Devil's Boarding school

Chapter 1. Flight to freedom.

Rain pattered on the windowpanes, colliding with the scratched glass in a broken symphony of noise. I thought, how fitting it was, that the clouds would hide me from the sun today. Given today, I would leave this grey place, hopefully for good. It had been six months, to the day, that my life had come to a full stop within the warm arms of a bloodbath.

During the last six months that felt like sixty, I was moved from grey place to grey place. Since running out of tears on the corpses of my parents, I had called the authorities (what else to do?). Without any hint of reaction or emotion (what did I have left to feel?), I sat paralysed as I answered countless questions (what could I say?). The 'specialists' had 'especially' driven me to a plain building within the span of an hour. I didn't say or do anything (why care anymore), which they wrote off to PTSD. I believed them, I took the pills and I went to therapy. I said what they wanted me to, and they said I was 'cured'. They walked me past fluorescently lit rooms with an air of pride in their step. I was leaving the monotonous 'institution', another great success of theirs. Back to courtroom, for the last time. Every moment was a blur of pointless questions and empty statements, it came to a point where I had no opinion anymore, and it didn't matter to anyone at any point.

It had taken, what the judge called "a very considerate and unusual" amount of time to track down a relative, all were dead or missing. The closest they could find was a vague uncle living so far north, he was practically in Canada. The only part of the following weeks that I remembered thinking about was that I would finally get to see snow. Where I came from, it just never snowed. The excitement was smothered by the walls of protective blockades I'd built up over the past months. When the judge made te final call to take me to my Uncle's residence because he had yet to reply to any communication with more than a single "Very well".

Riding in the Agent's company car was quiet, and probably awkward. The agent seemed fidgety and faltered whenever she tried to make conversation. She was kind, but was obviously unnerved when she was ever left alone with me. I watched the scenery go by, as only a numb person can, with faded disnterest. Buildings grew shorter, and trees grew taller and more numerous. With great difficulty, the court had their two words from my uncle, and were sick enough of me to take that as the green light to be done with me. The lawyer was trying to be nice and told me it was likely he'd accept me, because I had a good file.

My 'file' was all people cared about since I entered the system. Ember Lorel, A month or few off of 18, 5"4', shoulder-length light-brown hair, so-on so-forth. What a wretched name, I thought, the word for a dying flame and a useless vagabond. I had found that out sometime in high school when we were encouraged to look up meanings, though my mother had always tried to tell me it was a lovely name and the last meant the tree not 'the obsolete'. A knot pushed up in my throat at the thought, though I swallowed it bitterly. I sighed for maybe the millionth time that day, the Agent looking at me with the same worried expression for maybe the millionth time that day.

Reaching the airport, the Agent got me out of the car and up to customs, before trying to give me a hug. It ended awkwardly when I lightly raised my arms around her but didn't quite touch her. It felt ever-so cruel to say goodbye like this after all her 'help'. But there would be many more heart-breaking cases for her to deal with yet. I followed through with the rest of the processes of flying like a robot, programmed, silently, practically emotionlessly.

Boarding the plane was dull, I followed in step with an older man to the back of the plane. I shuffled into the 27th aisle, sitting alone in the window seat. This was good for me because I would have something to stare at before we took off, when the view would become something I heard to be a sea of fluffy white clouds. A slow 15 minutes passed before the plane was ready to take off. In that time I realized the plane was far from full, only 4 people had boarded the plane before take off. It was my first time on a plane, and I hadn't realized I was actually jittery. Taking off, I concentrated on the rumble of the engines and gripping the arms of the chair tightly, rather than the slightly overweight man snoring in the middle of the aisle seat. I listened intently to the sound of the wheels grinding into motion, wondering which sounds meant failure and which meant the engines were in good working order. There was a loud whooshing sound of changing air pressure flying through the cabin, then the pilot gave his seemingly rehearsed speech along with the single stewardess. The plane began a rush down the tarmac, creating a sensation I'd never felt before. The shock of it drove my eye-lids high and my nails into the arms of the chair either side of me. But, when the wings of the plane hummed and we took off, I felt a rushing sense of freedom was over me. No longer was I drowning down on the ground, I was flying into my own personal freedom. As we left the ground of my hometown, and descended into the sky, I was--for the first time in so long--ever so slightly free.