Though it doesn't look like it on the outside, Wonderland High actually has 3
stories to it. One of these floors is hidden underground, for the purpose of
protecting its vampiric students from the sunlight. It's unfortunate that due to
the presence of Emily in our group, not only is this the only floor we would be
touring, but it was also the only floor we would have classes on. Our group has
to stick together after all. Little bitch.
Two things were immediately obvious about the instructor taking us on our tour.
One, he cared very little for introductions, and two he's a bit of a prick. The no
nonsense type. The trail of smoke that skimmed our noses from the front of the
group was strong, stronger than any cigarette i'd ever smelled before, and i'd
smelled quite a few in my past. Back when I lived with my father the house
constantly smelled of cigars, cigarettes and booze, mixed with the perfume of
whatever broad he was able to trick into coming home with him that night. He
was a pretty simple guy.
I began to wonder why it was anyone was allowing him to smoke in the halls like
he was, but that thought was thrown out of my head as soon as I remembered
the kid with the katana at the introductory ceremony. If you can bring a sword in
the school, i'm sure smoking isn't the biggest of their concerns.
"You got a smoke old man?" said Crow, trailing slightly behind him. Alongside
him was Miranda, though it was difficult to tell if Miranda was walking next to
Crow, awaiting Jay's return, or if Crow was walking alongside Miranda,
admiring her breasts some more.
"You really shouldn't smoke. You'll kill Jay if you keep it up." sighed Miranda.
"Yeah that'd be nice wouldn't it. If I could just get rid of him?"
"No, it wouldn't." she replied sharply.
"Whatever the case, no I don't have another one." said our leader, stepping on
his current cigarette and replacing it with another mid sentence.
"Woah-oah-oah, WHATTADICK!" said Emily, echoing through the halls. She was
being tailed by Len, though it was hard to say they were really walking together.
I'd have to agree with her, though giving a cigarette to a minor would still be
pretty fucked up in my eyes. Len leaned over her shoulder in an attempt to
whisper something in her ear, probably advising her to quite the fuck down, and
in her attempt to ignore him noticed that she had caught a gaze from space-
robo-bitch. "The fuck are you looking at?" She spat at her.
"You're loud." she said. Short and sweet.
"How observant of you." Said Emily again, returning her gaze forward as the
nine of us rounded a corner and began down another hall. For a tour we sure
weren't stopping anywhere, or being explained anything.
"Thank you." replied robo-bitch. "And thirteen." she said again looking back at
me. "You were wondering what my name was. It's Thirteen." I had to admit, I
was beginning to wonder, she hadn't introduced herself back in the beanbag
room after all.
"Good to know."
For the first time in what felt like forever, we stopped walking in front of a pair
of double doors, which our instructor opened to reveal a large gymnasium. Two
basketball courts separated with a large thick curtain, going all the way up to
the ceiling. In the corners were spiral staircases leading up to an overhang,
rounding the gymnasium a floor up. A sign next to the stairs let me know that
this was a running track, though I would have to imagine it doubled as a viewing
balcony for sports events, as looking around the room revealed no bleachers
for spectators to sit on. While on the one hand it seemed ridiculous to build a
gym of this caliber inside just so that "vampires" could get exercise, but on the
other hand it was pretty fucking sweet as well.
It was at this point I noticed that Alisa had snuck up on me and was raising her
eyebrows and narrowing her eyes as if to say "Impressed yet?" as if this were
her domain and I was just a visitor she was trying to get to stay for awhile. "Cool
your jets, it's not that cool." I said, and got an elbow shoved in my side as a
reply.
"Listen up." said the leader "This is a gym. If that needed explaining, you're an
idiot. I'll explain further just in case any of you are, this is where your physical
education classes will be. You will have those every other day, Tuesdays and
Thursdays to be exact. to be honest, everything else on this floor is just regular
classrooms. So... this is the only part of the tour i'm taking you on. Feel free to
run around and talk to the other teachers or something, I don't give a shit."
"Hiro? Is that you?!" The jolly voice that filled the room and echoed off the walls
seemed to be emitting from a face that had been peeking out from behind the
curtain.
"Oh for the love of... NO! No it's not... me..." replied our instructor. Apparently
his name is Hiro now. So that's fun.
"While we're here in the gym, why don't my kids and your kids have a little
competition?!" yelled the man from the other side of the room.
"No." replied Hiro. In one word it was incredibly obvious how much he hated this
guy. The two lettered word dripped of acid that burn the the floor and down to
the molten core of the earth. Yet the jolly dude seemed completely unfazed by
this rudeness, as obvious as it was.
"That's a shame really. Could I ask why not?"
"I'm being payed to give the kids a tour of the school. That's why." My own chest
hurt from the severity of Hiro's words and I wasn't even the target. Shit.
"Weren't you just telling us to go run off on our own." said Len. Kid had a point.
Wasn't much of a tour.
Hiro turned to him quickly and said "Open your mouth again and so help me god.
I'm doing this for your own good ok?" Len nodded his head and gulped down his
fear before hiding behind Emily.
"Pussy." she mumbled.
"Makes sense." replied the man "Since it's a school tour, why don't we introduce
each other to our group? Waddaya say?!"
"That-" "Sounds like a wonderful idea!" interrupted Jay. If looks could kill, Jay
would have died ten times by now. "You're dead to me." whispered Hiro behind
him, which was only met with hardy chuckle from Jay.
The curtain was pulled back to reveal 8 students just as odd as we were. Their
attire ranged from rough dirt smudged hoodies, to nice vests and and dress
shirts, back to facial masks and top hats. Picturing anyone from both groups
getting dressed in the morning would probably prove to be entertaining.
Especially Alisa.
We walked towards the middle of the two courts to properly introduce ourselves.
"You!" Jay said, cheery as ever "What's your name?"
The leftmost kid of the group was pale as could be and also had snow white
hair. He wore a black hoodie, and wore brown cargo pants, with eyes blood red.
He lifted his arms and pulled the sleeve up from his left arm, and raised it to
reveal where "Ender" had been burned into his skin.
"WOAH! ARE THOSE BURNS?! BAD-ASS DUDE, CAN I TOUCH 'EM?!" Yelled
Emily. Apparently no one gives two damns or a fuck about cursing in this school,
because this little potty mouth had free-reign over the entire vocabulary.
Ender only lowered his arm and looked Emily dead in the eyes with an odd look
in his eyes. It wasn't really sad, and it wasn't angry, but yet it was still fierce
looking. "Fine then, be a dick about it." she snapped back.
"Not much of a talker huh?" said Jay "We have a mute in our group too!" he said
gesturing at Alisa who blushed slightly and looked to the side avoiding eye
contact with anyone.
"I can speak fine. But why say what can be shown?"
"Couldn't agree more." said Thirteen.
"Haha! True enough! How about you, what's your name?" he said, turning to the
next in line.
"Cameron." Said a girl with blue hair. She was rather short for her age, but not
quite as short as Emily and Len, she was still within an understandable height. I
think Emily and Len are just freaks. She wore a track suit that was smudged in
dirt, and both her attire, her hair, which was short and covered one eye, and her
voice gave off the vibe of her being a bit of a tomboy.
"You're pretty cute." said Rook standing next to me.
"Hell, you're pretty forward aren't you?" I said in response. Like one sentence
dude, that's all she got out yet.
"You've been standing next to Alisa since the start of the day." he said looking
at me from the corner of his eye.
"Good point." I said, and received a sharp elbow from Alisa. Damn, she can hit
pretty hard! She continued looking away and avoiding everyone's eye contact.
"I'm a lesbian." said Cameron in response.
"Aren't we all?" said Rook.
"...no?" said me and Cameron simultaneously.
"You're wearing a track suit. Are you on the track team?" I asked
"Nope." Short and sweet answers. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they
leave more to be desired.
"Alright, that's enough of that, what about you?" I said, directing my attention to
the person next to her.
The kid next to Cameron was easily the most well dressed of the group. It wore
a nice white button up dress shirt with a red tie that was tucked into a black
vest, with dress pants and dress shoes to match. The only out of place thing,
was the mask covering its face. The mask was plain white, with two points at the
top of it in the shape of cat ears, and a cats face that looked like it had been
colored on with marker. "Howdoyado?" It said looking up at me. The voice was
high pitched and cheery to match the smile of the face, but due to its muffled
nature it was also gender ambiguous. "Names Tao!" oh and a gender ambiguous
name. Awesome.
"Look I don't mean to offend you, but are you a guy or a girl?" I mean I had to
know. It was going to drive me nuts.
It cocked its head to the side "Well what's that got to do with anything?"
"Well, we're introducing ourselves, so knowing things like gender would be
nice." seemed like a reasonable response.
"Well an introduction is about getting to know that person right?"
"Right." that seemed obvious enough.
"Well do ya really need to know what's in my pants to know about me?"
"I don't suppose I do."
"Then I rest my case." It said, nodding its head slightly. Even though I couldn't
see its face, it seemed pretty satisfied with its victory, if you could call it that.
"Anything else we should know about you?" said Len, apparently able to speak
now. A twinkle in his eyes made it seem as if Tao had actually caught his
interest. Mine too actually.
"About me? Hmm. Not really. The less you know the cooler I am right!?"
"Right!" Said Len. The child like wonder in him was something I wasn't
expecting to see, and the fact that Emily wasn't tightening her leash on him was
even more surprising. Len and Tao laughed together, it would have been pretty
cute if Tao didn't just bother me. I couldn't put my finger on it. "You two seem
like you're together, who are you?" I said directing my attention to the next two
girls in the group.
"Before we get to the main attraction." one of them said "Why don't you guys
introduce yourselfs?" Full of themselves apparently.
"Sure no problem." I said "That's Crow and Jay, split personalities, one's a
super asshole and one's a super kind-hole respectively. That's Miranda, nice,
funny, likes Jay, hates Crow. This is Rook, he's a Ditto. That's Thirteen, she's a
Psychic Alien Android or some shit, I don't know. I'm Seth. This is Alisa, she's a
cute mute and that rhymes. That over there is Emily, she's a vampire slash
hemomancer slash royal cunt, and that's Len, shy kid and her servant. Any
questions?" Some of the group might have been slightly hostile to my
assessment, but they all generally accepted them as accurate. I could hear Tao
laughing from behind it's mask.
"Yeah one, what's so great about you?" Said the other girl next to the original
one
"Literally nothing."
"Fun." She said. "We are the sisters Vice and Lust. She's Vice, I'm Lust." Their
skin tone made it difficult to tell if their faces were painted white, or if they
were actually just that pale. Their faces were decorated with black makeup
lines, with rough edges that made it look as if they were cogs that had been laid
out flat rather than forming a circle. They both wore hoodies, one green, and
one red, with multi-colored eyes. The one in red had eyes with a red outer
circle, and a yellow inner circle, while the green wore contacts with a yellow
outer circle and light blue inner circle. They both had short hair, the one in
green's was colored purple, and the one in red's was colored orange. They also
carried tin baseball bats, which rested between their hands and the floor.
Fucking weird.
"We love each other very much don't we sis?" said Lust turning her sisters head
with her hand.
"Yes we do!" replied Vice before making out with her sister.
"Hahahaha! LESBIANS EVERYWHERE!" yelled Tao, practically rolling on the
floor laughing. So it's like a drunken child. Super.
"AWW HELL YEAH!" yelled Crow "NEW FAVORITE THING ABOUT THIS PLACE!"
As much as I would like to agree, I quickly looked to the next member of their
group. I could feel Alisa's glare behind me, and feared for my life if I didn't do
so immediately.
The guy th their right stood there staring wide eyed at Emily, breathing heavily.
I glanced over at Emily, and to my surprise she was actually really unnerved by
him. If anyone else had done it, she merely would have told him to fuck off, or
even kicked them in the nuts, but she was now hiding behind Len. Len was trying
to put on a show for her, acting brave and noble in a stance to defend her, but
you could easily tell he was intimidated as well. "Hey, got a name?" I said,
trying to avert his attention.
"Stint." he said, a wide smile on his face and his eyes glued where they were.
"Is she really a hemomancer?"
"O-of course she is!" said Len "She would never lie about something like that!"
Stint quickly moved forward leaning into their faces. "Well let's see it then
girly, eh? How about it?"
"Why don't you back the fuck up?" said Miranda from the other side of the group.
She was apparently not interested in the sisters making out either, and made
her way over to the happening at the moment.
Stint's eyes widened a little bit more, but because he was caught off guard this
time. He slowly began to stand up straight again. "You're right, I do apologise.
I, like your friend here am also a vampire."
"That mean your little freak show of a group here will be on this floor as well?"
I asked him, averting his attention from the two a little bit longer.
"I would like to think i'm not a freak," said Cameron, making her way over to us
"but yes, this group will also be on this floor."
"Better yet, I hear we'll be in the same classes!" yelled Tao from her seat next
to the sisters, still continuing to stare at them.
"You sure you don't want in on any of that?" I asked Cameron.
"I'm not actually a lesbian, I just REALLY don't want to deal with Rook."
"Ouch." I said in reply. Rook was apparently still mesmerized by the other
scene as well. Damn I wish I could sneak a peek, but I could almost feel Alisa
breathing down my neck. Damn my fortune. "Why were you giving these two the
psycho eye?" I asked looking back to Stint.
"All vampires lust for blood. Mines a bit more like an obsession. I love the
sight... the scent... the taste..."
All aboard the psycho express, this guy is actually fucking crazy. In a school full
of wannabe's, it would be impossible to point an actual psycho out in a crowd, so
the fact that he made it this far is no real surprise. "There is about an eighty
seven percent chance that Emily is afraid of blood, despite her predicament."
Thirteen chimed in, also joining our little group.
"I-I AM NOT!" yelled Emily from behind Len. Stint's head snapped in her
direction with a wide grin and wider eyes. "W-well... maybe a little bit..."
"What a shame" he said in reply, noticeably disappointed. Stint was fairly tall,
with short blonde hair and red eyes. He had a few piercings, two rings in his left
ear, and two rings in the right side of his bottom lip. He wore a dark black t-
shirt and large jeans. "Excuse me will you?" he said before forcing his way out
of the group and out of the gym. I guess he had to use the restroom.
This gave the rest of us the opportunity to meet the next kid in their group. She almost didn't need an introduction, her large pointed hat with a huge brim, the broom she had strapped onto her back, and the short black cape that hung from her shoulders made it a dead giveaway what she was trying to be. She looked very young, about the same age that Emily and Len looked, or hell maybe even younger. "How... old are you?" I began
"Sure you don't want my name first? I mean, it's kinda rude to start out with a question like that isn't it?" She replied.
"Well yeah, but it's also pretty rude for Stint to practically mind rape Emily and no one seemed to care about that."
"What does that have to do with me? Why does that make you want to be rude to me? Do you just naturally want to stoop to the lowest acceptable level?" This girl was beginning to piss me off. Probably because she was right.
"Fine, what's your name? AND how old are you?" she chuckled a bit in response, almost in celebration of her correct analysis.
"I'm Lily, age fourteen!" she said, sticking her tongue out slightly.
"OH! You're that genius girl aren't you? The one who skipped all those grades in a row? Three wasn't it?" Said Miranda suddenly interested. Don't ask her to do your homework Miranda. "Could you do my homework for me?" God dammit Miranda.
"Mhm, but it'll cost ya!" she said in response
Miranda sighed "How much?"
"Thirty bucks per page." Jesus Christ, what a con artist.
"Holy shit," said Miranda mimicking my thoughts "Why so much? Too much time if there are too many takers?"
"Nah, time isn't really an issue with Fredrick here," Fredrick, who was originally watching the scene along with Rook and Crow, snapped his head in our direction suddenly paying attention to the conversation right in front of him. "It's more of a moral thing. It just seems wrong to work hard for someone else's success who's not even trying for there own, y'know?"
Shame spread across Miranda's face. I warned you. Well, in my mind I did. "Then why did you say you would do it?" I asked
"Well even morals have a price on them. Everything has a price."
"I hate to interrupt this conversation," said Fredrick, now more interested in our conversation than the lesbian clowns making out. "But did you just mention how time wasn't an issue for you while I was around?" he asked while staring straight down at his watch.
"Of course why?" Said Lily in response.
"Well I just thought I was on the time line where I hadn't even introduced myself yet? To any of you?"
"Nah, you're on the one where me and you have been friends for the past four to five years or something like that. I've lost count really."
"How the hell? Whatever, that sounds like a pretty good time line to me. Maybe I'll stick around a bit longer this time." said Fredrick with a smile.
"Glad to hear it." Said Lily giving him a hug
Fredrick had long brown shaggy hair, and emerald green eyes. His attire looked a lot like crows, had he taken the hoodie off. A nice dress shirt, un-tucked, with a dress tie hanging loosely from his neck, with plain black dress paint and a pair of red running shoes. Dressed well, but without much effort. His watch wasn't normal by any means, it had a small space at the top reserved for, what I thought watches were for, the time. The rest of the space on the watch was reserved for other least 40 of them, which I assume was for keeping track of whatever "time line" he was on. Whatever the hell those were. Not like they were real anyways. The kid didn't look much older than 15 himself.
"So you're a time traveler huh?" I asked
"Wait, so you don't know who I am but she does?" He looked back down at his watch "Did I overshoot?"
"What are you on about?" I asked him
"Nothing it's just... ass backwards. I look forward to getting re-acquainted with you Seth." He replied, looking up with a smile. He knows my name. The shock spread across my face, but then receded again as I realized I had already introduced myself and everyone else in my group just a few minutes ago.
"And why do you look so young? Are you a genius too or is it just a time thing?"
"Time thing. When you become a time traveler you stop aging. Well, not stop, you just age very slowly. I would guess i'm somewhere in the ballpark of 23 years old? But again, time travel's weird. I could be way off."
"Makes about as much sense as anything else here I guess. Well if that's it for introductions let's get the hell out of here. I'm ready to go home. It's been a long day." Alisa nodded in agreement as I looked behind me. Miranda went to go and snatch up Crow and Rook, both of whom were still drooling all over themselves. Lucky bastards. As if we had been mentally assaulted by our meeting with the other group, ours scurried to gather everyone up and rushed out of the room, with only a short goodbye and a hand wave to end what felt like an eternity together. Tao was of course the most vocal of the goodbye's, practically jumping up and down and yelling it. We'll apparently be sharing classrooms with them, so a huge goodbye wasn't really necessary. We would see each other again after the weekend anyways.
As we walked down the hallway and up the stairs towards the entrance I noticed that Alisa was still walking behind me. I turned and asked her "Hey, where do you live? Maybe we could walk home together?" she looked away sheepishly and merely pointed in a direction in response. "Hey I live that way too!" Which was a lie, but she didn't need to know that. It wasn't a huge detour, so it was fine.
As we approached the entrance Hiro rested his hand on my shoulder. "Hey, I need to talk to you for a second." Oh. Swell.
"I was going to walk Alisa home so, i'm sorry but I really can't stay and talk."
"No, you're going to stay and talk to me." he said with a stern look in his eyes, stopping me right in front of the entrance. The rest of the students were leaving with the exceptions of a slight delay for Len to open Emily's umbrella to protect her from the sunlight, and Alisa's waiting to see what would happen of this situation. I turned behind me to look at her, and she met my eyes with a look of "It's ok, i'll be fine." "Alright." I said, both in reply to Alisa and Hiro. Alisa headed out of the door and Hiro waited until the hallway was clear to speak.
"You really took charge of that meeting in there. Asking all the questions and such." he began
"What of it? I had a pretty good thing going there."
He chuckled "Yeah, I can see that." He took another cigarette out of his pocket and lit it before starting again. "I'm not a teacher Seth, i'm a cop. A detective, undercover here to have an inside look at the school."
"Well you aren't doing a very good job if you'll just willingly tell students that now are you."
"I tell you this because no-one would believe you, and because you're the curious type. You wanted to know more about those kids. You were the one asking the questions."
"I was also the one skipping to the next person after two questions a piece and rushing everyone out of the room."
"Yeah well, they're psychopaths, I can't blame you for that. I need a student to feed me information. Something tells me one of these students is actually telling the truth, and I need as many leads as I can get."
I almost laughed at his face. The stories were too absurd for even one of them to be accurate. "Well i'm pretty sure Stint's a psychopath, if that's what you're getting at?"
"No, it isn't. If one of the more extravagant stories is true,we could be in a lot of trouble alright?"
"Well they aren't. If they were, even in theory, I wouldn't want to know the truth. Count me out." I said, and left the building to start my long walk home. Even the teachers are insane.
I apologize for the delay this time, I'll try to have these out more frequently! I had a bit of writers block for a while so the chapter just sat there for around a week, but I finally drilled through it and got it done. Hope you find all the new characters interesting and fun, and please leave reviews to help make this a learning process for me! Hope you enjoy it!
-Flavored