Res Novae Academy's Reforms

Sedimentary Ore Stein

March 23, the year

(Ate (Ah-te with all short vowel sounds) is the Filipino word for older girl, Kuya (Koo-yeah) is the filipino word for older boy.)

Sedimentary Ore Stein was a tactile child. She could feel the little imperfections in her family's rock collection, she could feel the bumps in a braille cell, and she could often feel things around her that felt not quite normal. Normally, she'd take the advice of her cousin, Metamorphic, and forget it, but a lot changes when you enter residential school.

I don't know when Sedimentary's suspicions began, so instead a have chosen a day close to the climax of her investigation: March 23rd of the year we succeeded, a little over five months after she begun studying in Res Novae with her twin sister, Igneous. In those five months, Sedimentary had charmed her way into many friendships with the upper years, including eight grade Tess McQuoid.

This part of the story begins at 1600, after class hours.

(Note: the Res Novae program begins at seventh grade)

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Sedimentary, or Seydie, held Tess's arm in one hand and pushed her shades up with the other. Tess was busy checking her phone, so Sediment took the opportunity to recheck her theory. Again.

Sedimentary let her finger glide beside Tess's elbow. There, she felt it. A patch. Not like the crack in human skin, it felt metallic. And it was not the kind of metal that came from surgery, as her cousin had suggested. It was round and when she focused hard enough, she could almost feel a line engraved on it, like that on a minus screw. That's what Sediment had labeled it in her notes: The Screw.

When they entered the dimly lit residence hall, Sediment let go of Tess and pair to login via the face scan in the first floor lobby.

"I'll check with Iggy," said Sedimentary, referring to her twin.

"Same time tomorrow?" asked Tess.

"Of course," said Sedimentary, heading to her room while Tess went outside to play volleyball with her batch mates.

Sedimentary hurried to her second-floor room before her roommates could arrive. She closed the curtains to help her see, and put her backpack on her bed to find her tablet. She opened a journal app she had downloaded some months ago. Before she began writing, the lights began to flicker the way they do in horror films.

Sedimentary put the cover on her tablet and hurried three doors down on the other side of the hallway. She held on to the doorframe, standing still. From inside, she could hear heavy breathes and groaning.

A few seconds later, the sound and the flickering of lights both stopped. Sedimentary knew the drill. "Ate Morana, are you okay?"

A few seconds, no answer. A girl with a hood came out. "Yeah. Thanks."

"Okay, just checking," said Sedimentary.

Sedimentary called it The Phenomenon. That is, the simultaneous flickering lights and Morana's episodes. She had asked Tess after it— twice, actually— but Tess said it must be a coincidence and that the other Reforms would rather not talk about it.

No one else seemed to notice The Phenomenon.

Sedimentary wrote a few theories as to why. Maybe because it always happened when they were playing outside or in the cafeteria, which has a different power line, if not in the early morning when the only lights on were study lamps and the lights in the hall. More so, Morana did not seemed like the type to make close friends outside the Reforms. Maybe no one deemed it polite to ask.