I was drowning in a deep ocean, and a muffled, calming shush entered my body. I felt like an anchor had been tied to my leg and was dragging me down into the ocean bed, where light couldn't reach. My own heartbeat could be heard beating inside my head. As I sank my eyes closed after an exhausting struggle to surface. Then as the remaining bubbles from my lungs rose I heard Aylin's voice. Her voice was barely audible, but I recognised it. I opened my eyes and saw a hand piercing the surface of the water, and it grabbed my arm.
I sat up panting as if I had actually been drowning and coughing as if water had filled my lungs. In front of me, Aylin is on her knees looking at me with tears in her eyes. I could barely make out Aylin's figure with the only light coming from a small gap in the door. Wooden boxes littered the room and furniture draped over with fancy embroidered linen cloth. It was some storage room we were in and we could hear the chatter of people from the other side of the door. Aylin wiped off the tears from her face and collected herself. I asked her where we were and her head moved side to side completely unaware of herself.
The man clad in black last night... we were drugged and taken from the brothel.
"Aylin do you remember anything from last night?"
Aylin was still sniffling but took a deep breath before answering that she went to sleep last night and had no recollection of what had happened. I then told her about the man last night but left out the detail about Ellie standing behind the man.
She couldn't hold it in anymore and the wall she was trying to build crumbled down. Tears streamed down her face but a smile appeared on her face.
"So...Vivshi..we are once again strays?" She said with a broken voice.
Her arms fell limp and her head fell on the cold concrete floor and she huddled up on the ground. She didn't want me to see her face so she faced the wooden boxes but as the chatter on the other side of the door slowly faded. Aylin stopped crying, and the room was filled with uncertainty.
Was I just a stray again? Forced to fight every day just to survive for one more day? Then the light behind me projected my shadow onto the cold floor. The door creaked open and a loud eccentric male voice echoed through the room.
"Seems like both of y'all are early birds."
Both Aylin and I turned our heads towards the voice and light and saw a young man with pale skin, and blonde hair with a playful smile.
The man told us to follow him, but Aylin seemed hesitant to follow someone we didn't know. When he saw that we wouldn't budge he sighed and turned around to scratch his head.
"Look, I'm not supposed to say this but if it convinces y'all to get up, Granny asked me to bring you guys here," he said with a mischievous smile.
He tapped his index finger on his lips told us not to tell her or else she would get mad at him.
"Ellie asked you to bring us here?" Aylin wiped away all the tears from her face as she heard that this was the old hag's idea.
The blondie scoffed and tilted his head before lifting both of his broad shoulders and saying that indeed Ellie had hired him to bring us here.
Aylin's gaze fell to the concrete floor in sadness. But quickly cheered up again once she remembered that Ellie always had a good motive behind her actions.
"Then? Where did you bring us?" I asked the man.
The blondie raised his fist to his mouth and coughed before moving his frame out of the way.
"Welcome to the Royal Academy of Nautilus."
Colors from the whole spectrum entered our eyes. The bright light overwhelmed our eyes that had been accustomed to the dark but as our eyes adjusted we saw something a stray should never be able to see.
The marble pillars, granite pavement and walls were made out of red mahogany. Students in elegant attire walked by, some chattered by the palm trees and some sat at benches studying.
Then the smell came, an overwhelming smell of sea salt entered our noses. The sound of crashing waves could also be heard in the distance. Aylin's eyes widened as she immediately recognized this environment, this was her hometown after all. Nostalgia filled her mind and she took careful steps out of the dark storage room. Her hand placed itself against the glass panel. I followed closely behind her and then she pointed out the ocean for me. Her eyes sparkled like diamonds as the view of the sea filled her visionary senses.
So this was the coastal city of Nautilus. I looked around and saw massive ships lining the wharf. The sea glittered like silver as the light was reflected from it and I couldn't help but be awed at the sight of an ocean. I had never seen the ocean, I had only heard stories from Aylin about it, but never would I have thought it was as beautiful as she described it.
The Blondie coughed again trying to get our attention but only I turned towards him.
"The sea is something all we Nautilusians are captivated by. We feed our families with it, make money from it, explore with it, that's why your friend who is Nautilusian who hasn't seen the sea for so long is so entranced by it."
He said smiling, seeming to understand her longing for the sea.
"Now as for what I will have you y'all do," he held up two cards between his fingers and then tried to get Aylin's attention but to no avail.
I tugged on Aylin and broke her out of her trance.
"I will make student IDs for both of you." The blondie said casually.
Us? a student ID? Did this guy not know that both of us were strays? We are considered low-intelligence creatures by upper society.
"We don't have any money for tuition though."
"Tsk… tsk…" The man clicked with his tongue wagging his finger back and forth.
"You don't need to worry about paying for the tuition, someone has already covered it for you," He said brimming with energy and smiling.
Both Aylin and I looked at each other flabbergasted and immediately our thoughts went back to Ellie. Had she covered this for us?
"Now if you just follow me."
We walked down the corridors filled with luxury rubies and sapphires embedded in the granite floor and marble pillars. It was as if two black sheep were walking in a herd of white sheep. No matter how hard we tried to think about it, we didn't fit in here. Our clothes, our level of education, and the only connection we had here was each other.
After some walking, we finally reach the head professor's office. Blondie knocked on the door.
He turned around and put his hands up gesturing us to be quiet. Because the professor we were about to meet could be a bit moody sometimes they wouldn't even acknowledge your existence if you did something that they didn't like.
Aylin and I gulped as the Blondie told us this and then the door automatically opened. The room was awfully cluttered with papers and decorations that didn't match the aesthetics of the room. Trophies and medallions adorned the room and the warm sea breeze entered through an open window.
By the desk littered with papers was a young girl with both her feet on the table. She was holding up a piece of paper and staring up whilst leaning back on her chair. Her blue eyes moved smoothly across the paper, analyzing the contents and her long blonde hair fluttered in the wind.
"Utterly rubbish," she said with a neutral tone before placing down the paper on her desk and marking it with a 20/100.
She sat straight up and took her feet off the table causing several documents to land onto the ground where hundreds were already.
The professor used her fingers to adjust her glasses and looked up at us who were staring intently at her.
"Rentri… how many times will I tell you to schedule a meeting before coming to see me? I don't have time for drop-ins every other day, you know?"
"I'm terribly sorry for my discourteous behavior, but today is seriously an emergency! Devina! I mean Professor Devina," he quickly corrected himself before sticking out his tongue playfully.
The professor pushed herself away from the desk and approached us with her hands behind her back.
As she was scrutinizing every detail on our faces, Blondie gave us a thumbs up and smiled at us as if we were about to be butchered by the Professor.
"Ellie sent them," Blondie tried to cover for us.
"Ellie? I haven't heard that name for a long time." The Professor turned her back towards us and in her hand she was spinning a silver mechanical pen.
"You want me to legitimize their student ID don't you, Rentri?"
The Professor spun back around and took a closer look at our faces.
The Professor's dead fish eyes stared right into our souls but as she scrutinized us for a mere fraction of a second a glint of life appeared in her lifeless eyes.
Professor Devina reached out her hand towards Blondie and gestured at him.
Blondie placed the two student cards onto her palm and with the pen in her hand, she wrote in their names and information.
The ink from the pen lit up and our faces were magically transferred onto the ID. But it was incredibly bizarre how she could know our names without ever even meeting us before. That she knew our date of birth and what blood type we were.
But never mind that for now, we had just been enrolled in one of the most prodigious schools in the world. Aylin and I couldn't believe that this was actually happening to us.
Aylin tugged a bit on my shirt and looked at me with flushed cheeks.
"Vivshi, could you perhaps pinch me?"
I did as I was asked and squeezed her squishy cheeks and yanked on them hard until she cried out in discomfort.
"So I'm not dreaming after all…"
The Professor went back to her desk and sat back down to write something.
"Now dismissed, and Rentri."
"Yes?…Yes, Professor?"
"You are forgiven this time for interrupting me." She said whilst being completely engrossed in her papers.
Blondie was too shocked to even say anything. Judging by the stupid look on his face, I assumed this was the first time he had ever heard the Professor actually forgiving him.
He guided us out of the room and the wooden doors automatically closed on their own. Blondie smiled at us before throwing each of us our student IDS.
"Once again, welcome to the Royal Academy of Nautilus."