Imperial High

ZACH

I was gawking. Again.

When Oberon and I had stepped through the doors, it had felt like we were passing through jelly, and for a moment, I had thought we were trapped, but then we had burst through here. Wherever here was.

I wasn't quite sure what I had been expecting, but what I was seeing was definitely not it. I wasn't even sure what to describe it as. It was as if a giant baby had been playing with building blocks and had left without finishing. Calling it a castle would have been an over exaggeration of sorts, but it was most definitely not a normal building.

What looked like a topless pyramid faced me. Sprawling away from it were square buildings of different sizes. I looked around for Oberon, but it seemed like we hadn't come through together. I turned to go back through the door and stopped. There wasn't any door. I was faced by grassy plains and further ahead, what looked like a body of water glinting in the sun.

All the other students had come through apparently. They walked around, most of them gawking at the building in front of us. Frustrum. That was what the building looked like. It kind of looked like a frustrum.

Suddenly, people started moving. I looked ahead. The man on the roof was talking and gesturing towards the Frustrum. I rushed to hear he was saying.

".... all of you are here. That's good. Now, I know I promised all of you answers but unfortunately, I won't be the one giving them."

He waved his hand at the Frustrum. "If you would kindly follow me."

I looked around for Oberon but didn't see him. Just as I was about to start walking, a hand caught my shoulder.

"Looking for me?"

Oberon stood behind me, grinning. I smiled and pushed at him jokingly.

"Dude, where were you? I was looking for you all over!"

He scratched his head and gestured at the plains behind us. "For some reason, I ended up somewhere there, without anyone else. You have no idea how scared I was. I thought I was stranded in the middle of a desert or something."

I wasn't sure whether it would be rude or not to point out that deserts were normally full of sand.

"Anyway, I saw all of you gathered here and decided this must be where the action was at. So, I ran here and who else do I see standing around looking lost as a butterfly but you?"

He pointed towards where the man from the roof was heading.

"Let's go before he turns us into squirrels or something."

We hurried to catch up and as we walked, I realized just how big the Frustrum was. It had seemed so close but the further we walked, the farther away it seemed. I looked around in wonder, staring at the other buildings.

Now that I was closer to them, I noticed things I hadn't spotted before. Most of them were the size of houses but some were smaller or wider. One of them seemed to be made of glass, and when I looked through, I spotted what looked like a ring but was wider and circular. Another had ivy crawling over it and produced a sort of weird odor.

Finally, we reached the Frustrum. We walked through into an antechamber of sorts where thick pillars seemed to stretch up forever. Paintings of different women and men lined the walls. They were all wearing the uniform we had on. A balcony above wound around us in a ring. Silver letters had been printed on it and after a second, I realized that it was a phrase: Magna Potentia in Nobis Vivit.

Before I could look around more, we walked on into a giant auditorium. I almost started gawking again. The stage was had been sunk, leaving the seats higher than it. They were arranged in a ring around it, making sure everyone could see it.