Original Souls (A World Apart #1) (25 page)

He peered outside, and quickly started to understand what was going on. He saw children his age, younger, and older running around the Olympus Grounds. His dorm being on the top floor made everyone sort of look like large ants, scurrying about in cliques that made Corinth uncomfortable. He didn't know anyone here, and no one here knew him.

"School is now in session, boy!" he said to Oliveto as the dog barked, and then let his tongue hang out of his mouth. He too gazed down at all their potential playmates in absolute awe. Corinth was nervous, to say the least. He pulled the gold and burgundy pattern covers from over the lower end of his body, and got a move on. He jumped out of bed and his feet hit the cold stone floor. It was made out of different types of stones. Some reds and grays cut in various shapes. Corinth thought it was a beautiful room as a whole, but he hated floors without carpet. It's just one of many differences he knew he'd have to get used to here in Hyperborean.

Corinth hadn't actually experienced any of the town outside of the school grounds yet. The school seemed very cut off from the town surrounding it on all sides but north, and he wanted to be anywhere but at Aurora Boreal school right now. He'd much rather go into town with his dad and pretend to shop for school supplies. Though the certain truth was that he didn't want to interact with the returning hoards of students.

He took a look around the single person dorm and felt very alone. The walls were burgundy and white. There was a boarder going through the middle of the wall that separated the top burgundy side from the white bottom. There were several paintings on the wall. All with gold frames and pictures of boats on a lake. Corinth figured the color scheme was intentional, but hated the gloomy feel it created. The window above his twin bed was the only one in the room, letting in an inadequate amount of sunlight.

He hopped back up on the bed and stared out the window again. Most of the noise began dying down, and the kids roaming the grounds had dispersed. He looked around and noticed the South Lake. He realized that this lake in the distance was the same one featured in all the pictures hanging on the walls. Minus the boats though. While he was aimlessly staring out at all the distinctive features of the large school, he heard a knock on the door. He figured it must be his dad, so he yelled out to the visitor with a familiar tone.

"Come in! Do whatever!" Corinth sounded off in his most brattiest voice. "Just don't tell me that I need to get dressed, and start meeting people that I don't even want to know anyway."

While he was halfway through his miniature speech, the doorknob began turning, and a surprisingly large figure walked in.

"Um-m!" the perpetrator said, with an odd accent that steamed Corinth's ears, "Sena. Hendrix said that you'd be ready for your tour, but I can see tha
t—
"

"Ahhh!"Corinth screamed when he turned from the window to see some chiseled young ma
n
… now refocusing his eyes on the floor instead of Corinth. "What are you doing?!" Corinth screamed. "I'm not even dressed or anything. This is my room, not the common."

"But you told me to come in!" the stranger said in a distressed voice while keeping his eyes trained on the ground.

"Get out!" Corinth shouted, pointing nervously toward the door the guy had just eased through.

"I'm sorry .... it's jus
t
— I was told to give you a tour. I wasn't being weird or anything." With that, he turned quickly, kept his head down, and walked out.

But as he was closing the door, Corinth thought that this was just the opportunity he was looking for. He could pick someone's brain about the way the school worked before he ever left his dorm. "Wait!" Corinth yelled out just before the young guy closed the door tight behind him.

A moment went by as Corinth sat alone, upset that he'd missed his chance. Then the doorknob began turning slowly again, and the guy poked his head in. "Are you decent now?" he asked in earnest.

"Oh, um..." Corinth wasn't yet clad with any reasonable amount of clothing. He was just sitting on the bed in his green undies. Just as comfortable as can be. He didn't really have anything to put on except the clothes he'd worn last night. All the clothes Sena. Hendrix had given him were still held up in the Watchtower. He finally decided, while the boy waited, to simply recover the lower half of his body with the bedspread. "Uh..." he patted down the comforter around him to make sure everything was in place, "yeah I'm good now, come in." He tried to sound cheery, in order to erase the rude comments he just threw at the guy a minute ago.

A swarthy young man emerged from around the corner of the door, and smiled brightly at Cory. Corinth smiled back through his teeth. He wasn't used to meeting new people his own age, so almost everything he'd do would come out awkward. The guy walked over to the bed, and happily extended his hand.

"Hello, I'm Anvard," he said in that peculiar accent that Corinth had never heard before today, and instantly despised.

"Hey..." Corinth paused as he took a good look at the guy hovering over him with his arm stretched out for a friendly hand shake. He was large, but had a superbly youthful looking face. Glowing pink irises and tight, such taut caramel colored brown skin. The contrast between his body type and face threw Corinth off a bit as he gazed. "I'm Corinth."

"Nice to meet you. I'm glad there's someone here who's new like me," Anvard said to Corinth as he took it upon himself to sit down on the bed. Corinth had never actually shaken his hand, so he tried to play it off like he never wanted the shake in the first place.

"Wait, I thought you said that Sena. Hendrix sent you to give me a tour?" Corinth inquired. "How can you show me around if you don't know where anything is?"

"I should suppose that the task is for us to find out where things are ... together!" He ended most of his sentences with a cheery upward inflection. It was disturbing to Corinth to hear someone be so genuinely happy with every breath he took.

"Well, that blows my plan!" Corinth blurted out as he threw his arms up in the air, got up, and started pacing the room. He had quickly forgotten that he had no decent clothes on.

"Uh, you might want to throw a robe on or something, friend," Anvard pointed at Corinth's waistline while trying not to simply stare, making the small kid all the more embarrassed.

Corinth looked down at himself, because he had no idea what this happy fool was referring to. He soon realized that his green undies were slightly hanging off his hipbone, because the drawstring had become untied in his restless dream-state sleep. He pulled them up completely abashed, then scurried over to the bed, and virtually dove back under the covers.

"Yeah, I forgot about that," he said while brushing his dark hair away from his brightly lit turquoise eyes.

Anvard hadn't noticed the color of his eyes until he did that. "Whoa!" he said with genuine shock.

"What is it?" Corinth asked as he looked up at him.

The clouds hovering outside the window above the bed had broken only moments ago, and the sun pierced the room, as much it could. The light made Corinth's eyes stand out even more to Anvard as he tilted his head and stared at Corinth. He gingerly reached forward to touch Corinth's face, just above his cheek, but Corinth was freaked out by his gaze. He pulled back quickly.

"What's going on!" Cory said with a shaky voice. "You're going all zombie on me," he tried to ease the tension in his intonation.

"I'm sorry," Anvard said, while finally retracted his hand. "It's just your eyes. They'r
e
… they aren't normal, you know?"

"Yeah," Corinth said, feeling uneasy. He hadn't even fully considered that fact. His eyes were going to make him stand out in the crowd more than a fully dressed circus performer at an 8ights Council meeting. The only difference between him and a circus clown; is that people understood a clown's performance. But usually, no one got why Corinth didn't just have blue or green eyes. They would all stare, wonder and make up stories to how he came to be the odd boy out. At least that's what happened at his school in Draconia. There were
n’
t nearly that many mixed kids in all the Worlds, yet alone at any one school, even though Boreal school is the most diverse institution of them all. This is the reasoning for why he wasn't usedto, or comfortable with meeting new people. "Uh ... yeah my pa
r—
" Before he could finish the sentence, Anvard happily cut him off.

"You don't need to explain yourself to me!" The buzz cut, dark haired guy exclaimed in a friendly manner. "We've all got our corks and screws, in a manner of speaking. Most of the kids at institutions like this pick on one another just to deflect attention from their own insecurities. But not many are really out to hurt anyone. You seem nice and normal. I'm sure after the general shock wears off, people will forget all about your beautiful eyes."

Anvard's encouragements made Corinth feel better. Cory was flattered that he'd bother to mention that he liked the color of his eyes. He now looked at Anvard and saw a different guy then he thought he'd be dealing with. When he first came through the door, he appeared as though he was a lug head jock. His stocky frame, chiseled jaw, bulky arms, and height set him up as a total athlete jerk. But he appeared to have some useful insights underneath his dummy attire.

"Did you go to another school before you came here?" Corinth asked politely.

"Well, of course," Anvard said while laughing and holding his side. "I
t’
s sort of illegal not to, right? Not to go to school! If you're underage, that is."

"Yeah, I know," Corinth said with a fresh giggle, "but I'm talking about a school like this one, where you live on campus and everything."

"Oh, yeah I did." Anvard stopped laughing, because he believed he had offended Corinth. He actually thought Corinth didn't know it was against the law for anyone under seventeen years old to drop out of school. The mood changed a bit as an always oversensitive Anvard cautiously moved forward in the conversation. "Yes, my last school was like this one. Not as big or anything, but similar. In Lirio, we all go to live in schools. But I went out of state, for Levantarse."

Corinth questioned himself to what
a“
Levantars
e
” was. I decided to give him a heads up. If not to help remind him that I'm still held up here in his head, just waiting for him to open up to me. I whispered in his mind, "It's a sport. He's from Lirio ... where they do
n’
t play it much."

Instead of helping the boy understand what his new companion was referring to, it seems I've only stunted him. He blankly stared out into the room after I finished telling him of Anvard's athletic pastime.

Anvard snapped his fingers twice in front of Corinth's face to wake him from his daydream. "You okay?" he asked with a patient tone.

"Oh! Yeah, I'm good." Corinth jerked when Anvard touched his shoulder. His eyes darted around a bit. He was stunned that I could hear him think so easily. And even talk to him whenever I willed. He didn't seem too comfortable with that knowledge. "So, how do things work in Lirio, your home World?" He tried to sound unfazed. Totally ignoring the sports reference. He remembered it in Draconia after a second. Anvar
d’
s accent made everything sound a bit off, so he didn't recognize the word at first. His dad loved the game. Cory and his mom hated it. "I don't know much about that place," he added, spurring Anvard into conversation.

"Oh, good then!" Anvard said with that annoying accent and inflection that was starting to get to Corinth. "I can tell you all about it while we explore the school together!"

Corinth didn't want to leave the comforts of his dorm, but he figured it be better to do it with Anvard rather than alone. He couldn't help but wonder where his dad had gone overnight. Had he left without saying goodbye? Leaving Corinth to settle into this huge school all by himself would earn Criston a kick to the shin when Cory saw him again.

No matter the thought, he simply threw on the clothes he had on yesterday from behind a changing shade off to the left of the dorm. When he reemerged, Anvard looked at him strangely.

"What is it?" Corinth questioned. He didn't like the knowing look on Anvard's boyish looking face. His buzz cut hair made him seem stern, but he was anything but.