Chapter Five

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Pepper squinted and undid her messy ponytail. Fleck was sitting on his bed, staring out the grimy window. She frowned.

"So, I met this kid," she informed him. "Her name is Dapple. Smart, slightly annoying, but an ally. You probably want to befriend her sooner or later, as she lives in the dorm next to us." 

Fleck glanced up. "Huh? Why?" 

"Because this isn't a school, idiot," she snapped. "It's a battle. Dapple came to the conclusion that Miss Snowflake meant that punishment wasn't going to be carried out by her, but the other students. If other students can do anything, they can murder. It's a fight for survival, and if you want to get out alive, you need to get your hands dirty."

"But...that's not true," Fleck countered. She stared at him, and he rubbed the back of his neck. "I mean, if you kill other people, what's the point? You won't escape and you'll be stuck in the same academy. Taking a life for no reason...that doesn't sound like something a kid would do."

Pepper bit her lip. "Because there's no other option. There's more of a chance of getting out if you're the only kid in the academy. Miss Snowflake might shut down the school, because there aren't any students and she'll get low funds. It costed a deal to get in here, and parents are required to send some gold every season. At the end of a season, she needs someone to pay her." 

She watched Fleck return his gaze to the window. "What good could a twelve-year-old do for us?" He asked. 

"She's smart, I told you, and...wait, hang on," she squinted at him. "I didn't tell you her age." 

"Saw her," he replied. "You two were in our courtyard. On a more important note," he added, sitting up. "I'm starving. When do we eat?" 

The loudspeaker blared as if he woke it up. "Good night, students. Tommorow morning, breakfast will be held at Hurricane Court. Look it up on your maps. If you don't show up to breakfast, you will not be permitted to show up to lunch. If you do not show up to lunch, you will not be permitted to show up to dinner. The time varies. Be thankful for our gifts." Miss Snowflake's voice blinked out, her cold voice holding tension in their dorm. 

"Well," Pepper said, trying to break the stillness. "Food. Always good news."

"In this school, nothing is good news," Fleck replied darkly. 


Pepper woke up to an empty dorm. Fleck was apparently gone. Gone. BREAKFAST! She sat up straight and grabbed her glasses, throwing them on her face with such force that her nose throbbed on impact. She couldn't miss breakfast. If she missed breakfast, she'd miss lunch, and if she missed lunch, she'd miss dinner! She didn't think she could handle a day without food.

What had Miss Snowflake said? Breakfast held in the...Hurricane...something? Pepper smoothed the corners of the map and read it like a book. It took her ten minutes to locate the room, and she wasn't even sure if she had. Two rooms had the word Hurricane. Hurricane Floor and Hurricane Court. She had no idea which would be a food area, but she decided she would go to Hurricane Floor, because it was closer. The other room was all the way across the map in a courtyard far off away from her. She doubted she could remember all those turns. 

She pattered down the staircase of her tower while she shoved the key into her pocket, blinking fast. She was in the process of recreating the map on a folded piece of paper she could slip into her coat, and she wrote down Hurricane Floor in her scrawled handwriting before she left. 

Dapple wasn't anywhere nearby, and Pepper didn't search for her. She rounded the corner and passed by rooms on her side. One...two...three...there! A sign read "HURRICANE FLOOR". She pushed open the door. 

Sadly, the room wasn't what she was looking for. It was a sandy arena with bars around the edges and seats for around forty viewers. She was deeply disturbed by red markings on the sand. Although she didn't doubt Miss Snowflake was capable of hosting breakfast at such a terrifying place, she knew this wasn't the food court. 

As she wandered through the halls with a stream of curses, the loudspeaker blared in her ears. "Good morning, students. Breakfast is now over. I'm surprised how little of you showed up. How unfortunate. My apologizes to those of you who didn't get breakfast. Good luck." 


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