THREE STARS BURNING

Unit 7

Rye learnt quite a few things as he walked to dinner with Konnor and Delilah. Things like, in each corridor there are at least three escape pods and it took exactly four minutes and twenty three seconds to get to the weaponry room from his own. But, out of all of those things, one piece of information was abundantly clear.

Delilah could not shut up to save her life.

He was sure she'd covered at least fifteen unrelated topics in the last five minutes. At first, he'd decided to indulge her constant jabbering but after a while he allowed himself to filter out her words and just follow her to the dining hall.

Konnor, on the other hand, was being unusually quiet. In usual circumstances, Rye wouldn't have paid any mind to him but Konnor intrigued him. Every once in a while he would turn his head back to gauge the other boys emotions - not mad or angry, just mildly annoyed. Rye wondered whether he should ask him what was wrong but then thought against it. 

In reality, he didn't really want to hear about Konnors problems.

Konnor himself didn't understand why he was annoyed. Maybe it was because Rye had barely spoken to him since they'd started walking to the dining hall. Why did Delilah get all the attention? All she did was knock on the door. Konnor was the one who'd saved Rye from getting killed by an Alpha. Rye should be listening to him talk. He'd practically spent a whole ten minutes trying to make the guy talk. Konnor really thought they'd made progress, what with Rye answering his questions and -

"We're here!"

Delilahs high pitched voice reeled him out of yet another mind rant. He looked up to see Rye looking at him with a confused frown.

Now, Rye knew he wasn't very good with people, but he would be a fool not to realise that something was really concerning Konnor. After a few seconds of debating with himself in his mind, he finally managed to take a breath and focus his eyes on Konnor's.

"What's wrong?"

The question only consisted of two words, but those two words made Konnor's heart explode. His eyes opened almost twice as wide as they were before and twinkled with joy. He wanted to jump up and down and scream and cry and laugh and eat ice-cream all at the same time.

"Nothing!" He tried to say it with as much conviction as possible, staring back meaningfully into the purple and green eyes that were seemingly piercing into his soul.

Rye continued to examine him for a few more seconds before readjusting his expression to blankness once again and turning to walk into the dining hall.

Konnor meanwhile remained at the entrance in a daze. 

"Konnor are you coming? You'll have to forgive him Rye, he's a bit slow." 

"Shut up Dee." He replied whilst following Rye into the room in front of them, not before flicking her in the head and sticking his tongue out at her.

.+*+. 

You'd expect a school that only accepted around ten new students a year would have a relatively small dining hall.

The room that stood before Rye was anything but small.

It was structured in a dome like shape, with only windows for walls. Upon entry, it gave the illusion that you could fall straight through the floor to your death.

A great way of keeping the students on their toes.

There were around fifteen tables positioned in perfect rows all the way around the room, leaving the centre of the room with enough space for the food machines. 

Students milled around talking with their friends and eating peacefully. The thing Rye liked most about the atmosphere flowing around the room was that it oozed calmness, something he'd been yearning for for a while.

After taking one more look around, he followed Konnor and Delilah to the table he assumed held their friends. Delilah was still chatting about one thing or another and Konnor was looking at him with a slight smile on his face.

Finally they reached the table and Rye proceeded to analyse the other people sitting around it, looking at him with varying expressions.

"Who's this?" One of them asked.

"His name is Rye." Delilah responded, without giving him time to speak.

"Oh yeah, I remember seeing your arena fight. It was so cool, you were all like pow, jump, slice and the big guy went all woosh and shit." 

Rye raised his eyebrow at the colourful description but accepted the praise nonetheless. As he turned to face the rest of the table he saw the boy who'd spoken receive a sharp whack to the back of his head from a smaller guy in a pink jumper who was sitting next to him

As Delilah introduced the people surrounding the table, he took note of each of their names. Once she'd finished, Rye decided on which ones he wanted to invest the most time into, in order to become friends with them.

Finally, he selected a girl with sparkly eyes, a quiet boy wearing a light pink jumper and the boy who'd called him cute (he knew giving compliments was another thing that made a person likable). Their names, he learnt, were Penelope, Micheal and Tyler.

Rye didn't really speak for the duration of dinner, only answering enough questions as to not seem impolite.

He didn't smile.

Or laugh.

He just ate.

The other occupants of the table talked about various things that didn't really interest him and once he'd finished eating he further inspected the other teenagers that surrounded him. 

They were all dressed with varying degrees of colour and style; he assumed that dinner was the only time they got to wear whatever they wanted. After a while, he realised that he had to buy some clothes because up until now he hadn't really paid any attention to the black tee-shirt and trousers he was wearing - he was sure he still had some sand in his pockets.

Konnor was the only other person who'd finished eating, so Rye asked the other boy whether he would take him somewhere to buy some clothes.

Konnor had spent the whole of dinner thinking about the boy sitting opposite him: wondering what he was thinking, whether he was enjoying himself, if he wanted to leave - just anything and everything about the other boy.

So when Rye asked if he would come with him to buy clothes he almost screeched in delight, but instead he kept it cool and answered with a simple "Yeah, sure."

Once he was sure of Konnor's confirmation, Rye stood slowly and walked out into the corridor, an ecstatic Konnor following behind him, glowing from head to toe.

This is pretty crap but I wanted to get this done before I leave for holiday.

Please please please comment and vote, I know it isn't the best but I have so many plans for where it can go.

Also if anyone who's reading knows someone who can edit this shit and make it semi-readable PM me.

Thanks,

.+*Sunchoke*+.