Hiraeth

Chapter 5

Samara Shaw

I was one of the very few normal people if there were any at all.

I stepped out of my new room into the hallway where other girls roamed in groups or pairs. None of them looked completely human or anything like the ones I had gotten used to. The people here had at least one feature that made them look inhuman. Not a single one of them looked like regular people. Some of them had their hair in awkward colors and styles, some had colored skin and some had weird facial features, like their eyes in a specific shape, noses too small or big, or mouths in a certain color or structure.

However, people in groups had similar physical characteristics. They had little differences between them, like one being just a bit taller than the rest. It was as if they only associated themselves with people of their kind and thinking about it made me feel even crazier. Everything looked like something straight out of a fictional novel. It was impossible to believe I could see them with my own eyes. I mean, who would believe I met a group of people with pale green skin or someone with bright red eyes?

I walked down the wide hallway with my eyes staring at almost everything. Lucinda was right beside me and throughout the entire walk, she didn't say a word. It was my first time getting so much attention since my birthday party. The thought of that ceremony only made my mind bubble with annoyance. I didn't have the best experience after all that attention and I guess because it reminded me of that day, I felt it would bring me just as much pain as then.

I wondered what would have happened if I did not overhear the conversation or if I didn't have enough courage to boldly stand in the middle of at least a hundred people and disrespect them all with words of my mouth. No one would imagine that after all my years of learning to be the perfect lady and not standing up to my parents even once, I would do so much. It wasn't after I did it that I realized what I had done. If I had let things happen, I probably would be somewhere in a mansion trying to look good enough to impress my husband or feeding on salad once a day to look slimmer.

I couldn't tell which was better, a forced marriage or being the only normal one in a school filled with paranormal creatures.

"You only get fifteen minutes and if you're not done on time, you'll be pulled out and I wouldn't do anything to help you simply because I do not care"

"Fifteen minutes? That's too small to get my hair clean, I need at least two hours"

"And I still don't care" Lucinda slammed her bathroom door, which was right next to mine, shut with a loud bang. Her attitude towards me was just too cold for someone she met a few minutes ago. Staying in the same room as her would be one of the most difficult things to do in Thorne. "Fourteen minutes left"

I snapped out of my thoughts and hurriedly made it into the bathroom. It looked like what mother would describe as something from a prison and I couldn't deny the fact it looked like it. All it had in it was a single showerhead and a sink. The walls and the floor were covered with white tiles and on the ceiling was a bulb. That was all to the bathroom, there was no bathtub, no cabinet with hair shampoo and other products, and no mirrors. I couldn't deal with all of that in just fifteen minutes.

"Lucinda"

"It's Lucy to you"

"They're no shampoos here"

"We all use the regular bar of soap and we're not dead so deal with it"

A bar of soap for both my hair and skin was one of the most disgusting things I ever heard but there it was, naked under a showerhead and ready to deal with it like Lucy said. I had less than fourteen minutes already and every second in there was valuable. I had gone through just enough to get forcefully pulled out of a bathroom naked whether or not I was done.