People! How do they function here like this in the world with all this bile running through them? Every day it's whoo-oo. You have no control. They're not even animals, they're just these meatbaggy slaves to, to hormones and pheromones and their, and their feelings. Hate 'em! I mean really. Is this what the poets go on about, this? Call me crazy, but as hard-core drugs go, human emotion is just useless! People are puppets! Everyone getting jerked around by what they're feelin'. Am I wrong? Really, I want to know... 'Cause I look around at this world you're so eager to be a part of ... and all I see is six billion lunatics looking for the fastest ride out. Who's not crazy? Look around. Everyone's drinking, smoking, shooting up ... shooting each other, or just plain screwing their brains out 'cause they don't want 'em anymore. I'm crazy? Honey, I'm the original one-eyed chicklet in the kingdom of the blind. 'Cause at least I admit the world makes me nuts.

Welcome to the Jungle

I’m nervous.

Most people my age are right now. We spend our whole lives at home with our family and then they send us away on a bus to a school.

It’s a warm bus, and I don’t really like it much.

Most kids know each other from past years at school and are goofing off now that they’re away from their families. Me? I don’t know anyone. I sit here and write. I wish I could have sat by myself, but they make two people sit in a seat. But at least I got the window seat. The person sitting next to me is a third year and is goofing around with her friends. I wish I had been a third year… but in order to be a third year, you have to be a first year first.

I’m only ten years old… but so are all the other first years.

I wonder if everyone takes the bus. The kids who live in Rio all gather at one big bus stop and load onto the busses, but what about the ones who live in the outside areas? I’ll ask someone when I get to RSA. Who am I kidding? No, I won’t. I’m too shy. I probably won’t even make friends with anyone until I have to.

In my imagination, I get to RSA and I am immediately confronted by a snobby higher class girl. She’s probably a third year because anyone higher doesn’t even see me. She’s prettier than I am, and smarter and nicer—well, not nicer… but she appears nicer because she is more outgoing and she flies right with all the teachers. The girl talks down to me, but I am immediately defended by some second year person who tells off the third year girl with ease. I am accepted into the second years’ group and I have friends for the rest of my life at Rio Students’ Academy, and possibly beyond.

In real life, I will go to Rio Students’ Academy, be ignored by everyone in both a good and bad way, and be lucky if anyone even realizes that I’m in their class by graduation.

Déjà glanced over her past journal entries she had written on the way to Rio Students’ Academy. She didn’t like what she was. Worse, she didn’t like what she had become. Her earthly love was conflicting with the love that she was supposed to have for Madison and God. Flipping through the pages of the small blue journal, she found an entry that reminded her of her first conflict between the people of earth and the enlightenment that of God that Madison had brought to the people…

Déjà had been guided along with the rest of the first years, like thousands of first years before her. It was a ritual and it had been seen by higher years so many times that by year 7, they could probably do the ritual flawlessly. Déjà had remained too nervous to buy into the whole ceremony.

When the first years were split into smaller groups and given their schedules, Déjà blurted out her first words at Rio Students’ Academy: “One cannot have classes on Saturday; it’s Madison’s Holy day!”

All the other first years looked at her with surprise. Déjà looked at them with surprise. Didn’t they know about the holy day? The group matron took Déjà aside and said to her, “My dear, you are Kertian?

So this was what her parents had warned her about. That not everyone was yet enlightened. “Yes, matron,” Déjà replied politely.

“Have your parents told you about the—I believe you call them ‘unenlightened ones’?”

“They… they haven’t told me much.”

“Hm. I see. Well, we’ve encountered many students like you.”

Déjà’s stomach turned over. What did she mean by ‘students like you’? Was she different in any way? Weren’t people all the same?

“You see… there are many people- the majority of people, actually- who do not believe that there is any God, and they do not believe that Madison was a messenger of God.”

The majority? Déjà hadn’t been expecting that. She grew up in a section of Rio where everyone what Kertian. The bus gathering was the first time that she had had any exposure to non-Kertians.

“Don’t worry, dear,” The matron reassured her. “There are many other students here who are like you. You will be able to have your services on Saturday with them.”

Déjà didn’t feel reassured though. She felt even more left out. How was she the minority?

Over the next few years she became even more of the minority. Most of her fellow students thought that she- as well as the other Kertians and Christians- were crazy cultists. And she had no one but casual acquaintances until her second year. It was the first day back from the month vacation and already there was a higher classman picking on her. Some fifth year boy who talked big and had small teeth. He was in the middle of some lame sentence when a fourth year girl- smaller than Déjà, brown skin, black eyes and long, scraggly, dark blonde hair- flounced right up to him and pushed him squarely on the chest. He stumbled backward, not expecting such a small girl to have such force. “What the…” the boy began to curse, but the girl beat him to it. Her lips curled up into a pink snarl. “Bend off. Deal with someone your own brain capacity.” The girl then made her way through the crowd of students who had gathered around them at the prospect of a fight.

At that moment- Déjà wasn’t sure how or why, but she knew that this girl was someone sent by Madison Kertley herself.

Once she came to her senses, Déjà figured she should find the girl. But she didn’t know where to look. She was too shy to ask anyone if they knew her. Déjà thought that maybe the girl was Kertian herself, but when Saturday finally came around, the girl wasn’t at the service. She asked a few people at the service if they knew who she was. From there began the biggest wild goose chase that Déjà had ever been on. Someone at her Saturday service said that the thought she lived in Alaska wing. Everyone in the Alaska wing said they never met her, and that judging by her description, she might live in the India wing. Everyone in the India wing seemed insulted that Alaska thought she’d be one of them and that since she was so vulgar and violent, she might have been relocated from wherever she was into the Siberia wing. In the Siberia wing, Déjà found the guy from who the mystery girl had defended Déjà. Déjà left the Siberia wing very quickly.

It had been two weeks and she was still no closer to finding the girl. Sitting on the stairway leading from the common room to the bed room of the Ohio wing (the wing Déjà lived in) she came upon a revelation. The girl wasn’t a student at Rio Students’ Academy at all! She was been a messenger from Madison, or even God.

Déjà was basking in the realization of encountering something godly, something heavenly, something—

“Hey, move it, unjbu. You’re blocking the stairs.”

Déjà looked up… and there was the girl in all her heavenly glory.

“It’s you!” she exclaimed while jumping to stand on her feet.

The girl looked around herself then down at Déjà. “Yeah… it’s me.”

“You’re the one who was sent to me from God.” Déjà bowed her head slightly.

The girl looked around herself again- at first just with her eyes lilting from side to side, and then she looked all over the common room to see what Déjà was talking about. “You one of those Jesus freaks, then?” the girl said in the same kind of vile tone she used with the boy two weeks ago.

“No, Madison is the true--”

“Oh, great. Even worse. Look, there’s no such thing as god. You freaks are all alike, believing in something you can’t see. Now move it, you’re blocking the stairs and I wanna go to sleep.”

“But it’s only three in the aft—Wait, you live here?”

“Yeah. Move it.” The girl tried to walk around Déjà, but she blocked her

“But how come I never see you around?”

“I keep to myself.”

“It was meant to be this way! For us to live in the same wing.”

“Move it. I’m going to sleep.”

“Wait, you don’t understand!” By this point, Déjà had spread out her arms to completely block the enclosed stairway.

“What is there to understand? You’re a crazy wanker, and you’re in my bleedin’ way. Now move it!”

“No, no, no, no! Let me-- You stood up for me two weeks ago. And…”

“I don’t know who the hell you’re thinking of, but I don’t stand up for anyone except myself.”

“That’s not true, on the first day--”

“Oh, you mean that little incident with Illy on the first day back? I was paying him back for a little incident that happened before the month vacation.”

“But…”

“If it looked like I was sticking up for you, it was only because he happened to be in the middle of picking on you- probably because you’re a crazy Madison freak- when I decided to pay him back. Now move it. I wanna go to sleep before it gets dark.”

Déjà dropped her spirit and her arms to let the girl pass.

The girl was halfway up the stairs when Déjà came across the strangest idea. She still stood at the bottom of the stairs, facing away from them, but she yelled at the girl. “You weren’t paying him back for yourself. It was for someone else.” Déjà didn’t even bother to make it sound like a question.

“At least look at me when making stupid accusations like that,” the girl snarled.

“Hey! There’s that tree. We’re almost there!” Déjà looked up from her writings and looked out the window. Fading into the distance behind the bus was one of the biggest trees left in the world. It was dead, and sat next to the road on the gloomy horizon as kind of an ominous landmark, telling all the students that they were almost to Rio Students’ Academy.

Rio Students’ Academy. The biggest building in the Rio settlement… Housing over 3000 students, teachers and other staff… The entire building is based around one huge central room with a ceiling three stories high, and thirty hallways branching off of it. Twenty of the hallways were dormitories where people lived. The twenty dorm hallways all were constructed in the same design. A hallway leading to stairs that went up to the dormitory’s lounge room where students could relax or do homework. In the lounge room, there’s a door near the back that leads to another staircase. The stairs lead up for a bit and then get to a landing with a door on the left and right side. The left side is the younger girls’ dormitories, and the right is the younger boys’. Further up the stairs is another landing, similar to the first- these doors lead to the dormitories of the upper-class, years six through ten, girls and boys. And the stairs continue up and end at the sick ward. This is the room where if a student in that particular wing is sick, they will sleep in that room. Many students would just go up there if they wanted to escape their roommate’s snoring or excessive noisiness.

It was home for so many students. It was more of a home than their own homes. It had for Déjà. There was nothing left at her for home but lies and attempts to conceal the truth from children and people who had never left that part of Rio for schooling. Rio Students’ Academy was a place where she could learn, and encounter the truth. And, at Rio Students’ Academy, there was Chanda.

Chanda was strong, not just mentally or physically, but spiritually too. Even if she didn’t admit it herself, Déjà knew that Chanda was a strong spiritual person. If she were to become a Kertian, Chanda would be a wonderful Reader or even a Channel. Déjà turned around as much as she could in her small bus seat, trying to see Chanda at the back of the bus…

Chanda was sulking, as usual. Looking at all the stupidity that lurked in the loud, chatter-filled bus. And she couldn’t see, but she knew that Déjà was turned around and looking at her again. She didn’t want to look to confirm her suspicion, because she didn’t want to have to deal with her. Ever since that ill-timed confrontation with Illy three years before, Déjà had been attached to her like a Siamese twin.

Chanda wasn’t sure why Déjà was so attached to her. At first, she thought it was just her being grateful for stopping Illy, but it went on too long. “She better stay the hell away from me this year,” she thought to herself, “because I have an important project to work on. I don’t know what it is yet, but it’s gonna be important.”

Twenty kilometers away, a train was speeding towards Rio Students’ Academy, like it did every year- Crowded with Rio Students’ Academy students who didn’t live in Rio but in outlying areas. One of these students was Shadri. Shadri’s ancestors were proud Venezuelans who refused to move to New Rio when the frost and the Americans came. Her family and several others created a small settlement near the Venezuela and Brazil border. Every winter, almost everyone thought that they would freeze to death, but every winter this settlement proved themselves and others wrong.

Shadri hated living out in the middle of nowhere, nearly freezing to death in the cold months. But now that she was in Rio Students’ Academy for the colder months, she didn’t mind as much. She couldn’t wait until she graduated from Rio Students’ Academy and she could move to Rio permanently. Or if she could find a pilot, she could go to Kenya. She had heard such wonderful stories about Kenya. How it was so much better than Brazil. It was supposed to be warmer there, so much that you could go swimming.

Shadri looked out the window next to her. Something seemed wrong. The train never went this fast before, did it? It was going way too fast! It was out of control, they were gonna keep going faster and faster, and once they got to the Rio Students’ Academy station they wouldn’t be able to stop and the train would go barreling through the station and crash into the school and the entire building would collapse around them and everyone on the train and everyone who was already in the school would die, and when the busses from Rio got to the school, the students in the busses wouldn’t have anywhere to go, and the busses would be out of fuel and they wouldn’t be able to take anyone back to Rio and they would all resort to cannibalism and would burn human flesh for heat and then they’d run out and they would all die and freeze to death!

“Shadri! Calm down! What’s wrong? You’re hyperventilating again,”

“Sorry, Chelle.”

Chelle was as close to a sister that Shadri ever had. She took care of her, watched over her, and was there whenever Shadri needed help getting out of her many instances of paranoia.

“What was it this time?”

“The train was gonna speed out of control and we were all gonna die.”

“Don’t worry.”

“But what if---?”

“There’s no ‘what if.’ You know how many what ifs you’ve come up with on the train ride so far?”

“Two?”

“Thirty-seven.”

“Oh.”

“You know how many have happened?”

“Thirty-seven?”

“Zero.”

“Oh.”

“You have got to stop imagining all these things.”

“But they’re possible.”

“Yes, possible. But not probable.”

“My mom got struck by lightning once.”

“No, she didn’t.”

“She didn’t?”

“No.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m sure.”

“Oh. Well, maybe it was my dad.”

“It wasn’t your dad.”

“How do you know?”

“Because I know your parents, and neither of them have ever been struck by lightning.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m very sure.”

Shadri sighed. “But--”

“No.”

“Oh.”

Shadri scratched the back of her head and bit her lip, and then began blurting out, “This girl in my math class last year said that--”

“Shadri, no.”

“No?”

“That didn’t happen.”

“But the window was broken.”

“There was no glass in the room; the window was broken from the inside. If there were a vampire breaking into Rio Students’ Academy, the glass would have been on the floor in the room.”

“Well, um… maybe it was a reverse vampire.”

Chelle put her head in her hands. “There’s no such thing as vampires… or reverse vampires.”

“How do you know?”

“They don’t exist… They just don’t.”

“But you’ve never found proof that they don’t exist. Not like that girl in my math class, she had to wear a scarf for a week so people wouldn’t see the bite marks from the vampire.”

“She probably got a hickey from someone and didn’t want anyone to know about it, so she made up a dummy story to cover up for it.”

“But why would she make one up about vampires?”

“I don’t know, Shadri.”

“You should know. You know everything.”

Chelle laughed a little. “I do not.”

“Yes, you do. You’re usually the one who answers the questions in class and stuff.”

“That doesn’t mean I know everything.”

“But you know a lot.”

“I dunno.”

“Sure you do! Go on, admit it.” Shadri smiled sweetly.

“Well… I guess,”

“You egotistical hog-swarm wankstress!”

“What?!”

“Taking too much pride in what you know. You should be modest about it.”

“What?! You conned me into it!”

“You should never listen to me. I believe in reverse vampires, for Antarctica’s sake! If people listen to me, then I’m gonna do something wrong and then they’re gonna mess up and--”

“SHADRI!!”

“What?”

“Shut up.”

“Oh… Okay, then.” Her voice became meek again.

“We’re almost there anyway. You should get your stuff together.”

Despite her sulkiness at Déjà, Chanda couldn’t help but look at the person sitting in front of her with- could it be… kindness? He was the only person who didn’t think that Chanda was mean, stuck up, or a vicious beast; and he didn’t make his interest painfully obvious like Déjà did, or like Mikhail, a boy who was three years ahead of Chanda and- for some reason- claimed he was in love with her, even though he didn't know her and she kicked his shins every time he got close to her.

Hideaki was, in some ways, a lot like Chanda. But there were quite a few differences. He was alone. In more ways than people knew. He grew up with his parents until a year before his first year at Rio Students’ Academy. Then sometime in the middle of the cold months, both of his parents had been killed when something very, very tragic and depressing for Hideaki to hear happened. He had no other family, no brothers or sisters, aunts or uncles, and all his grandparents had died while he was very young. For a few months he lived in an orphanage, and once school at Rio Students’ Academy started, his entire life was at Rio Students’ Academy. He stayed there during all the short vacations, and the only time he left was when the school shut down completely in the month vacation, and in that time, he had to stay at hotels. Chanda was one of the few people who knew this about him. Hideaki’s personality was very charming, despite the fact that he was a quite shy person. Almost all students at Rio Students’ Academy, older and younger knew of Hideaki, partly for his kindness, but mostly for his incredible good looks. He hadn’t heard anything definitive, but he had heart rumors that some of the girls two years below him had formed a fan club. He continuously thought that if they would just come out and say something to him that he would talk to and probably be friends with them, but as he never heard anything, he just stuck with talking mostly to Chanda and his friend Aleczander- whom he was sitting next to on the bus trip to Rio Students’ Academy.

“Guy, you look like you’re contemplating the meaning of life over there,” Alec said jokingly.

“No, not really. I was just thinking about what Nana said before the break. I wonder if it is true, if I really have a fan club…”

“Well, if you do, one of them is probably that girl right there,” Alec slightly bobbed his head in the direction of the front of the bus. “She keeps looking back here.”

“No,” Hideaki shook his head. “That is Déjà. She’s looking at Chanda. She thinks she is an angel or messenger from god.”

“Really? Freaky. I wish I had someone who thought that highly of me.”

“Then you can have her,” a voice from behind them said, and Chanda slapped Alec across the back of his head.

“Ow!” Alec rubbed his head and winced.

“You did not have to do that, you know.” Hideaki said while turning around in his seat.

“Do you know how many things I do that I don’t have to do?”

“I am guessing at least half of them.”

“All except four. Breathe, blink, think, and stay in a stationary position.”

“You do not have to think.”

“Have you ever succeeded in not thinking? The second that you try to not think, you are thinking of not thinking. I get stuck in loops for hours like that sometimes. I’ll try not to think of something, but then I’m thinking of not thinking of anything and then somehow I’ll ask myself ‘what am I thinking?’ and then all I’m thinking is what am I thinking, so I can never answer that question. But someday, I’m gonna come up with something that will be able to help me with all that.”

“What do you mean?”

“You’ll see. I’ve got big plans for this year. It involves a lot of me working in my free time and during my not free time, and probably making my not free time into free time. And do you smell garlic? Cause I sure as hell smell garlic.”

“No… You must be imagining things.”

“I don’t smell anything,” Alec chimed in, still holding his hand to the back of his head.

“Well no one asked you, did they?”

“Be nice, Channy.”

“Hiddy, how many times have I told you never, ever, EVER to call me that?”

“At least ten.”

“Try a hundred!” and she slapped Hideaki on the head like she had done to Alec.

“Must you do that?”

“Until you stop making me mad, then yes,”

“No one will ever stop making you mad,” Alec rolled his eyes.

Chanda raised her hand to hit him again, and he flinched, but she settled for just flipping her thumb up at him.

“I wish you would not do that, Chann…” Hideaki started to call her by his little nickname for her, but seeing the irritation in her eyes, he ended with, “…dah. It is offensive.”

“Well, that’s why I do it, guy.”

“I do not mind, but some day you may meet someone who really takes serious offence to it.”

“Fine, I’ll just do it to you. But it’s gonna build up, so don’t be surprised if I flip you forty seven times at the end of one day.”

“Thank you, Channy.”

“Don’t call me that!”