The ghost system

13 Roomates

Rhys and Otis reached the main office and found that it was empty. They were the only two students there besides the three military personnel conducting the room assignments.

"Name?" The soldier behind the desk asked bleakly.

"Rhys Anson."

"Put both of your hands on the desk." She instructed soullessly.

Rhys did what he was told and watched as his handprints were scanned by the blue light. The machine turned green when his identity had been verified.

"Welcome to the Military collegiate program, MCP if you will." The stone faced woman finally looked up from her desk and stared at Rhys. To his right Rhys could hear a similar interaction going on between Otis and the administrator in front of him there.

"You have been assigned to the Glowry residence hall, fourth floor, room thirteen." She slapped a brown paper parcel onto the desk and slid it towards Rhys. "Inside this you'll find a map and a set of complimentary nutrient and food pills. As well as your new ID tablet and entry cards."

The woman got up from her seat and reached for something hidden behind the desk. She hauled a familiar black duffle bag and steel safe box onto the desk, they were none other than Rhys's belongings that he had put through the portal during registration. Rhys was particularly anxious to get his hands back on the steel safe because it contained his precious gold card.

"You can take your belongings to your dorm and settle in," She returned to her seat and stared bleakly up at Rhys again. "Then feel free to explore the campus grounds over the next few days while the rest of the first years are still enrolling. Dinning times and other essential information is in the parcel I gave you."

"Welcome, and I hope you have a great first year." She yawned out the lines she had memorised and probably said a hundred times that day.

Rhys took hold of his bag and tucked the brown parcel under his arm.

"Wow, I'm really doing this." Rhys murmured as he looked down at everything he owned in his two hands.

Everything he knew was gone so all he had now where the things in his hands and the strange alien core in his head. This was the start of a new life for Rhys, he just hoped that he was starting out in the right place. Seeing as his spiritual body was not perfect and he would not be able to maintain the spiritual shift for very long period of time, evading the military would have been near impossible for him. When he thought about his decision to enrol in the college that way it made sense, but after witnessing an initiation test that literally wiped out a quarter of its incoming students, Rhys was seriously questioning the goal behind the military college. Would they really disregard human life like that? Rhys sincerely doubted that the military would let so many possible future soldiers go to waste. He suspected that the base was planning on using some very high tech medical equipment or an extremely skilled healer to help save the severely electrocuted students, and Gunn's knee. If he was wrong though, this college was even more extreme than he realised. He would have to keep his eyes out for an escape route.

"Is that all you brought with you?" Otis inquired from behind Rhys.

Rhys turned around to see that Otis's arms were packed with multiple bulging duffle bags as well as a humungous suitcase on the floor in front of him.

"Yeah, but is this really all yours?" Rhys frowned at the mountain of stuff Otis was carrying. Even before all Rhys's belongings were burnt in the fire, he was pretty sure he never had as much stuff as Otis was carrying with him now.

"Yes of course. This is just the basic stuff I got according to my older brother's recommendations." Otis nodded vigorously, completely sure that Rhys was the nonsensical one and not him.