Chapter 3
Elly's POV
From the moment I walked through the gate, and it was shut against me, I knew it was all a bad idea. There was nowhere l would ever leave this place. I would never see my parents again. And Edward, despite how much I hated him, I had hoped he would come back begging but that didn't look feasible anymore. Not when I was in exile in a strange land.
The transport ticket I held in my hand said New Jersey, but I couldn't trust that for some reasons. First, I was blindfolded all the way here, for reasons I can barely piece together but I hoped I could find out why everything was happening to me. I wished I could get answers to every nagging question on my mind, and I hoped I could find my way home soon.
From the gate, I noticed tons of activities which were inconsistent with normal life activity, such as the barbed wires at the fence, they looked nothing like the regular. What is this place?
“Hello, Elly,” a woman greeted me, smiling as I alighted from the car. “You're welcome to the Mutants Academy. I am Vice Principal Legrange.”
She was old, wrinkled, just like the mean fella I'd talked with at the hospital, but she was different. She seemed nice.
“I just want to go home,” I said, in a sad and cracked voice. I was broken. My whole life has turned upside down in a flip second.
I can't believe those were the first words I made. I was never one to show vulnerability.
Her gaze shifted to the chauffeur who dropped my bag on the sand, and she nodded at the man before he took his exit. Then her eyes returned to me, with a warm smile on her face.
“Wouldn't you want to know the truth about who you are? The whole truth?”
“I know who I am. My name's Elizabeth Boutella from Los Angeles and I don't belong here.”
“Wrong.” She remarked firmly, with an unflinching tint in her eyes. “You belong here as much as anyone else does.”
“But I don't want to,” I said hurriedly, feeling my heart begin to shatter again into a thousand tiny pieces. My face was burning again, and I knew it was only a matter of time before fountains snaked out of my eyes and down my cheeks.
There was silence for a while between us, not but in the surrounding. There seemed to arise a wave of noise from nowhere in particular.
“Come on dear, let's get you inside. We'll have this conversation again.”
“I just want to go home.” I whispered again, but followed her nonetheless. I had no choice.
I wasn't about to lift my luggage, and she must have noticed, because she snapped her fingers, and a woman appeared out of the blue.
“Slytherin, Room 123, please.” She instructed.
The other woman bowed, and disappeared as quickly as she'd appeared. I froze, lips apart, unable to move.
“What just happened?”
“Stick around for long, and you'll find out.” Vice Principal Legrange replied, with a fascinating expression on her face. She seemed to be enjoying it.
We made our way past a small narrow gate, and before me was a whole new world. One I never thought existed, except in books. I was reliving Alice in Wonderland.
The gate seemed to have appeared out of a swirling cyclone that quickly disappeared after we marched past it. Was this why the chauffeur couldn't come any closer? Because this was a sacred zone protected from outsiders?
"Watch out kids!" The woman called out to a boy levitating while structures that looked like the sun and nine planets rotated over his head.
Fast flashes of light lit the bright sky like lightning but when it fell to the sand, it formed a ripple which grew to the size of a human.
"New kid, huh?" The lightning boy asked flirtatiously, sidling close to me.
I ignored him as we weaved past, while my eyes spotted a group of students creating tides of beach water out of rocks. Like, what were they? Water benders? Was that even a thing?
“Catch me if you can,” a boy, about five feet two inches tall giggled playfully to another kid beside him.
What was he going to do? I scoffed, watching with disinterest. The boy snapped his fingers, and was gone in a twinkle of an eye just as the other boy changed into a werewolf.
“Where did he go?” I asked, looking up at Vice Principal Legrange, genuinely curious. “Also, I thought werewolves were a myth?”
The woman didn't respond, she only laughed, light-heartedly. She must have heard tons of such questions all her life, and knew how to respond to them.
She turned to me, and whispered, “Welcome to the Mutants Academy! Let's get you to class.”
My class was nestled amongst clusters of rooms in a sprawling three storey building smattered with colorful murals and grotesque that were both aesthetic and scary.
We came to the third room in the building, and we both paused at the door. “This is your class, and that man over there is your teacher.” Vice Principal Legrange introduced, pointing to a handsome man in a grey suit.
The man seemed to receive some kind of invisible signal, because he cocked his head in our direction, and began to walk towards us.
“Vice Principal Legrange, good to see you.” The man greeted, his eyes shifting from the woman to me in the most playful way I'd ever encountered. He had the most gorgeous blue eyes I'd ever seen in my life and when he smiled, they seemed to sparkle with warmth.
“This is our newest student. I trust you to help her find her place soon, Mr. Rockwell.”
Find my place? Why doesn't anyone understand? I don't want to find my place here, I want to go home.
“I sure will.” The man answered, confidently.
“I can trust you.” Legrange replied, and began marching away.
She was gone without even a formal goodbye. Gone, just like my dad, without saying anything to me.
I wasn't a kid, I'd gone off to summer camps and spent a lot of vacations away from home without my parents but I couldn't resist the urge to run back to Legrange and hold onto her legs. I wanted so badly to beg her not to leave me, because I was so afraid. Afraid of this new life. Afraid of being alone, and afraid of the future.
“Hey, everyone here calls me Professor Rockwell, but just call me Rockwell.” The handsome man introduced himself and I nodded, unsure of what to do.
“Come on in,” he ushered, motioning with his head as he held the door open for me.
My stomach suddenly rumbled in frenzy anxiety. There were so many uncertainties about this place, so many questions on my mind. Why was I here? Who was I? A lot of questions that made my head twirl.
I took a step; the leap of faith, hoping that I could find myself, get answers to my questions and return home to my normal life.
Everything changed when I stepped into the class. That first step changed everything I'd ever believed and will ever believe about our ecosystem. That step seemed to whisper that there was more, but where do I start?
“Students, say hi to the newest member of our class. Her name is…” Professor Rockwell paused, and looked at me standing timidly before a crowd of….what were they?
“Elly. I mean, Elizabeth Boutella.” I stammered, the words hanging in my throat.