Where the Mountain Meets the Sky

The Beginning of Everything

This story may not be rewritten, transmitted or duplicated without permission. Inspired by Gakuen Alice

Cecelia Skye woke to see blinding light streaming in from partly open windows. She blinked open her dark turquoise colored eyes and brushed her fringe out of her eyes. 

Her aunt was yelling at her loudly from downstairs. She stifled a yawned, stretched and pulled on her school uniform, red skirt with a white top. Cecelia ran downstairs still half asleep rubbing her eyes tiredly. "Eat," her aunt commanded, "then go to school and leave me alone." Cecelia was used to her tone. She made it very clear that she hated her and wished that Cecelia would grow up and leave. Wolfing down her bread and grabbing a roll for lunch, Cecelia ran off to catch the bus.

When she got to school, no one waved or said 'hi Cecelia.' Cecelia lowered her eyes and hurried to her classroom in fear of being late for class. She arrived just in time at the classroom and sat down as the bell clanged noisily. "Okay class,we have a test today!" Her teacher, a woman called Ms Fairly said cheerfully. Everyone, Cecelia not included, groaned. "You may now begin." She said timing them on the interactive whiteboard.

They were about halfway when Cecelia heard the tyres of a car screeching into the small school. She peered out the window to see two black car with heavily tinted windows race into the parking lot. The door opened and she glimpsed people dressed in black and wearing sunglasses that hid their eyes and expressions walking towards out building. 

They looked very ominous and moments later, she heard our classroom door click open. "Welcome to class 4C," the school principal said leading the strange people in. "As you can see they are doing a test." She continued to say.

"That's great to know but we really need to test them ourselves." One of the people said, Cecelia could tell from his voice that he was quite young, about twenty or so. The principal looked slightly agitated, "very well, children please go outside single file." She said, her voice higher than usual. Outside all the grade 4s stood in one line. "These people are from an elite school known simply as the Academy." 

Everyone gasped, they had all heard of that school, it was considered the best school in the world and had a very high reputation. "Today only one of you will be chosen to go to that school, only one." The principal paused, letting her statement sink in. Cecelia rolled her eyes, she would definitely not be chosen.

"These people are here to test you to see if you are good enough." She continued, then moved away. A women from the Academy stepped forward and looked at us skeptically. "My name is Claudia and I'll be the one to test you all. Similarly to the man she was no older that twenty. All the students except Cecelia, looked eargerly at her, everyone wanted to go to the Academy.

 Claudia pointed to one of the children, "you follow him." She said gesturing to a man beside her. She scanned them again as if they were fruit and she was picking the good ones. "You kids can go with him," she commanded choosing a few more people. Much to Cecelia's surprise, she was in that small group.

"My name's Charles," he said smiling at them. "Congragulation in passing the first round." He said clapping his hands together. "It was that easy?" One girl asked. Charles nodded enthusiastically. Cecelia realized that they were in the music room. 

There was a TV set up connected to a laptop. "Please, sit and watch the video," he grinned. Everyone sat eagerly but Cecelia thought something was very wrong. She slowly sat down and watched Charles carefully. He clicked play and waved his hand slowly over the laptop screen. His hands glowed faintly blue and the video began to play.

After a few minutes, a strange thing began to happen. The same scene on the video began to play and all around Cecelia her fellow classmates were falling onto the floor fast asleep. Soon only Cecelia was awake and Charles smiled, "congratulations you are the winner." He said and she stared. "So you set everyone up," she said in disbelief. He shook his head hurriedly. "No no, they weren't set up. They were merely not good enough." He said as if that explained it all.