System Zero

Sunny v.01

Trespassing was prohibited at Slugbrook Academy, though that didn't stop Sunny from sneaking around. Dust spectacles floated in the flashlight's beam, as Sunny purposefully placed her penny loafers 'heel toe, heel toe' so as not to project the slightest decibel of a footstep in the dank basement. Rule number one of disobedience, don't get caught, Sunny thought.

Pipes lined the ceiling, occasionally releasing an agonizing grunt, adding to the pitter patter of scurrying mice and shrieks of the furnace. Haunted ghosts of orphaned furniture, covered in white sheets, crowded the stonewalled hallway, along with empty paint cans and odd tools. Around a corner, Sunny hit a dead-end in the form of a wooden, locked door. Bingo. If it was locked, there was a reason, Sunny surmised.

It's not that Sunny was a thief, but she had learned a thing or two growing up. The family home was a McMansion in the suburbs, a symbol of cookie cutter life, though the family that inhabited it was anything but normal. Whiskey bottles frequently crashed against kitchen walls, Sunny's mom hurling them at her dad as she accused him of drinking too much. Keys to her mom's car were hidden away, often held hostage by her father in his briefcase that he'd take to work. On more than one occasion, Sunny was locked out of the home, her mom holed up her bedroom closet refusing to let her dad anywhere close.

There was one option for Sunny to survive: learn how to adapt. Mom was in a fit, throwing fine china at dad? Sunny would duck. Dad stole mom's car keys? Sunny could prey the door open with a hanger and hotwire the ignition.

The locked, wooden door in the basement of Slugbrook Academy was no challenge for Sunny. With ease, she popped the bolt open and snuck in the room, which Sunny deduced was the janitor's office on observation of a crooked desk snowed-in by coffee-stained maintenance work orders and greasy sandwich wrappers.

Warm, warmer, hot. Beads of sweat formed on Sunny's forehead. She knew was getting close to what she wanted. She could feel the heat like Icarus flying towards the sun.

Sunny wasn't sure what Slugbrook Academy was, but she was certain it wasn't just a boarding school. Maybe it was a seed vault, like that place in Norway where they stored all of the world's seeds in case of global crisis, Sunny theorized. Maybe there was an all-boys school behind the mountains, and they'd make them mate if the human species was wiped out.

Keys of all sizes and shades of rust lay before Sunny, hanging on hooks affixed to the inside of a cupboard door. Faint pencil, etched on masking tape above each hook, labelled to which doors the keys belonged. Sunny was after one key in particular, the one that would open the Headmistress's office.

Sunny was raised by liars. As a result, she could tell when someone was lying to her. The Headmistress was not only hiding something from the students of Slugbrook Academy, her pores were seething with deceit.

A lamp crashed, its lightbulb shattering, as the vibrations shook the basement. The keys clacked, bouncing off their hooks and falling to the concrete floor. Sunny crawled under the janitor's desk to take cover, her flashlight rolling under a couch.

A few minutes later, the vibrations stopped completely. Sunny fumbled for the flashlight, avoiding chewed gum and breadcrumbs. Random keys were piled on the floor, having fallen from their labelled hooks. Sunny would never be able to figure out which one was the key to the Headmistress's office. Only, just then, she noticed there was one key left on its hook on the back of the cupboard door. Its label read "Headmistress".

It was the key that would open the Headmistress's office, the very same office that Arya was in at that moment, fighting for her life.

Arya didn't want to die.