaning towards Ciar.
   "It's the place visitors and students go to ask questions and if they wish to see the headmaster or his secretary, then they have to notify them here first".

    "Really? why didn't I go here first?" Leonidas asked.
    "Probably because someone escorted you there and Mrs Kobayashi is too nice of a lady to have sent you back".

  They moved in-between the seats to get to the door right beside the pale boy. Ciar opened the door and they stepped out to see a maze of buildings, structures and paths laid before them and stretched out wide on the school grounds.

   "How can anyone navigate their way around here?" Leonidas asked already dreading the walk before it even began.

  "Oh you'll get used to where everything is placed but never the distance" Ciar said squinting his eyes into the distance.

  "Come on, I'll point out what every building is and its function." He said as they stepped down the short steps before landing on a grey slate cobblestone on mesh pavement.

  They walked on the long path and came to face a fenced structure with a few students bouncing a ball around on a concrete slab, the floor was divided into two with one side painted in evergreen graphite and the other in Shelby blue.

  "This is the basketball court, where the school's team practices and hold matches in" It was 91.86ft long and 49.27 ft wide.
  They walked in and went towards the edge to not bother the players and left without any difficulties.

  "Thank God it's autumn, or else we would melt before we get even halfway there." Ciar said, but it didn't help comfort Leonidas much cause he now had to worry about what they would do when summer comes by.

   They resumed their walk on the pavement beyond the court and kept to the path for about five(5) minutes before coming to a point where the road split into three(3);
    "The right path leads to the first three(3) dorms lettered A-C, they're put together in a huge gate behind both the first and second founding building and we call them estate 'R', it's really wide so there's plenty of space between them." Ciar said as they stopped to rest at the intersection.

  "Oh great, more walking even in the estates." He muttered under his breath.

   "R for rose, the one we're in is called estate W for wood and contains dorms D-F." Ciar said as they turned to the path on the left.

  "The path that went straight leads to the staff apartments, students are forbidden from going there but rumour has it that the place is haunted and I can back up that claim." He said looking at Leonidas with a mischievous smirk like he was about to let him on the world's biggest secret.

   Leonidas looked at him waiting in suspense, he loved things like this it always gets him fired up.
   "Thirty percent(30%) of the teachers you meet tomorrow won't be here the next day and I heard the percentage grows larger each week, they never last long here cause of the ghost." He said turning to look at the apartment buildings in the distance.

   Leonidas' eyes widened in awe, but patron Paul just said: "That's a load of bull, everyone knows ghosts and all those supernatural stuff aren't real! they're merely myths and nothing more".

   "Sometimes even myths have a bit of truth to them you know?" Leonidas said turning to stare and maybe he was hallucinating from how tired he was but it looked like the buildings were moving away and further back into the part of the forest that was incorporated into the school—right behind it.

    He rubbed his eyes believing he was running mad before turning back to face Ciar, who was now pointing at a structure ahead.

   "That's the cafeteria, it's a three(3) storey building but it isn't quite big enough to contain all of us at once, so we have assigned eating times—each class eats according to schedule and it starts from the 7th grade to the 12th grade".

  "There are four(4) entrances into the cafeteria, we're going through one of the doors on the side and the main entrance leads to the fourth(4) founding building, which is our class by the way, each class has their own building but the 7th and 8th graders share one since not many sensible parents— especially the International ones— would send their children to a school in the middle of a place called suicide forest." He said as they entered the cafeteria.

   The place had about thirty(30) bench tables with five(5) attached seats on the first floor.
   "Are the seats similar to the ones above this one?" He asked wondering how crowded it would get during eating times.

   Ciar nodded and said, "I heard that on Saturday nights they bring the tables out to the football field—which is further into the forest in a clearing, the view out there must be spectacular and I also heard that on special days we get to sleep out there under the stars." His round brown eyes shined brightly as he smiled in content, looking forward to Saturday night.

"Of course I haven't experienced any of this, I haven't even been here a full week." He said scratching the back of his head with a wide grin.
   Leonidas smiled at the boy's excitement as they crossed through the several rows of blue and red mixed tables to get to the door opposite the one they came through.

  Once outside, they reconnected with the cobblestoned pavement and kept to it for about three hundred meters(300m) before Ciar pointed towards a square-shaped building and said, "That's the gym and also the auditorium, it works with assigned use like the cafeteria for P.E classes and as for pep rallies, we have specially assigned weeks for them".

   They walked through the side door like they did with the cafeteria and stepped onto the polished floorboard.
"The main entrance leads to the fifth(5) building for the 10th-grade classes".

   "Bunch of rude little cunts is what they are." Patron Paul said grunting.

  "I think you mean rude 'tall' cunts patron Paul." Ciar said as they both snickered in front of him.

  "Those women have ruined my cool image." He said crying in despair. The boys laughed at this pathetic sight and thought "What cool image?".

  There were four(4) baskets full of dodgeballs at each corner in the room and a net for volleyball too, Two sets of long bleachers sat opposite each other with one painted blue and the other red.

  Once out the door and back on the pavement, the two boys started feeling the weight of the load-bearing them down.

  "I'm tired of walking already, how much longer till we get there?" He said whining with a little pout.

  "Just a little bit more actually—there aren't any more buildings from this point, just a statue and then straight walking from there." Ciar replied slouching from the weight.

  They walked towards the golden statue of a woman with one hand stretched out to the sky holding a bronze ball and the other holding a long golden scepter, she wore a piece of clothing sculpted to cover her as she looked up to the sky.

  Leonidas suddenly stopped dead in his tracks noticing something strange, he looked around a bit and noticed a few odd things.

  "What's wrong?" Ciar asked as patron Paul stopped with him.

   "This is somehow strange." He said looking down at the pavement then back up towards the golden woman.

   "Let me explain, so every building we've seen so far has been connected to one of the founding [[First five front]] buildings right?" He said walking around the pavement tapping his feet a little to confirm his suspicion.

  "Yeah." Ciar said curious as to where he was headed with this.

  "But this one doesn't as you can see, it even has a path leading to it like the others but nothing except this statue in the middle".

  "That isn't so strange though, maybe they just wanted more walking space for the students and staff?" Ciar said wondering if he was wrong about him not being a weirdo.

  "That's what I thought too but look over there." He said pointing towards the curb by the door of the gym.

  "Weeds are growing over there and over there too." He said as he pointed to a bunch of weeds growing in-between cracks in the pavement and curbs beyond the territory of the fifth(5) building.

  "But none here, which is biologically impossible since both sides have life growing on them but not here and it's right between them".

  Patron Paul looked irritated with all their conspiracy theories, Ciar looked awed and fascinated by what he said and noticed—after looking well— that the pavement looked detached from the others.

  "What are you insinuating?" Patron Paul asked annoyed that they had stopped for such nonsense.

  "I just confirmed my suspicions when I tapped my foot on it a while ago." He paused before looking back and forth between patron paul's irritated face and Ciar's curious one.

  "It sounded hollow, I don't think this parts supposed to be here, I think it's hiding something.....I think there's something down here".
   They leaned in close to each other with serious looks on before...
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   "Bwahahhaaaaahaaaaaa" They busted out laughing after what seemed like an intense moment, at some point dropped the bags and rolled on the ground clutching their stomachs.

  "That's even more ridiculous than the ghost stories." Patron Paul said laughing with tears rolling from his eyes.

  "It makes a bit of sense but yeah that was pretty dumb huh?" He said feeling silly.
  "Ok ok like patron Paul said; no more conspiracy theories, come on we're almost there." Ciar said as they all tried to contain their laughter while picking up their bags and continued with their walk.

  Regardless of how loud they laughed at the thought, deep down the boys knew there was something up.
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[[SOMEWHERE DEEP IN THE FOREST]]
  In the far distance— on the branch of an oak tree, sat a mysterious man watching their retreating forms with a special device, "Seems like the boy caught on quick, hmmm that makes three of them already".

  A static noise came before a voice said through a communication device; "Captain, we're gonna need you back at the base it seems there's been some sightings".

  " Ah just when things were getting interesting too, alright I'll be there soon." he said back, turning off the device.

  "Let's see if the others catch on too, I must say this is a very interesting batch." he said with a wide grin before jumping onto the next tree and retreating further into the forest.
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  The trio walked for about three(3) minutes before patron Paul asked for a break, he dropped the suitcase like it weighed something and slumped onto a stone bench on the neatly cut grass.

  "The audacity of this man." They thought with wide fake smiles clearly ticked off.

   "He took up all the space so we don't even have anywhere to sit." Leonidas thought sighing outwardly as they opted to squat down on the pavement to rest.

  There were several shrubs neatly cut into various interesting shapes around them, a few cherry blossom trees, Japanese cypresses and other colourful flowers and butterflies decorated their surroundings.

  "This is a really refreshing place to stay for a while." They all thought as a soft autumn wind blew putting them at ease.

  After ten(10) minutes had gone by without any of them saying a word, both boys looked up to ask if they could get going only to discover patron Paul had fallen asleep on the bench.

  They looked at him wordlessly then turned to look at each other smiling mischievously and their eyes twinkling with glee.

  They positioned their bodies right next to his ears and screamed at the top of their lungs, "OVER HERE MISS SOPHIA!!!!!!!!".

  " WHAT??? WHERE???" He jumped up from the bench in a flash and hurriedly tried to make himself look as manly as ever, he puffed out his chest but it was only his stomach that bulged.

   The boys staggered around laughing their heads off before picking up their bags and running away from an enraged patron that just realized he had been duped.

  "That was the fastest I've ever seen him move??" Ciar said as they both ran deeper into the woods.

  They kept running and didn't even realize they were almost within range with their estate until they were just a few steps away from the gate.

  "Ours is the last building." Ciar said as they walked around the fence and through the iron gates, they stepped onto the bright yellow cobblestoned path and Leonidas immediately thought of the wizard of oz.

  "The headmaster has a thing for the wizard of oz movie." Ciar explained.

  "yeah, a real bothersome obsession." Patron Paul said as he caught up with them, he already forgot what they did.

  The dorms were painted in royal blue and stood three(3) storeys high, "Are the other dorms like this too in estate R?".

  " Yes but they're painted red, we compete against each other that way, the red vs blue war has been going on since the school was first created so I've heard, both wanting to dominate the other." Ciar explained as they moved between the two buildings to get to theirs.

  "Each dorm has a total of a hundred and fifty(150)rooms, fifty(50) on each floor with ten(10) showers and toilets." He said as they stood to face their dorm with the letter 'F' written boldly in gold.

  "One hundred and fifty rooms(150)??? isn't that a bit too much? plus the rooms would have to be hella small right?" Leonidas asked wondering the state of the students.

  "The rooms are actually pretty spacious with only four(4) students in each".

  "Ah, that's still bad but it's a lot better since it's only four in a room".
   They walked up the front steps and walked through the two huge mahogany doors.

   The place was painted a light cream colour and the floor had polished azure tiles with little clouds on them.

  " At night the clouds reflect all around the walls of the dormitory, makes you feel like you're outside." Ciar whispered to him.

  They saw several students walking around and chatting—some carrying towels to go take a shower and others coming back from one. A lot of them held a strange leave shaped tablet in their hand.

  "Are they holding tablets? Leonidas asked.
   " Yes, they're the school's very own creation called 'The rose', we use them for school research, they have trackers in them for knowing the location of students in case of emergencies and sometimes for entertainment" Ciar replied as they walked down several rows of doors.

  "You're always supposed to be with yours so don't lose it" patron Paul said grunting.

  "Oh, patron bald is back." Said a blue-haired boy coming out of a room to their left.

  "What did you just call me?" He said walking towards the boy.

  "Relax or is your name not patron Paul anymore?" An extremely tall boy said stepping out of the room behind him.

  "That's not what he said, he called me bald." He said, his face flaming red.

  "Nah I'm pretty sure he said Paul." He said as they all snickered.

  "You all heard it right? he called me bald." Patron Paul said turning to the rest of the boys for help.

  They all shook their heads and said they heard Paul, obviously they were lying but they all liked to mess with him.

  "One day I'll get that transfer letter I've been asking for so I can finally leave this place and all you rotten children." He said with tears streaming down his face.

  "We know you love us too much to leave us patron Paul." They sang in unison to mock him even more.

  "I hate all of you." He said crying even more.

  "Damn, so they mess with him here too?" Leonidas asked leaning into Ciar a bit.

  "Yup, it's our main source of entertainment and I'm sure you'll fit right in with the bunch." He said grinning widely.

   "Our room is on the last floor, so... yay even more walking for us." Ciar said as they came to the foot of a long-winded staircase.

   They climbed the staircase all the way up to the last floor and right in front of them was a big beautiful stained glass painting of a rose with half blue and red petals, the sunlight filtering through it projected the image right in front of them and Leonidas thought it was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen.

   "Come on, the rooms are this way." Ciar said calling to Leonidas to remove him from his trance.

They turned around and saw an array of rooms spread out before them in rows, the doors were dark brown with ten(10) of them on each side, a few opened with noise streaming from within and overall it was chaotic.

   They walked down to the end of the hall and saw two corridors on either side leading to even more rooms, they turned left and walked down the blue carpeted hall, once at the end two more paths opened up.

   Ciar pointed to the left and said: "This way leads to the toilets and showers".
  They turned right and came to a short corridor before turning right again and coming to a medium-sized hall with five(5) rooms on each side.

  "The first corridor that we passed by leads to the last twenty(20) rooms, it's the biggest hall on this floor." Ciar explained.

The rooms had numbers engraved in gold on them for identification, room 870-875 on the right side and 876-880 on the left.

  They walked down and stopped in front of room 879, turned the handle and walked inside.

   The room was painted in presidential blue, very big and had two(2) bunk beds directly opposite each other with bedside drawers on each side—four(4) reading tables in each corner of the square room fully packed with books, reading lamps and a complimentary mug from the school. A huge fluffy rug the same colour as the room laid in the middle between the beds.

  On the bottom left bunk bed, sat a boy around their age with his face buried deep in a book, he didn't even bother to look up at the new company.

  "That's one of our roommates, he acts cool but he's a total weirdo so stay as far away from him as possible." Ciar leaned in to whisper to Leonidas.

  "Heard that, at least put some effort into gossiping about me when I'm right in front of you." He said rolling his eyes from behind the book.

   "I don't have to put effort into anything dumbass." He said flipping him off.

   "Well that would explain why you're so stupid".

   "Hey!!!!!! I put effort into my school work." He said starting to get worked up.

   "But you just said you don't put effort into anything." He fired back to him flipping a page over.

  Ciar got so worked up he clutched his hair tight and rolled his eyes back—a pure look of frustration on his face, "Stop twisting my words asshole".

  "Well, then be clear on your comebacks and that wouldn't happen now would it?". He replied fully composed.

   Leonidas really enjoyed their bickering, "They have great chemistry together." He thought looking forward to the great times they would have while he was here.
   Patron Paul handed the suitcase he'd been carrying over to leonidas and said while crying: "Please try not to tease me too much while you're here".
  "Can't promise that sorry." He thought nodding to patron Paul as he left the room.

  "I'm on the bottom bed so the top is all yours." Ciar turned to him, choosing to ignore the other boy's presence.

   He went over to drop his bags on his bed and turned to see that the other boy had finally looked up and was staring at him.

  His azure coloured monolid eyes stared at him intensely, analysing and summing him up, but after a few minutes of silence had gone by he realized that he couldn't profile him under any category.

   "This has never happened before, I've always been able to figure people out on the first meeting." He thought narrowing his eyes at him.

  "Told you he was a weirdo." Ciar said as he sat on his bed and watched the exchange.

   "What's your name?" He finally asked determined to get some answers.
  "Leonidas lyre, you?" He said extending his hand for a shake.

  "Let's play a game Leonidas, if you win then I'll tell you my name but if you don't then you'll get kicked out of school." He said putting his hands into his tracksuit trousers.

  "And why on earth would I agree to that just to get your name? if you don't wanna give it then I won't force you." He said raising a brow at his cockiness.

   "Also let's assume I do play and I lose the challenge, how would you make me get kicked out?" He asked curiously.

   "This is so dumb, Leonidas you don't have to play his stupid game." Ciar said coming to his defense.

  "Actually he does have to play my 'stupid game', my parents are the main sponsors of this school, if I ask for you to be kicked out then you will." He said closing the gap between them so they stood eye-to-eye.

  This boy was challenging him and he sure loved a good challenge, "Well let's get going then." The unnamed boy said walking to the door.

  "Wait, how are you so sure I'm even mildly interested." He said acting composed but was jumping with excitement on the inside.

  "Cause..." He said stopping at the door to turn and look at him, "You have that look in your eye that screams excitement, you're practically ready to burst with it",  He opened the door and stepped out into the hall.

  "You can come too Ciar, I'm sure you'll finally learn something useful." He called to him in a sarcastic tone.

  "I'm gonna kill him." He said with a strained smile on his face and a few veins popping on his forehead.

  "Come on, it'll be fun." Leonidas said grabbing him and heading out the door behind him.

  They locked the door and walked out of the dorm with Leonidas beaming brightly between them, Ciar shooting murderous looks at the unnamed boy and the said boy had a slight smirk on, they looked like the three musketeers as they walked back down the yellow-wizard of oz themed path.
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What kind of game is it gonna be? find out next week🤗