Chapter 5: Mishap

I tried to do work as normal, focusing on the tasks given and avoiding students on campus. I haven't seen Lucy for several days. I wondered where she was spending her lunch break.

With knees against the wood floor, I shook my head, pulling my attention back to the corner of the office I was scrubbing. I had no right to worry about someone. The best way to survive was to only worry about myself. That was what I learned from years in the Outback.

I should just be thankful that I've been in this place for a week now. Although the week was filled with hiccups and hurdles, I managed to get through without hearing words from the people who hired me. I was still doing okay.

After an entire morning of scrubbing the floor and dusting each book on the shelves as instructed, lunch break arrived. I had to hurry back to the outbuilding, considering how far the castle wing I was currently assigned to was. It still surprises me how huge the academy is, especially the places on the campus that I wasn't allowed to step into.

I placed the cleaning equipment in the storage room before heading outside. Thankfully, each floor in the castle had one of these rooms. It would be troublesome to bring several cleaning equipment at once on every floor.

After placing the equipment safely, while walking in the hallway, I glanced at the glass window overlooking the courtyard. This wing of the castle was closest to the school building. From the other side of the courtyard, I could see the high windows of the classrooms reflecting the rays of the midday sun.

It must be the student's lunch break as well. Thankfully, it was the back part of the school building nearest to the woods surrounding the main castle. Barely someone was around.

I walked out of the building to the open-air corridor, passing by the courtyard with old fountain splashing water, creating tiny fading rainbows in the middle of the low green hedges. The colors of the well-maintained courtyard were especially radiant at midday. From the flowerbeds attached to the windowsills, the brick walls with green crawling plants, to the tip of the towers glimmering underneath the cobalt sky. I still couldn't believe that a place like this exists in the town of Eden.

While walking, I noticed a small movement. I halted my steps to observe the surrounding. From the school building, a female student approached the courtyard. Her steps weren't too swift. It was more like she was dragging her feet with no specific place to go. I recognized her from her bouncy blonde hair.

Lucy.

She was the only student at the back of the school building, with a paper bag in hand. Where is she heading?

She reached the edge of the wood surrounding the main castle. I initially thought she was heading among the towering trees. But she stopped by the bench under the crooked intertwined branches of an oak tree, placed the paper bag on the bench, and sat quietly.

I immediately realized what she was doing. I watched her shove her hand in the paper bag to pull a sandwich and a glass of bottled juice. She started twisting the cap of the bottle while facing the fountain, eating alone.

I averted my gaze, realizing what she was doing. I drudged back to the corridor, grasping the heavy skirt of my uniform. Martha told me that Celestial Scholars have separate tables in the dining hall and cafeteria. That's how special they are. It was their privilege for being the best students in this prestigious school. Other students looked up to them and idolized them.

Anna, do you want to spend lunch with me?

Lucy's question from days ago resurfaced in my head. I knew she was only trying to avoid the possibility of spending time with the other scholars. But... it shouldn't be this lonely.

I stepped away from the scene with my hands clenched against my uniform. The more affected I am by the people around me, the more I'll be subjected to trouble.

But I only got to take a few steps before I shut my eyes close, taking a deep breath. Just today. I muttered to myself. It's not so wrong if it's just today.

"Anna!"

Lucy was surprised by my sudden appearance in the courtyard. I walked to her on the bench with her pale face flushed from the heat of the sun and wide eyes questioning.

"What are you doing here?"

Before I could formulate a response, she scooted to give me space to sit on the wood bench. "Do you want a sandwich?" she offered, ready to break the sandwich in half.

For a moment I had no words to say to her. I didn't even know why I approached her. I just knew that eating alone out of will could be the loneliest feeling.

I sat on the corner of the bench, a good distance from each other, with our skirts occupying most of the space. I glanced at the food she was offering, wrapped in brown paper, with the slice of ham and greens poking from the dry wheat bread.

I took it and mumbled a thank you.

"I can only offer this," she smiled. "It's the only thing allowed for students to take outside, plus the pastries. But I had the pastries  yesterday."

Of course. The academy was known for employing the best cooks and chefs in Eden. The kitchen staff regularly prepares a plethora of food for students and staff. It was a shame that Lucy, despite having access to it, only chose to have this much.

"Did you have lunch?" she asked again.

"I was about to."

Her eyelashes fluttered in a blink. "Oh, I'm sorry. Go ahead then," she said, still smiling. I often wonder how lips and eyes are placed close to each other, but more often than not, the emotions they portray don't match at all.

"Why don't you have meals with them?"

It was too late when I realized we were not close enough for me to say those words. We had several conversations at least, so we were not complete strangers. It's just frustrating to see her wasting good opportunities because she couldn't deal with what other people think of her.

The image of me kneeling in front of Principal Agnes in desperation flashed in my head while talking to Lucy. I had no way out so I ended up doing that. But this girl has a lot of paths before her to choose from and she chose this.

"Because there are people who can't handle certain emotions," Lucy mumbled. She went back to staring at the splashing waters from the fountain. "Some people are built like that."

I don't understand. If I said the same thing and accepted defeat, I  wouldn't survive my days in the Outback.  Lucy leaned back against the bench with a small smile on her face.

"I probably sounded whiny and privileged."

"Yes," I told her.

She wiggled herself on the bench, completely facing me. "Am I, really?" Her eyes widen in genuine curiosity. She didn't even look the least bit offended by what I told her.

"I don't blame you for it," I added. As she said, people are built differently. There might be things in her world I wasn't built to handle. But I still think what she was doing now wasn't the best of what she could do.

"I'm hoping things will get better one of these days, especially now that someone might join the group."

"Someone new?" I couldn't help but ask.

She nodded. "You share the same name!" Lucy exclaimed. "I heard she holds a rare magical ability. Although it wasn't confirmed yet since she's still under basic training."

Her face suddenly popped into my head. Fair, angelic, and dainty. The real Anna that the academy was looking for. I arrived at this place at the same time as her.

"I hope she's as nice as you are."

"I'm not nice," I mumbled.

"You are," Lucy pointed out, eyes wide in disbelief like I just said a  curse. "You're here even though you've said you won't spend lunch breaks with me."

"I just stayed here for a minute." I stood up before she expects good things from me.

"Anna." Before I could leave, I turned my head back to Lucy. "I'll bring more decent food tomorrow."

I should have said to her that there's no tomorrow. That this 'nice' she was talking about could only last for a day. But I didn't say a thing and left Lucy, smiling and waving at me.

--

Spending lunch break with Lucy forced itself into my routine. Since I  was assigned to the part of the castle closest to the school building, avoiding her was close to impossible.

I no longer had a strong intention to avoid her in the first place. And it seemed like Martha didn't mind as well. The other day she saw us having lunch in the courtyard and didn't say anything. Because deep inside, she cared for Lucy and she didn't want her to spend lunch break completely alone.

Talking to Lucy was honestly refreshing. I get to hear her stories about her classes, training, and her frustration with being one of the coveted Celestial Scholars. She never run out of things to say and it was like witnessing the academy from a different perspective, that inside this glorious place was hidden trash.

I listened to her stories while sitting on the bench at the back of the school building, eating the food we brought. It was fascinating to hear stories about magic, as though hearing fairy tales told by someone from the book.

"You said you can change things?" I asked her that afternoon.

"Yes, alchemy is basically the transformation of matter. You alter and change the composition of things."

We were eating blueberry muffins she brought from the school cafeteria after sharing a meal of breaded pork I packed from the outbuilding.  "Like what?" I asked again.

"A lot," she muttered in between bites. "But it all depends on the category of your ability which is based on the three foundations of alchemic magic in this world. Transformation, creation, and  combination."

"What can you do then?"

"Mostly transformation of things," she said, nonchalant. "Combination is a higher level that once mastered could get you a shot at being a Celestial Scholar."

"How about the third one?"

It was my first time hearing those categories, having little to no knowledge about magic since people like us who weren't blessed with these skills had to focus on the reality of surviving our reality more than aspiring to be one of them.

"Creation?" Lucy confirmed. "Well, it's a skill achieved by those who were born with natural talent or those who trained their entire lives. Transforming things that already exist is the basis of our skills.  Combining elements needs precision and a more developed skill. But creating things out of thin air is one skill that's hard to achieve even for skilled magic users."

Her statement left me speechless. It only cemented the fact that I, indeed, won't survive the things in Lucy's world. Leaning my back against the wooden bench, I stared up at the midday sky with fluffy clouds rolling lazily on the horizon.

"Do you want to watch training?"

I instantly peeled my back away from the bench to stare at Lucy, waving both of my hands to dismiss her statement. As much as I enjoyed listening to her stories while spending lunch breaks with her, it was the limit of what I was allowed to do. Only one situation allows me in the training room and that's to clean the place.

"Come on, they wouldn't know about it," she insisted. "The rest of the scholars have a field task today."

I gave her a deadpan look. "Why are you not with them?"

Her smile faltered for a second. "I'm not that skilled yet to go with them."

"You're a scholar just like them."

She left out a shallow sigh. "You would know once you see them in training. They have the same skill set but they're on a different level. They can create weapons and give life to nonliving. Do you know how much skill these techniques required?"

Give life to non-living. I suddenly remembered the instance in the training room when I witnessed a horrendous thing. The darkness surrounding him seemed to have life on its own.

Atlas.

Lucy scooted closer to me on the bench. Despite spending lunch breaks together, I always made it a point to create distance by sitting farthest from her, in case we encounter other students or staff. But she only kept closing the distance with her eyes alight in excitement, seeing the curiosity on my face.

"So you wanna check the training?"

I shook my head, more determined this time. This is the farthest I could go. I couldn't risk my job just because I was curious about something. This curiosity would eventually fade. Luckily, Lucy seemed to understand my situation and didn't push the idea further.

That's what I thought.

That night, my last task for the day according to Martha, was to clean one of the rooms in the training center. When I asked which one, she informed me it was the room for the Celestial Scholars.

I immediately thought of Lucy having something to do with it. But I didn't regard her as someone stubborn enough to go to such extent... would she?

That evening, I made my way to the training center, thinking that if I could finish this task quickly, I could go back to the outbuilding just in time for dinner.

I pulled my coat closer to my body while walking to the tree-lined pathway. The season was becoming colder, the breeze getting chilly, especially during the evening. If the autumn season could only extend a month more. It would be more difficult to do things outside the castle once the winter started.

I passed by the lake with the undisturbed water looking like a mirror reflecting the pale night sky. Lucy mentioned the other day that the training center was one of the rare places in the academy where students were allowed to use the maximum of their skills. Maybe that's why the location of the horrendous building was farthest from the castle and residential buildings of the academy. Who knows what could happen inside those rooms? I've heard students were normally injured after training.

Once I arrived at the training center, I pushed open the heavy arch door with my body, wondering how students with much frailer bodies would open these things. I made my way to the staircase leading to the underground rooms.

I've been careful since the first incident in the training room. I now know where to check if someone was using the training room. There's an indicator, a thin strip of light above the door flashing in red when someone's using it. And since there was currently no red light in sight, I was pretty sure the room was empty.

I was wrong.

Once I stepped inside, the door automatically closed and Lucy was waiting for me in the middle of the room with an expectant grin. I  blinked, surprised, before I approached her with a suspicious glare.

"Are you the one who requested to clean the training room?"

We've already lost any sense of formality in our conversation after days of spending lunch together. I used to call her Ms. Lucy and nipped my words so they didn't sound as blunt or harsh as I normally sound. But since Lucy was so persistent at times and carefree about it as well, I couldn't help my real emotions from coming through.

Her smile only widened with my statement, with her hair in a ponytail on both sides of her head, curls bouncing lightly as she speak. "I wasn't lying. This place needed cleaning."

I roamed my eyes inside the normal-looking room. She's right. It does need cleaning.

"That's all?" I asked, still suspicious of her motive.

"I initially thought of showing you how we undergo training, but at the last minute I realized I might be terrible at it," she mumbled with a half-smile. "So I've decided to help you clean this place to make up for you heading all the way here."

"You don't have to," I muttered. "It's my job anyway."

I still had no idea what she was up to. She could be pretty unpredictable.

"You've been here before?"

She tilted her head slightly to the side, watching me approach the attached storage space on the walls where the cleaning equipment was placed.

"You know where things were placed," she pointed out, making me pause from pulling the doors of the storage.

"Martha instructed me where to find things," I lied, turning away from her gaze.

I couldn't let myself slip. Even if it was Lucy, the awful incident with another  Celestial Scholar wasn't something that I needed to tell other people.

"I'll help you then," she announced in a cheery voice.

I was about to prevent her from doing so when the red light shone above the door, all the way to the ceiling, signaling that a student was using the training room.

"What–"

Before I could voice out my shock, my eyes went wide witnessing how the surrounding was immediately changing. We were being taken somewhere by the dimensional room.

"Lucy!"

But Lucy was as horrified as I was. She was standing several steps from me, pale face and eyes in fright. Our feet wobbled, the smooth floor becoming an uneven ground, the sight of the training room fading before our eyes.

"Wait– I– I didn't activate it!" Lucy fumbled through her uniform, searching for something.

I slowly roamed my eyes around the new environment. In a matter of seconds, we were no longer inside the training room. We were in a clearing, in the middle of a goddamn forest.

I tilted my head up to the blue sky behind the branches of gigantic trees. Even the season was different, a tropical climate, with the green earthy smell hitting my nose and the eerie noises of animals in the forest reaching my ears.

I turned my attention back to Lucy. We were both standing in the middle of towering trees.

"I didn't know what's happening– I swear!" her voice exclaimed. "I didn't activate it, see?" She showed me a gold rectangular nameplate carved with her name. "I had to scan this in the apparatus by the door to activate the dimensional room."

We both turned in the direction of the door where it was supposed to be. But we were now completely surrounded by the forest with the hem of my skirt brushing the forest ground and Lucy's shoes stepping on mossy dirt.

"Just turn it back," I told Lucy.

"I'm trying!" she exclaimed, her eyes slowly collecting tears in the lids. "I'm supposed to just command the room using my skill. It's an easy command but it's not working!"

There was a magic circle appearing on the ground where Lucy was standing. She's using her magic, that much I know of. I stepped away, making a clear space for her, aware that being inside the circle meant being affected by whatever command put into it.

While standing still, I suddenly raised my hands to stare at my open palms, feeling a jolt of electricity as though something was pricking my palms. I tried to shake out the unfamiliar feeling by shaking out my hands.

Something bad was happening in the surrounding. Lucy was trying to bring us both back to the training room, but the surrounding kept appearing and disappearing, fading and blinking before our eyes. Like a bad dream when you're about to wake up but the nightmare kept pulling you back.

With a sudden blow, we were shoved back to the training room. The change of environment and energies around us was so swift it left us stumbling back on the smooth stone floor.

At first, I thought Lucy made it happen, that she brought us back to the training room. But when she stared at someone behind me with wide nervous eyes, I knew we were in big trouble. She lowered her head in panic, mumbling.

"Atlas..."

My face turned cold, and my breathing halted. I gulped air as I turned my heels to face him. He was standing by the door of the training room, a golden magic circle under his feet, gleaming like gold fluid on the ground, covering the entire room. He had his arms folded over his chest while staring at the mess we did.

"It's... the apparatus malfunction..." Lucy tried to explain. "It was my fault..."

But Atlas didn't let her finish. "Report it to Mr. Lowe," his deep voice commanded.

Anxious, Lucy couldn't even move from her spot.

Atlas turned his sharp gray eyes to me. I ended up avoiding his gaze.  This is the second time him seeing me in this place and I just knew this time, I was in big trouble.

I lowered my head and shut my eyes closed, preparing myself to hear harsh words. But instead, he walked past me and muttered under his breath.

"It's you again."

***