Twist of Fates

𝕷𝖎𝖙𝖙𝖑𝖊 𝕱𝖎𝖗𝖊 𝕾𝖍𝖔𝖜𝖊𝖗

✧✶Julianna Valentina De La Bellam
⁷.⁵ ᵖᵃᵍᵉˢ

Julianna tipped her nose and gagged—Yuck. That's a smell you'll never get used to. The back of her tongue swelled with icky charred marshmallows, all green and clumpy, with old bits of copper melted in the foam. Aka: vomit. She grimaced and gulped.

One peek over her cover and she met chaos. Rushing figures bled together, shrouded in shadow and shrieking as they tried to dodge from vengeful blue flame. Crying boys watched while others slammed the doors—incorrectly. They were going to break their shoulders before anyone bust through.

Julianna slumped behind a propped coffin.

"Will SOMEBODY catch that RACCOON!"

"Che. You do it, Headmaster," a familiar tone grumbled.

"Does he not suit your taste? Too dirty to hunt for you?" Another familiar voice.

"Hahh, not my problem."

Dire Crowley shouted first—the man who managed to go from kindergarten to headmaster of the notorious, and arguably most important, college in all of Twisted Wonderland: her fictitious nightmare. He and a spitting toddler shared the same qualifications.

She saw him behind her closed eyes in his dazzling vest and extravagant coat, which he wore like a cape. His signature top hat, tall on his head, and his crow mask, scary, but in a goofy way. She remembered him—the him behind the screen—with his arms flared out and welcoming; almost showcasing.

He recoiled when he saw her. His arms crossed during the whole ceremony.

Then were the voices of two (out of seven) dorm leaders—students. She heard Leona Kingscholar grumble, as the spoiled prince did over literally anything, before Vil Schoenheit made his jab. She recalled the shards of jadedness in Leona's scarred green eyes before his fate and the way his lion ears creased in bitter resignation. She recalled the cracks in Vil's bold voice when he obsessed over his popularity and lost to his childhood rival. She saved them in the game, there wasn't much of a choice, but it felt good to watch them heal.

They put their malice on full display after her sorting.

Julianna hugged her knees to her chest and smothered the conflicting buds of guilt and indignance in her gut from blooming. Grim expelled more balls of fire, the students scrambled to survive, the teachers fought for their school, and she bopped her head to an Evanescence tune which oddly fit in sync with the explosions.

"Crazy ceremony, right?" She flinched. Crashed beside her, ducking for cover, wine red eyes framed by white lashes peeked under their hood and hovered stranger-danger close to her face, "I think this is the liveliest one I've been to, and that's from me! Ahaha!"

Her back bumped something solid, "Kalim, she started this."

"Ah, but you heard her and you heard how mean those guys were being. She just wanted to prove herself, right?" The gentle smile of a saint graced the face of Kalim Al-Asim.

The kindest boy for miles dove into her life with his life-long personal guard sat behind her and she caught between them. She repeats: she got stuck between the Kalim and the Jamil of Twisted Wonderland. And Kalim wasn't actively grinding her soul to hell like everyone else. A waiting silence settled around them. While Kalim—the sweet boy—may have overlooked her actions of basically setting off a bomb, she heard the tension in Jamil Viper.

She shifted to where she had eyes on both of them, and nodded.

Kalim beamed, "See? She's nice."