The archive of the forgotten

The academy

"I do not want to go to a boarding school." I say to my father. "You have mental health problems, it's a therapeutic boarding school Vaughn." My father always calls me by my middle name. Probably because he decided to name me something as strange as Theophilus, granted it was only because every generation in our family must have at least one Theophilus. "It seems I do not have much of a choice right father?" I say with a frown. My father avoids eye contact. "We'll talk about it tomorrow Theophilus." He says as he softly hits my shoulder. "Sleep well dad." I say while walking up the broad wooden stairs. He smiles, "Sleep well" he says and than adds this: "Vaughn." "Yes?" "I love you" He normally never says that. I smile "I love you too." I say with a bittersweet smile.

That night I wake up because someone enters my room. "Dad, it's...." I look at the clock. "Two in the morning." "Stand up and put on your clothes!" the two man in an almost military uniform are not my father. "No, who are you?" I ask. "You have two minutes." One of them say so I oblige and they pick up a suitcase that has been standing in my room since yesterday. The man grab me by my arms and drag me down the stairs where my father is waiting and than, all of a sudden it clicks. "Please dad, I am begging you. Can I stay here." I say as the man try to drag me away. "It's better for the both of us." "Bastard! Coward!" I scream while I spit in his face. "DO YOU EVEN LOVE ME?"I scream as the door from the my own home gets locked in front of my face.

I don't ask questions as we drive through the night. I don't want to know, perhaps I am still hopeful this is a dream. But I begin to lose hope as the we get further and further from my home and I feel tears well up in my eyes. My father wants me gone, what have I done but just smoked one single cigarette. We arrive at a building that almost resembles hogwarts, it has an estate and the inside of the estate looks good but when you see the big gates and walls built to keep people out, or to keep people in it gives you the strange feeling that you do not know what is going on inside there.

When we stop in front of the big gates as one of them opens them. There is a big field of grass with a flagpole in the middle, the field, which is at least as big as a football field is surrounded by the castle like building with open collumns. It looks beautiful but there is an awful twisted spirit in there. Something rotten. "Don't stand around Ackroyd, don't you want to sleep?" He says while he pushes me.

We walk through the collumns through the whole school untill we leave the school behind and I see what I suppose must be the dorms. I notice there are bars in front of some of the windows, but not on all, I wonder why on those specific ones.

"Your hair is long?" Another man asks, well it sounds more stating the obvious while I am putting on the pyjamas they gave me. "You're annoyed." I look at him. "Oh sorry, I thought we were stating the obvious." I say with a smile. He smiles too and before I know it he has turned my arm on my back and pushes me to the ground. "You are hurting me." I scream. "Still stating the obvious." The man says with a devilish chuckle as I see tufts of hair landing on the ground. I can't help but cry as I sit up again. "Here, this is your bed for today, tomorrow you'll get your room assigned." they say as they point to the matrass in the cold hallway without any blanket. I nod, all I want to do is sleep.

The next morning I am waked by the sound of trumpets, marching and children chanting. I look at the time, half past five in the morning. I put on the uniform they put on the matress and the uncomfortably formal shoes. I look at the uniform, it bears a strange resemblance to something military. I stand up and follow the sound which leads me to the field in the middle of the school. There are about hundred boys wearing a different uniform than the one I am wearing, those look plain military. "You must be Theophilus Vaughn Ackroyd." I hear someone say behind me. "You can call me vaughn." I respond. "You should be happy we weren't the ones standing reveille today." "What is reveille standing?" I ask, confused by all this jargon.

"Same as retreat in the evening, it's the beginning of the day, we face the flag as one of the highest members of our class raises it. Than we need to do some normal excersiises like marching. And we also have it at the end o the day, which is the retreat." The boy with his slightly auburn hair explains. "Why don't we have to stand reveille today?" "You get once a month free, you are very lucky." He sticks out his hand. "Hi, my name is Neil Taylor Basden, I am your aquaintance partner. I need to explain the school to you your first few months. Welcome at the academy of Willbayle and Barelion. We are a corrective boys school with a hint of military, most important rules are these, always march, never walk, always make sharp turns. Don't smile, always speak politely and with two words. Do not argue with your supervisors."

His auburn hair is beautifully waved into model, his hairstyle remind me of David Bowie, he has the same auburn eyes and an adorable smile, His uniform is incredibly neat, as if he was trained to do that. "You are wearing your uniform wrong" He says as he adjust the tie, cuffs my trousers, adjust the golden badges and closes the double breasted jacket. "That's better, oh and most important rule, no friends." He says. "Really?" "Yes, doesn't mean we don't have them." He says with a wink and hands me a leather backpack. "These are your books. Tell me if you are missing anything, we have latin today, obedience, history, physical activity, mental strengthening and as always, military training." I nod, "Is it a good school?" "We have some good teachers?" he answers with a slight smile as he starts to march and I try my best to keep up. "I mean.....is it fun here." "I haven't seen my family in 9 months, I haven't been home for more than two weeks for several years now, the only time I am home is christmas since I was thirteen and I haven't heard my father at all this month." I look down. I guess that is an answer. "It is quite alright, till you get in trouble." "Can you stay out of trouble?" "There are exactely 976 rules, I cannot even remember all of them. So no....I am afraid not. But we make the best of it." He says as I see that he tries to cry.

Some boys are waiting in front of the classroom. We're quite early so no one else is here yet, the boys look around as if they need to check if everything is safe. "This is Theo guys! Be nice to him. he is new" "We are always nice" The one with curly red hair respond. "You don't believe that yourself Ace." The blonde boy says. "Don't argue Dandy, they'll hear you" The one with frizzy black hair says. "The nerd is Shiloh acesius but feel free to call him ace." Neil says as he points to the redhead with his big glasses. "That's Finnegan Brasier" "You can call me Finn" The dark skinned boy says with an incredibly bright smile. "And the blonde vain one is Andrew Darlington but Dandy is the name he'll listen to." The beautiful blonde boy looks like he would be a perfect son I wonder what landed him here.

"Finnegan is a level three, just like me, Shiloh is a level two but we believe he'll become a level three soon. And dandy can't help but stay a level one" Dandy shurgs. "What are levels?" "Oh no! I forgot, you start at level zero, with everything you do well, like passing a class or helping out a teacher or do any manual work you'll earn points. For everything you do wrong they'll deduct points. So if you run away you are immediately at level zero. If you get above level three you get more freedom but you'll also have to rat out people, help with the....." The boy stops talking. "and that's why you don;t want to advance even more?" They all nod. "What do you need to get points deduced?" "Smile, or give the first years some of the food you got because of your food priviliges." "Is the deduction of points the only thing that'll happen." Dandy starts to laugh. "Shut up!" Neil says. "No, my only meal of the day was dinner and my food privileges were taken for a month, which also meant that my dinner was significantly less." Neil confesses. "Why did you do it?" Neil shrugs. "I remember how hard it was."

the teacher comes into the hall and all the boys immediately stand up and salute. I follow suit when I see the teacher is accompanied by a boy which is about eleven years old, his whole face is bloody and he is crying. "Neil." "Yes sir!" Neil responds emontionlessly. "Bring little luca to the nurse." "Yes sir!" He says as he grabs the boys hand and I see he smiles in a way the teacher won't see. "What are you looking at Ackroyd?" "Nothing sir!" I hear in a voice that does not resemble mind

there will be a part two I promise because this might not sound interesting but it'll be!