Astra Chronicles

Chapter 4: Pretzels

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"It gives me strength to have somebody to fight for; I can never fight for myself, but, for others, I can kill." ―Emilie Autumn

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I vaguely remember the weeks that had passed after that first night.

My childhood memories were a fuzzy blur but some moments remained in fragments.

Some were sad or traumatic but there was one specific day that I kept close to my heart.

That day when I learned to fight back was the same day that I made my first Academia friend.

As I became accustomed to my new life, I found myself changing into someone I was not.

A credit-driven or recognition-seeking ambivert.

I still had not met with Lord White.

Nor did I get any valuable information about him and his whereabouts.

But I was told that he was expecting more talent from me.

A discreet reminder to up my game.

The unbelievably advanced school curriculum had me challenged to a point wherein I often questioned myself if I had a brain or if it was just soggy noodles in there.

Was I really intelligent enough to compete with other gifted children?

Why was I the only one who didn't understand anything?

I had spent days struggling to catch up to the progress of the other kids from our Class A, the top class.

Most of the students did not seem to care about me or the fact that I was adopted by Astra's CEO, Lord White, except for one girl who reminded me of Goldilocks.

She wore expensive frilly dresses and had aqua eyes with long blonde hair curled like telephone-wires.

"You," Lizzie pointed at my face. "You are nothing more than a pretend princess here."

I still couldn't tell why she hated me so much.

There was nothing about me that she had to envy about.

Lizzie lived a comfortable life compared to mine. She was from a nouveau family and a rumored famous and powerful one, they say.

Despite her better status, she had grown a fixation towards me.

A hatred I never fully understood.

Yet as far as I could remember, I had done nothing wrong to her or to any of her peers.

Being the bigger person was not always as easy as it sounded.

But I was the new kid.

That pretty much left me with no choice but to suck it up and pretend I never heard any of her insults.

I picked up my notebook and pencil, preparing to leave the study room.

As advised by Scarlett, I had learned to tolerate most of Lizzie's verbal attacks after weeks of being the star in her perpetual hate speeches which seemed to worsen each time.

I'd loved to think that I was maturing into a patient and good-natured terran but that day Lizzie's words attacked old wounds inside me which led to a fateful meeting with a mysterious friend.