The Echoes of Rivalry & Ruin (The Acamancy Series I)

Chapter 6: The Academy Dorm Life

I take my keycard out of the printer at the bottom. Luckily it has my hall and room number printed on it so that I can get used to those until I can remember it. I pick up my duffle and get the handle on my suitcase ready, then take off through the swinging door in front of me and realize, like mom said, the left side is for men. I cut across the walkway behind the office staff desks, to go down the women's hall and begin my hunt for the 14th hall. Luckily, despite the high hallway number, my dorm is only on the second floor. The building has at least 5 floors that I've seen. There are elevators but only two and one is broken, so waiting for them is not worth it. But only climbing up and down one flight of stairs will not bother me. I am not in poor shape by any means, I was on my school's swim team and had to stay in shape and we practiced often. But I am pretty thin and lacking muscle, plus with my asthma I am easily winded.

At the top of the stairs is a sign reading:

"For dorms numbered 2900-2930 left, dorms numbered 2931-2960 right, dorms numbered 2830-2899 down, dorms numbered 2961-3029 up" with arrows.

I go to the right, and hope that the numbers go up and not down as we are close to the stairs, but no such luck. For whatever reason the numbers seem to be all backwards in this building and I walk down a long and fairly dim, narrow hallway. 2931 is at the very end right next to the fire escape, so at least that's a bonus. I test out my fingerprint and the door lock panel turns red and beeps angrily at me, I guess the system has not loaded in our prints just yet. Luckily my keycard works fine, and I didn't walk upstairs and down the hall for nothing.

I twist the handle and lug my bags into the room. It is just how I imagined, based on the hundreds of stories mom has told me... I wonder which dorm she has, there are two different twin sized bunk beds, pushed against the wall on either side of the room. In the middle, in between the beds, is a large window with a long table that has two chairs. On either side of the table is a small bookshelf. There is a door on one side of the room next to a bed, I assume would be the bathroom, and on the other side is the closet. The closet is large for how small the room is, it has shelving on top of storage, and two rows of shelves, one meant to store towels and bedding, the other for clothing. There are also four small plastic dressers on the floor of the closet with our names labeling each one.

As I go to read off the other names I hear a throat clear and turn around. Sitting on the bottom bunk of the bunk bed on the opposite side of the room from me, next to the assumed bathroom, is a young woman. She looks to be at least two years older than me, with a mature face, short curly black hair, dark eyes, and rich umber skin. I am tall for a woman, but as she stands up and approaches me, she towers over me. She has a muscular and curvy build, which prepares me for a firm handshake. As she gets closer, I see her eyes are grey, notice she wears a belt with a boulder on the buckle, and I pair those with her firm grip, it all clicks into place. That makes sense, she must be a Stone Mani. I have never met one before!

"Hello, I am Emalyne, but you can call me Emmie, I am a Year One Water Mani, and I would guess that I am your new roommate, unless of course, I misread all of those signs, or the door, or my keycard and I happen to be in the wrong room... which has happened to me before actually... but I think I am in the right room, so that makes you my roommate and me yours and all that..." I stop and realize she is blankly staring me down as I ramble on.

"June," is all my roommate, June, says before she walks past me to the closet and grabs a bag from on top of one of the dressers.

I am usually a rambler, I am not good with awkward silences, or any silence for that matter, and I am full of useless facts about everything, especially Acamancy. But something tells me she knows just as much, or maybe even more about the school. There is no way she is a Year One. But either way, I have a good feeling she doesn't care about any of my facts, or much of anything else I have to say for that matter.