The Marked

Changes

-Nearly forgot to mention this, but I actually have a book available for sale on the Amazon store. It's called "The Vanguard Series: The Path Ahead (Book 1)". The e-book is $5.99, and the paperback is $11.99. Check it out, and if it sounds like something you'd like, I'd really appreciate it if you bought it. I put a lot of hard work into the story line and characters, but I'll be honest when I say that I like The Marked just a twinge better, because of all of you! Anyway, it's still a really good book in my opinion, even if there's no Ryan in it. So, without further ado, to the story!

Sitting in my chair, I was struggling to stay awake. The lesson seemed really interesting, but I had stayed up until two in the morning due to nerves about my first day of school at Black Academy. I had gone on a tour of it yesterday, expecting to find an average college campus, but was shocked when I got out of my mom's car to see the towering castle-like structure that towered over sixty feet in the air.

The rooms were all actually really nice, with sheet rock and dark blue carpet decorating each classroom. The dorms were all held in the same building, but boys and girls were separated by a commons room on the bottom floor, cafeteria on the second, and kitchen on the third. The dorms were like identical apartments, which could fit two people into the bunk bed against the far wall.

The rooms were a square, with wood panels running along the walls and ceiling, and a dark red carpet on the floor. There were two closets built into the left wall, with a bathroom behind a door just a foot away from the closest one to the front door. When Ryan and I had first stepped in, we had both stopped to look around in wonder. It was a big change of pace from my rather bland room. 

"I call top," Ryan had said, and just like that we began settling into our new home. When I had asked what his parents had said about the new school, his usual happy smile fled from his face, and he turned his head away. "They just shrugged and signed the papers. I don't think they even realize that I left." I wasn't sure how to answer, but it didn't matter. He didn't give me a chance, slipping into the bathroom for a few minutes, and coming back out acting like nothing had happened.

I didn't want to just drop the subject, but I could understand why Ryan would. His parents had never really had much to do with him, and we once heard my dad telling my mom how it was irresponsible and stupid for Ryan's mother to accidentally get pregnant, and then not show him any parental love. It made my blood boil to imagine how much it must sting Ryan to have gotten into Black Academy, and his parents not even caring enough to acknowledge it.

Black Academy was a very old and prestigious school that many rich families couldn't even pull strings to get their kids into. My parents had heard only a small amount about it, but they knew enough about how hard it was to get in, so they were extremely shocked when I got a letter letting me know that they expected me to show up for class the next week on Monday.

I really wanted to go, and they had both been so astonished that it didn't take much convincing for them to sign the necessary papers. However, there were numerous phone calls that week to the head administrator of the academy, most of which lasted around an hour long. My parents wanted to be sure that I would be fine going to school there, as they had dorms for students on campus.

It was like a mini-college, and my parents told me over and over how proud they were of me for getting in. Now that I was here however, I wasn't even paying attention. Shifting in my seat as I tried to wake up, I glanced to my left to see Shea enraptured with the teacher, her hand furiously taking notes. Mike was doing much of the same, but he seemed more curious with what the teacher was saying, nodding his head every so often.

Tom was struggling to keep up a bit, hastily scrawling in his notebook, seeming to panic whenever he had to pick up his pink eraser and furiously scrub his paper. Ryan was leaning back in his seat and watching the teacher with a slight amount of interest, but he could just as easily be daydreaming as paying attention.