Chapter 6: Chapter 4
Once inside the building, Jayde slid her sunglasses off of her face and put them in her hoodie pocket. She also pulled her earbuds out and stuffed them into her right front jean pocket as she looked around, in awe all over again with the place.
In front of her was a huge staircase that led up to a landing that then split, one that led up to the right and the other up to the left. It was honestly the staircase from the one movie with the monster and the girl who wore a yellow gown. Jayde was almost sure that it was the exact same one because of how magnificent and similar it looked. To the right of the grand staircase, was a short little hallway to a closed door, and on the left was a large open archway into what looked like a much longer hallway. Directly to her left was a glass wall with a door that led into a gigantic library, with another archway in the upper corner near the other archway that was to a hallway that would take her to the left wing of the building.
The library was so big that it literally didn’t look like it ended from where she was standing.
On her right was the cafeteria, which appeared just as big as the library, although Jayde could see the doors that led into the kitchen. If she were to go by the size of the cafeteria, though, there would be a lot of students going to the academy. If there were students, where the heck were they?
Looking around what she could see again, Jayde knew she was going to end up getting lost a lot in the next couple weeks.
“The girls dormitory is up the stairs and to the right.” Jayde jumped, breath catching as the voice came from behind her. She spun around to face Mr. King. “I’ll have somebody show you the way. Your class schedule and school-issued laptop will be on the desk, Miss Vaninee.”
She took a moment to try to calm her racing heart, feeling like it had almost lept out of her chest. Jayde usually didn’t startle that easily, but she literally hadn’t heard footsteps or even the door opening. She forced a small smile for the man. “Alright, thank you.”
Mr. Crea stepped inside, closing the door behind him. He smiled at them, then turned to speak directly to Mr. King. “Sir, if you’d like, I can escort Miss. Vaninee to her room. I’m sure she still has some questions that need answering.”
The principal was silent for a moment before nodding to Mr. Crea. He gave Jayde a light, old school courtly bow and walked away, going directly to the door at the right of the stairs. Mr. Crea walked to Jayde and grabbed hold of the larger suitcase with the duffel bag sitting on it.
“Follow me.”
Jayde nodded, grabbing the smaller suitcase, and followed him up the stairs. He took the right at the main landing, up the smaller staircase, and through the door at the top of those stairs.The hallway he led her down was wide with windows on both sides. She tried to peer through them to see if there was anyone outside, but could only see across the roof of the lower level and the tops of trees.
They came to a fork in the hallway, where you could go straight, left, or right. Mr. Crea kept leading her straight down the hallway and they lost the soft sunlight from the windows. It was the real start of the dorm-like rooms they had available for students.
Jayde was awestruck as well as when they headed down the hall that the walls were seemingly covered in murals. They were very intricate, and depicted stories about angels, demons, and everything in between. In fact, the mural started at the beginning of the hallway with a painting of angels descending from heaven to fight demons crawling out of hell. The details were just indescribable. Each angel and demon had their own unique expression, with extreme detail to the feathers in the wings of the angels. Some of the demons were still in the process of crawling out of the cracks in the earth that allowed them to escape hell, and fire was spewing out behind them. The fire looked just as realistic and Jayde almost felt like she could feel the heat emanating from the wall.
“Wow,” she whispered, stopping to take in the sheer talent of the artist. Jayde wanted to meet whoever had painted the murals and beg for lessons. She legit wished she had the ability to draw or paint so well that the figures literally had their own personalities through their expressions and body movement.
Mr. Crea cleared his throat. Jayde looked up and saw he had gotten ahead while she’d been distracted. She quickly caught back up with him, only to find they were at yet another split. But Mr. Crea continued on, not even looking down the right or left hallways. Jayde did, however, and was once again left behind as she stopped to examine the painting in the left hallway.
What appeared to be a vampire and a werewolf were embracing each other, their faces bright with their love. Yet, there was an overwhelming sense of heartbreak, sadness, and doom. The woman, the vampire in this instance, had tears in the corner of her eyes and her nose was pink. The werewolf, a strong man with his arms around his love even as his eyes were elsewhere, on high alert as he kept watch over her. His eyebrows were drawn in, and he had miniscule lines beneath his eyes that made him appear stressed. So, although both were smiling, they had an air of utter despair around them
That probably came from, or at least wasn’t helped by, the scenery of raging war behind them. The skyline was full of both vampires and werewolves battling, vampires ripping into the werewolves’ throats as fully turned werewolves used sharp, curved claws to decapitate vampires. The couple seemed like they wanted to ignore the horrors occurring behind them, but the distress in the woman’s eyes was just as unmistakable as the protective stance of the man.
It was a forbidden love amongst chaos. Like the mythical Romeo and Juliet, Jayde thought as she turned her back on the mural to walk down the hallway. Go figure they would have one.
Mr. Crea had thankfully stopped for her again and she was able to quickly catch back up to him. They were at the end of the main hallway now, which had another split to be able to go left or right. Mr. Crea led her down the right hallway, another that was painted floor to ceiling with murals. Jayde tried her best not to pay attention to them, tried to ignore them, but it became impossible as they continued down the hallway. She glanced at them from the corner of her eye, intrigued by the mermaids luring men from their ships into the water, the harpies stealing with a quick flash by an open window, and the dragons roaring at armies of men as flames spewed out of their mouths. Literally all of the things that Jayde had never believed in were now supposed to be a reality for her and it terrified her a little bit. She felt that some of the paintings were so realistic that she could touch and feel the scales of the dragons or the mermaids.
They were all breathtakingly beautiful.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone