The Institute of Ingenio

Chapter 8 - Dea

Perhaps not everyone had slept soundlessly that night... Dea, sprawled on top of the now olive coloured covers of her bunk, stared blankly at the ceiling, still fully dressed. On a normal day, she would have been disgusted: sleeping dressed had always been a synonym of extreme laziness in her eyes, and she had sworn to herself that she would not succumb to the horrible trait that seemed to haunt the modern civilization.

However, on this night, Dea couldn't bring herself to sleep. The moment she got to her bunk, well before everyone else, she went to her bed and simply lay there, not bothering to change or wash. The memories of the now previous day (as mentioned before it was just past midnight) plagued her memories. Every time she closed her eyes the images came flooding back. A "normal" person would never consider this a torment, but for Dea, it was horrible. Powers didn't make sense, there was no logical explanation to them, no scientific formula that could elaborate on the whys and the wherefores of their existence. Seeing these supernatural occurrences had... broken something in her brain.

Finally, she was forced to succumb to the inevitable pull of lethargy, and soon she drifted off to sleep, bracing herself to face her greatest fear head-on: the unknown, the unexplainable.

{...}

(THE FOLLOWING MORNING)

It started with a spark.

No wood nor match

Just a single spark

Never reaching its true scope

A finger extends

But doesn't reprimand

Instead there's a light

It started with a spark.

Soon others join

And spark becomes sparks

They twirl and converge

It started with a spark

And now there is light

{...}

A great orb of light hovered meters above the polished marble flooring of the dining room, covering the raw stone walls in a harsh light that reflected onto the pool of students that stood below it.

Dea wasn't sure when or how it was created, but as soon as she had woken up, it was as if an invisible force had pulled her towards the large cave-like room. Once she had arrived, a turquoise spark emerged from her finger, followed by a string of similarly coloured light that eventually joined the already growing orb. One by one, students came, adding their own touch of light to the mesmerising entity. After but a few minutes, it had become a beautiful, psychedelic mess, more than ten meters wide.

Then, as if it could expand no more, it exploded. Fireworks of every colour imaginable flew out, somehow disappearing into thin right before they reached anything solid, as to not burn the whole place down while the entirety of the student body stood inside.

Somehow, what replaced that orb managed to be even more impressive: the two giants from before (they seemed to be omnipresent these days) stood before them, but were they really? Indeed, what hovered in the dining room that day was not, in fact, the real Aelia and Usiku, but rather copies of them, forget out of pure light.

It was then that they began to speak:

"I see you've all grown acquainted with the existence of your newfound powers" chuckled the fake Aelia.

"Don't you fret, pathetic humans, you will learn soon enough how to control said powers. For now, however, you must prepare for the battle that lays ahead."

They were actually helping them? But why? What good did that bring to these celestial beings? What good would helping the "enemy" bring them? Dea forced her thoughts to a halt. Somehow, somewhere, someone was listening, eavesdropping on her thoughts... She looked up to find Usiku's face a mere five centimeters from her own, scouring every detail of her face with his inquisitive blue eyes.

"Indeed, Dea Berytius, why would we help you?" he backed up to address the rest of the crowd. "You see, corruption or not, until we destroy this place once and for all, we stand in a school, and in school you must learn."

Aelia (or the luminous, fake Aelia) stepped forward, picking up where her counterpart had left off:

"As the creators of this fine establishment, it is our duty to make sure you learn until your very last days. We will thus be teaching you two things in the next two weeks to make sure you stand a fighting chance!" She moved near another student, the little girl who had spoken up to her the previous day.

"You see, I'm not that evil..." at that, the two giants left, but not before emitting a strange cackle that reverberated through the room for a while after they had left.

{...}

Later that day, once most students had retreated to their quarters, plagued by the boredom that had descended upon them since the annulment of classes, a letter appeared on everyone's bed.

"Whoa! What's this? I swear it wasn't here before... do you guys have one too?" Asked Felicity, holding out a sealed piece of parchment for the other to see. Dea looked behind her and, low and behold, found a similar package propped up on her pillow.

"Should we open it?" Inquired Aurora, inspecting her letter through her thick glasses.

"I saw we open it together. On three.

One...

Two...

Three!

A/N: Hi! I hope you enjoyed this chapter! It was definitely really fun to write! I even included a little poem! When I was younger, I wrote poems all the time, and I thought perhaps this was a good moment to try one out!

Ok, so here's the thing, I'll be taking a short break from this project to work on another one for my English class in collaboration with the amazing Bookishgraywolf ! She's an amazing author and person so I definitely recommend checking her work out! 

Don't worry, this is not a good bye to the IoI...

Happy reading!