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"I- I think she's d-dead."

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"WELL GO AHEAD," Daya began, folding her arms as she laid back in her seat. Swinging one leg over the other, she motioned to the suitcases, "Those are yours. Towels are in the wardrobes."

My gaze lingered over her for a moment, wondering if she expected me to change while her eyes were set on me. Forgive me but I was used to privacy and much of it. Unless on rare occasions my mother would barge in without knocking. She gave the polite reply, 'It's my house when I complained and if she caught me indecent, she would shrug it off with, 'It's nothing I haven't seen many times already Hun. '

Yes, there was no winning when it came to her.

But, as a single child, I did have all the space one would long for. as lonely as it seemed, it was in my nature as a person situated on the more introverted side of the equation. The silence was lonely, but it was also my comfort.

It was apparent, however, that I had no control over my current situation. As much as I daydreamed about how it would be to be normal for once, a normal teen, this moment had never crossed one of my imaginings and it didn't lessen the embarrassment and or shyness resonating from deep within, having to undress in front of a peer.

I had never gotten naked in front of anyone since I was a child.

"Are you shy?" She asked with a slight snicker, "C'mon We are girls here," she teased, raising an eyebrow at my hesitation, "unless otherwise," she muttered the last part underneath her breath but my ears had long adapted to snarky comments, her eyes darting to my bottom half.

My cheeks heated up, in part shock at the insinuation, moving toward the wardrobe like a robot, ears burning in light humiliation.

Taking out a towel, I proceeded to roll a suitcase up to my side of the bed, well at least I presumed it was my side, seeing as the package from before was on it, pulling it up onto the bed. Unzipping it, my eyes immediately lit up, settling on the sight of various colors of normal-looking clothing neatly folded and pressed.

I picked up one shirt and realized these were not mine. They were regular, tops, jeans, dresses, and skirts none remotely near to the Ekusi print I usually wear at home.

Not even as much as an Ekusi wrapper, to cover over my jeans.

It was quite apparent Gravis wanted me to be the typical teen, which was nothing I could complain about.

Regular was a feeling I had longed for, to not have this constant burden raining over me about what was expected from a future queen, and in fate's own messed up way, I was granted these things.

I mean where in my God's green land would mom allow me to walk around palace grounds in bare jeans? Nope, a princess must be modest at all times. Modesty was treated in high regard in my country, our traditions differed from the outside world. Royalty had to look like royalty sporting Ekusi ornaments wherever they went.

I wasn't particularly angry about it, it was a part of me I was proud of, but as a 17-year-old girl, another part of me yearned for the normalcy of movie teens I feasted my eyes on via Netflix and the glitz, glamour, and freedom of just being regular.

A smile crept on my face as I pulled it out of the suitcase, pulling out for me to fully inspect. I couldn't believe Gravis had picked these out for me, well at least I thought it was him. There was no Zali here after all. If it was him, it seemed he was pushing me to take on the regular girl role quite well. If I was a good actor was a whole other thing altogether. Daya cleared her throat and my head snapped to her expression, having completely forgotten she was still there.

My smile dissolved as I realized, judging from her expression, I probably passed the weirdo test.

If my general observation of the first 30 minutes of my stay around Daya was true, having her think so according to Netflix high school rules was probably not ideal as she rubbed me as popular in all the wrong ways. With this in mind, I quickly selected what I'd wear after my much-needed shower, glad to find a shower cap, to protect my hair.

I glanced over at Daya who was still watching me with an unchanged expression, allowing me to release a depressed breath that should have sounded like a sigh without sound, proceeding to take off my dress.

"Your guardians have a lot of faith," she began, as I took off my gown.

Not fully understanding what she was talking about, I glanced in her direction momentarily before proceeding to carefully slip on the towel just before my dress could fully uncover my nakedness, slipping to the floor, stepping out of my dress, my feet sliding into some new slippers, whilst my other hand was holding up my modesty.

"I guess Miss Amir is doing a better job at convincing your kind because most of you don't come to Kingsland prepared," She huffed, I watched her eyes hover over my opened suitcases.

My kind? What? Africans or black people?

I glanced at my suitcase one more time, before trailing back to her.

She stood up, sighing, pulling up her skirt, which in my opinion didn't need any more pulling up, "C'mon, let me show you to the showers, she sashayed her hair bouncing along behind her moving out the door, head held high.

Peering down at my legs, I could feel my bare nakedness, barely covered by the miniature towel. There was no way I was walking through that large hallway like this. I didn't even know how far the showers were. I was used to just taking a few steps to my bathroom. Honestly, I didn't even like the shower, I preferred pounding about in a bath while reading. However, I knew I had come to a large compromise as part of being regular meant living without such luxuries.

This didn't stop me from having a mini panic attack at the thought of parading myself down a hallway that could contain the male species with nothing covering me but a handkerchief. Because that is exactly what this white towel was.

Where was the Ekusi wrapper when you needed it?

Daya turned to look at me, beckoning me to follow. I frowned maintaining my ground no matter how nervous and shaky my body felt, jotting something in the notebook and handing it over to her.

She sighed, walking back towards me, glancing at what I had written,

"You're kidding right?" she asked raising an eyebrow. I shook my head, fiddling with the ends of the towel nervously. She scoffed, throwing my notebook on the bed, dragging me along.

"I can see you're a shy one. It's not even that short!" She huffed, "This is a girl's dorm. Nobody freaking cares," she huffed, pulling me along till I stood out the door, and in the open.

Some girls passed by us, giving me a queer look. She took my sponge and soap, locking the door.

"Now that that's taken care of, let's go," she hummed, strutting down the hallway.

It took me a second, but I paced beside her, constantly tugging at this embarrassment of a towel, knowing that the queer glances people were giving me were the least of my problems.

What if it dropped?

Then the whole dorm would see my nakedness!

"Why do I always get the weird ones?" I heard her mutter as we continued. This made me stop fidgeting so much, settling for a subtle pull now and then, pacing beside her as we neared a dead-end, two gray doors on either side.

"AGH!!!!"

My eyebrows furrowed as I watched Daya freeze, putting an arm in front of me that could have gutted me if I hadn't stopped in time. She looked up toward where the sound was coming from, speedwalking toward it.

I didn't think I liked walking toward the scream, but curiosity and the knowledge that only Daya knew where to go made me follow right after, quite uncertain if it was the right thing to do with each step.

I realized we had walked into the toilets, as there were toilet stalls lined up. A girl was standing there in a handkerchief towel, petrified, eyes glued into an open stall. Daya rushed to her, pulling her a little too roughly in my opinion.

"What? What's wrong?!"

The girl seemed to slip out of her shocked stance momentarily, glancing over at us, allowing me to take in her striking Japanese American features, as she pushed a strand of her dark ebony hair behind her ear with shaky fingers.

"I- I think she's d-dead," she stuttered, pointing to the open stall. her accent sounded Canadian.

Her words attacked me more than anything, though I knew I wouldn't believe there was a literal dead body in the stall before me till I saw it.

I moved, very slowly and cautiously, maintaining a safe distance as I peered in, hand glued to my heart to stop it from racing out my chest if it turned out to be true. Daya stepped into the stall bravely as my eyes settled on a honey-haired girl sprawled lifelessly on the floor, eyes, whites, irises and all completely white and wide open, head on the toilet seat, with an orange wristband lying beside her.

Her dead pale skin could have put snow white to shame, only countering with pale blue lips.

I staggered back in shock at the sight. My hand flew to my mouth, partly in utter shock and partly to stop the bile threatening to rise.

I was not built for this, not built for this! My mind kept screaming.

Daya rolled her eyes sighing. Running a hand through her blond locks grumbling.

"Again Ellie?" she muttered, walking over the body.

She picked up the orange band, slipping it over the dead girl's wrist, an action I thought wasn't necessary given the situation, before walking out of the stall.

"W-what are we g-going to do?! We should call s-someone!" The girl we had found screeched, asking a perfectly normal question accompanied by an equally wonderful suggestion.

I for one did not want to even look at it, but my eyes refused to leave the body. Her dead eyes seemed to be staring straight at me. How did she die? No visible cuts I could see but I didn't, no, couldn't even look past her chin.

The first day here and a dead body?

This can't be a good sign. Scratch that, maybe regular wasn't made for me. Yep, I could feel it coming up my throat.

However, even in my current state of complete horror, I couldn't help but wonder why Daya was so calm in this instance. She moved toward asking,

" what's your name?"

"C-Clair," she stuttered, her fingers shaking even more badly than I.

"C-Claire Lin. "

"I'm guessing you're new here, " Daya huffed, her attention momentarily slipping from Claire as she glanced around seemingly looking for something.

Claire nodded, glancing at the dead body in the exact horror state I was in.

"Claire Lin, meet Talanda Karu, you too should be friends," Daya stated bluntly, turning away from us in a bored monotone. Claire turned towards me slightly at the blatant introduction and I waved my shaky hand a little. She offered me a still-paralyzed half-smile, doused in unwavering shock.

My eyebrows furrowed as we watched Daya walk towards the curve of the toilets.

Following her both wordlessly agreeing none of us wanted to stay with the body and both amazed at how collectively cool she was at this moment, we discovered more toilet stalls and a large mirror right in the center with the sinks.

Daya moved closer to the mirror, her reflection growing as ours stayed in place wondering why we were here instead of looking for someone in a higher place of authority and I don't know, Report the freaking dead girl in the toilets! She clasped her hands on her waist taking out a bored breath, "Ellie!" she snapped at her reflection.

Clair moved closer to me and I did the same naturally. It seemed Daya had lost her mind, talking to the mirror named Ellie, or was it her reflection? Either way, it would be logically safer to stick to a girl who hopefully had some sort of conversion ability that could restrain Daya if indeed she had lost her mind.

"Ellie, if you're in there show yourself! I don't have all day! DO YOU WANT TO GET OUT?!"

Suddenly the mirror misted, I mean like the way a mirror gets once you take a hot shower. Exactly like that.

My jaw hang open as did Clair's, who looked more puzzled than surprised in many ways. When it finally cleared, both Clair and I took a step back in complete shock at the sight of the dead girl, reflected in the mirror.

I quickly looked behind us, but her pale feet still poked out of the shower stall confirming she was still dead, yet somehow her perfectly healthy reflection stared back at us, arms folded in clear frustration, wearing her red uniform.

I never thought I'd live to see the day.

Daya squinted her eyes, frowning.

"What the hell took you so long?" she demanded.

"What do you mean? It's a fucking mirror, Dee, you got to summon me," The dead girl replied in the unruliest manner.

Daya scowled.

"You're so lucky I kept a pole in here from last time," she muttered, peering under the sink. She pulled out a short metal rod, moving closer to the mirror. My eyes widened as she hit the mirror.

It cracked in more places than one, the dead girl's reflection immediately disappearing. My eyes widened as I watched the Mirror repair itself, Daya putting the rod back beneath the sink. My eyes skimmed the mirror taking a step forward as Clair asked.

"W-where is she?"

Daya turned towards us, raising an uninterested eyebrow, "I don't know why you keep messing with Thandi when it's clear her abilities exceed yours."

"Oh, please Daya," a voice huffed from behind us. Clair and I spun around, eyes bulging at the sight of the dead girl, who was now back to her healthy self, her white eyes to a normal-looking brown, color returning to her snow skin.

She dusted her skirt, pulling the red jacket back into position, before giving us a smirk.

"The bitch could never."

I pursed my lips at the sound of the bad word, Ellie's eyes trailing toward us, "who the fuck are you guys?" she all but spat.

"Claire,"

Ellie looked over at Clair, with a bare nod before trailing to me. I bit my lip, glancing over at Daya, "Well?" Ellie asked, her tone impatient.

"Talanda can't speak," Daya replied, seemingly uninterested, wiping the imaginary dust off her hands.

My eyes trailed to the floor as both Claire and Ellie stared at me. Not the look. Ellie's voice came out shaky as she asked a question, which I assumed was directed to Daya,

"Is she a red?"

Daya nodded, strolling past, leaving all the attention to me. I noticed Daya had a similar reaction when she found out I couldn't speak.

"I hate reds" Ellie mumbled, adjusting her jacket once again.

Daya stopped in front of Ellie.

"You know I can't stand Thandi as much as you do, but if you keep on like this, don't blame me for ditching your ass," she grunted folding her arms, "and if you're going to try, stop taking off your band," she glared, pushing past her, "The bathrooms are in the next room," she called over her shoulder as she walked out of the door.

Ellie's eyes trailed down my form, before rolling her eyes, "got bigger fish to fry, tootles" she finished flipping her hair.

Claire and I remained to stare at the empty spaces their forms occupied. We glanced at each other, then giggled, the right thing to do after all we went through.

"You're going to the showers too?" She asked. I nodded rubbing my arm.

Her grin widened, "So am I. Come on."

I followed her gladly, carrying my sponge and soap Daya had discarded by the sinks. Walking out of the toilets and into the shower stalls.

I was very relieved that they all had shower curtains.

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I hope you enjoyed the update! Leave a comment on your thoughts on the chapter, vote to boost the book if you're enjoying it! Feel free to leave me a comment or a question on my discord channel, (link in bio)

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