Elements Rising

Chapter Five

The sound of four alarms broke through Room 321 of Darwin Hall, rousing its occupants from their sound slumbers. Emily turned her alarm on her cell phone off and climbed out of bed. She looked over at her bedside table and saw the clock. Its red numbers read 7:15 AM. She groaned but walked into her bathroom and began getting ready for the day. After her nice, hot shower, she walked back out into her room and dressed in her red button-down blouse, orange tie, black skirt, red socks, and Mary Janes. She then pulled her hair back into a ponytail with one ponytail holder, then used another to turn her ponytail into a bun. She let strands of hair fall into her face, which she just pushed behind her ears. She made her way into the kitchen, box of Chamomile tea in hand, of the "apartment" and opened up the cabinet to find a mug for her tea. She saw four mugs, one red, one white, one green, and one blue. It was almost as if someone knew that all four of them would end up in a dorm together. It made her a little suspicious, but until she had all the facts, she couldn't do anything about her suspicions. They were just that, suspicions. She grabbed the red mug and began making her tea as she heard several doors open. Finn floated into the kitchen and opened the refrigerator, expecting it to be empty, but found it fully stocked with perishable foodstuffs and drinks. She pulled out a bottle of apple juice and opened up the same cabinet that Emily opened and found the same colored mugs. She pulled out the white one and poured some juice into it. She was dressed in her white shirt, sky blue tie, black skirt, white socks, and Mary Janes. Her hair was hanging loose down her back in its soft waves. It was colored with pastels, as usual, and she also seemed to be her usual cheerful self. Grey and Aurora soon walked out of their rooms, having opened their doors, but not yet having come out. They both walked into the kitchen dressed in their uniforms and wondered if there was anything in their kitchen to eat or drink, and as if reading their minds, Finn spoke up.

"There's food and drinks in the refrigerator and we seem to have mugs in the cabinet there," she pointed at the cabinet in question and continued, "they seem to have thought of everything here."

"Yeah, they seem to have thought of everything here just a little too well," Emily muttered to herself, and thankfully, no one heard her.

Grey and Aurora each grabbed something from the fridge and got a little something in their stomachs before class began. Once the kitchen clock read 8:45 AM, the girls set off for Crane Hall to attend their first class. It didn't take them that long to get to the classroom, which was Room 100. They walked into the room and grabbed some seats near the front of the room. Room 100 looked like a college lecture hall where the chairs were situated in rows upon rows and there were steps leading to each row of tables. There was a table at the front of the room serving as a desk, a podium, and a computer. A young, slender woman with long brown hair and brown eyes walked into the room and set a folder of papers on the desk. She was wearing a green dress and a pair of green pumps. She walked over to a large metal cabinet and pulled out two boxes. The woman looked up at the crowd of students that had appeared while she was setting up for the day's lesson. She walked up to the large whiteboard and wrote her name: Ms. Lilith.

"For those of you who don't know me, I'm Ms. Eve Lilith and I'm going to be your History of Elements instructor for the year. If you are a new student, please come up and grab a notebook and some pens out of the boxes you see on the table. I'm happy to serve as your instructor for this term. When everyone is seated and ready, I will pass out the papers you saw me carry into the room, but let's let the new students get their supplies first."

Finn, Grey, Emily, and Aurora all got up and came to the front of the room. As no one else got up and followed them, they figured they were the only new students. They each grabbed a notebook and a handful of pens and returned to their seats. As they were doing so, Kari saw Emily and waved to her, but there was something in her eyes, and in the way she waved, that unnerved Emily for some reason. She wasn't quite sure why this girl unnerved her, but she didn't let it get to her and began to watch as Ms. Lillith started passing out her papers after they were in their seats. The first packet they got was a syllabus, outlining what they were going to be doing this term. The second packet they got was a questionnaire to be returned the next day. The third packet was a list of biographies of all the people they were going to talk about throughout the year. After passing out the last packet, Ms. Lilith walked back to her computer and put up a PowerPoint presentation on the projection screen. She told the students that they didn't have to copy down everything, only what was deemed important.

The class began by delving into the life of a man who changed the world in the American Civil War, a man who invented a better metal cannon through the use of his earth powers, Henry Rock. A picture of the man came up on the screen along with the dates of his birth and death. Ms. Lilith moved to the next slide where it told of Rock's childhood and the slideshow continued up until after his tour of duty during the American Civil War. Notes were being scribbled down in everyone's notebooks on the importance of Rock and his cannon and even the important dates as well. Emily wrote everything, regardless of importance or not. Finn and Grey wrote down only the important details, and Aurora was drawing instead of writing down notes. At the speed with which it took Ms. Lilith to get through her PowerPoint, fifty minutes had already passed. She dismissed the class with reminders that their questionnaires were due the next day, to read over the syllabus, and that their next person of interest was Harold Messer, an expert air spy. Everyone filed out of the classroom and walked out into the hallway. Grey, Finn, Emily, and Aurora each went their separate ways to their next class.