quietly. “I want to see our room.”
‘Room’ wasn’t exactly what I’d call the arrangement behind the door.
We stepped in and were at the top of a small staircase. It was on a much lesser scale than the entrance to the Academy, but designed the same. Swirling patterns were inlaid in the granite. A massive, full-length window sat at the other end of a spacious sitting room, and the moon cast a cool glow over the whole area. The flecks in the granite twinkled against the moonlight and made me feel as though I really were looking into a night sky. It gave me a sense of vertigo.
Alice took the steps two at a time and turned left into the open-area kitchen. Her hands ran along the grey marble island in the center of the kitchen, where a bowl of fresh fruit sat.
She grabbed an apple and waved it at me, her face alight with excitement. “They have food here, Avery!”
“We had food at home.” I gestured to my body. “We’re not skin and bones, by any means.”
There was nothing that could curb Alice’s excitement when she got going, so I left her in the kitchen to search for a bathroom. I walked through the living room that contained three large overstuffed couches. A butterfly-shaped coffee table was littered with books. I ran my fingers across the edges of the coffee table and examined the massive bolts that pinned the two panes of glass together with mahogany wood outside. Inside the wings were gears and ratchets, and they turned systematically with a tick, tick, tick . The body was solid wood and monogrammed with C.A., which I assumed stood for Chromelius Academy. No detail was spared.
A curved, carbon fiber archway housed a grand fireplace nearby, where coals clung to their final glowing embers. Red holographic letters flickered and scrolled across the mantle, Don’t forget to snuff out the coals , then went on to say, Welcome to Chromelius Academy, Avery Pike. They obviously hadn’t been planning on Alice.
My eyes roamed to the window that covered the expanse of the far wall. I walked over and pressed my palm against the cool glass — the Twin Cities were colder than my dome. The lights of the academy twinkled and glinted off the broken windows of buildings nearby, and the silence of the night was like a soft blanket over the area. The false moon hung high overhead in the sky and illuminated the lightly swaying grass. Was that a hologram, or truly grass? Probably the former; there was no place on earth that survived the damage of our own greed and vindictiveness.
My mind reeled from the day’s events. In the absence of noise, my thoughts seemed to scream out even louder. There were no people, no bustle of the seedy nightlife like Dome Four. No cries of hunger, of homeless people looking for a dry spot to avoid the damp humidity under an overhang.
The silence was deafening.
I turned, and two bookcases as big as the ones in the library lined the wall. There was a doorway in the middle and led to a hallway. I peeked through and saw additional doors on either side. I assumed those were our rooms.
There was a bathroom situated between the bedrooms, complete with a claw-footed bathtub and a huge shower with two showerheads. A mirror ran the length of the left side of the room with multiple sinks. In the far back corner were three wide stairs that led to a whirlpool, with a fireplace situated into the wall beside it. Huge brass vases filled with metal flowers sat on either side of the fireplace, and ivy wound around the sides of the whirlpool. A wrought-iron shelf sat beside the ostentatious display and held fluffy white towels. Seriously, who in the world needed this? The governor probably didn’t even have this kind of a setup , I thought to myself.
I left bathroom to find the room on the left now had light streaming out of the closet. Alice was already in there, poking and nosing around, murmuring to herself about good fortune. Personally, I kept thinking of our old home and how it was better, even
‘Room’ wasn’t exactly what I’d call the arrangement behind the door.
We stepped in and were at the top of a small staircase. It was on a much lesser scale than the entrance to the Academy, but designed the same. Swirling patterns were inlaid in the granite. A massive, full-length window sat at the other end of a spacious sitting room, and the moon cast a cool glow over the whole area. The flecks in the granite twinkled against the moonlight and made me feel as though I really were looking into a night sky. It gave me a sense of vertigo.
Alice took the steps two at a time and turned left into the open-area kitchen. Her hands ran along the grey marble island in the center of the kitchen, where a bowl of fresh fruit sat.
She grabbed an apple and waved it at me, her face alight with excitement. “They have food here, Avery!”
“We had food at home.” I gestured to my body. “We’re not skin and bones, by any means.”
There was nothing that could curb Alice’s excitement when she got going, so I left her in the kitchen to search for a bathroom. I walked through the living room that contained three large overstuffed couches. A butterfly-shaped coffee table was littered with books. I ran my fingers across the edges of the coffee table and examined the massive bolts that pinned the two panes of glass together with mahogany wood outside. Inside the wings were gears and ratchets, and they turned systematically with a tick, tick, tick . The body was solid wood and monogrammed with C.A., which I assumed stood for Chromelius Academy. No detail was spared.
A curved, carbon fiber archway housed a grand fireplace nearby, where coals clung to their final glowing embers. Red holographic letters flickered and scrolled across the mantle, Don’t forget to snuff out the coals , then went on to say, Welcome to Chromelius Academy, Avery Pike. They obviously hadn’t been planning on Alice.
My eyes roamed to the window that covered the expanse of the far wall. I walked over and pressed my palm against the cool glass — the Twin Cities were colder than my dome. The lights of the academy twinkled and glinted off the broken windows of buildings nearby, and the silence of the night was like a soft blanket over the area. The false moon hung high overhead in the sky and illuminated the lightly swaying grass. Was that a hologram, or truly grass? Probably the former; there was no place on earth that survived the damage of our own greed and vindictiveness.
My mind reeled from the day’s events. In the absence of noise, my thoughts seemed to scream out even louder. There were no people, no bustle of the seedy nightlife like Dome Four. No cries of hunger, of homeless people looking for a dry spot to avoid the damp humidity under an overhang.
The silence was deafening.
I turned, and two bookcases as big as the ones in the library lined the wall. There was a doorway in the middle and led to a hallway. I peeked through and saw additional doors on either side. I assumed those were our rooms.
There was a bathroom situated between the bedrooms, complete with a claw-footed bathtub and a huge shower with two showerheads. A mirror ran the length of the left side of the room with multiple sinks. In the far back corner were three wide stairs that led to a whirlpool, with a fireplace situated into the wall beside it. Huge brass vases filled with metal flowers sat on either side of the fireplace, and ivy wound around the sides of the whirlpool. A wrought-iron shelf sat beside the ostentatious display and held fluffy white towels. Seriously, who in the world needed this? The governor probably didn’t even have this kind of a setup , I thought to myself.
I left bathroom to find the room on the left now had light streaming out of the closet. Alice was already in there, poking and nosing around, murmuring to herself about good fortune. Personally, I kept thinking of our old home and how it was better, even
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