Chapter 1, The Welcoming

The story begins.

Chapter One, The Welcoming

 

 

It started with a punch to the face, a simple greeting, and a goodbye. It stung like wounded pride and ringed in my ears like the fire alarm. Brandon Swanson, one of those ruffians you wouldn’t want to see alone, or with friends, found me in the boy’s room after the lunch bell chimed. He had the decency to wait before he pulled any punches, common courtesy. No one would come to break us up. At Nelson High, the teachers stay out of our way for the most part.  There wasn’t enough money or enough empathy to fix the crumbling foundation of school like this. The very walls were cracking concrete, and the textbooks were stained, and dated from before I was born. “Avery, stop hiding like a little b***h, maybe if you were this submissive in class, I wouldn’t have to beat you, you four-eyed freak!” He must have seen the picture I drew of him on the blackboard. I’m quite the celebrated artist. I finished and faced him. “F**k off Brandon, if you’re so s**t for brains maybe I won’t flush,” I said without looking into his eyes, hesitant, knowing what would happen. One could not say I didn’t have spunk.

Hi, my name’s Avery. I’ll spare you the details. Never did well with schools. Not the homework, more the people. People who would take everything from others, just to show they own you. Brandon’s knuckles left a warm trickle down my nose. I dragged myself off the floor and stuffed pieces of toilet paper in my nose. With a quick look in the mirror, I could see my eyes darting, my chest swelling with breath. Cleaning the blood from my face, I whipped violently at the red mark on my shirt and left the washroom.  Making my way out of the frying pan, and into the fire. As I opened the door, I found my homeroom teacher Miss Hawkson standing over Brandon." “That freak attacked me the second I went in, I’m telling you, it’s not safe to have someone like this at the school.”  “I’m not convinced Brandon, that this is entirely one-sided,” Turning her attention to me, I could see a trace of but disapproval on her face. As I marched towards the principles office, I thought about my second year of high school, and why this unlucky life chose me.  It wouldn’t be long before that way of thinking would change, and I would see how much I took for granted, the sanctuary of normal high school life.

 

Again, out of the frying pan and into the fire.

 

It’s been a few weeks since then, and after the last incident, my parents and I decided I needed a fresh start. Meticulously looking at several different private schools, we decided on a boarding school called Greymore College. I loved the idea of a spark of redemption, something that could empower me, give me hope. I knew that whatever place Greymore College was like, from the pictures, it seemed to be a rundown manor of some sort, that had been rebuilt from the Victorian era shell of the decaying building into the hallways and dorms of a school. The walls were a dull white on the outside, with massive mazes you could barely consider hallways, all with pictures of people who had long since left this world,  furniture and carpets as ancient as the school itself, and parts of the school marked “teacher’s only”.

Not knowing the life-threatening game I would play in such a place, I loaded one bullet into the gun of fate, and held it to my head, oblivious to the fact that I some point, when life and death were as chancy as life and death, eventually, I would have to pull the trigger.

 

“Avery… Avery Miller? Avery!” The world came to a stop. With my mother shaking my body, I woke up in passenger side of our Jeep Cherokee, rubbed my drool plastered face with my new black blazer uniform, and found myself in an empty parking lot in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by forests, and the behemoth  rock of white bricked Armageddon that I would be living in for the next two to three years of my life.

 

In the distance, I could see the outskirts of mountains and knew that I would have nowhere to run to avoid my school experience. The best I could do is hide in my dorms for the next two years, and hope desperately that things would work themselves out.

“Avery, it will be alright. You’ve got a fresh start this time. Make the most of it. I’ll be in touch, so if you ever feel lost, don’t be afraid to give me a call. And every summer when you come home, we’ll celebrate. I love you, Avery.”

My mother gave me a warm smile. I ventured out into the open, tasting a lung full cold of fall air turning to winter, as the crisp leaves of knotted trees crinkled like the cracked surface of the school itself. The ripples of age like an old diary with the most personal pages ripped from the spine.

 

I found my way to the doorway of the asylum, a mass of wood that had peeling white paint at the bottom, and the school crest beckoning centre. It was a hexagram with different squiggles at the ends of each point. A triangle in the middle and within it a heart shape. A cross shape was within the hexagram, splitting it into four groups. In one, a basilisk, in another a demiurge, another a wyvern, and finally, a phoenix. All the crest was written in black lines, no colours to fill them in. In the corner of my eye, I saw my mother drive away, leaving me alone with the monolith. There was a large knocker on the door, shaped like a face with an open-mouthed smile, made of bronze. Beside the door, was a regular doorbell.

 

As I pushed my finger against the doorbell, the sky began to rain, and as the chill spread within my body I heard what sounded like the bells of an ancient church, bellowing loudly, inviting me home to the thunder.

 

The door opened to a young man who was almost a foot taller than I. He had combed over dark brown, nearly black hair. He was lanky, but not to the point of looking thin. He wore a uniform with black pants, a green blazer with the school crest, and a silver button on the collar with a wyvern on it. Underneath, I saw what appeared to be a white golf shirt. He was playing with a tarnished bronze ring, with the school crest displayed faintly on the outside.

 

“Welcome to Greymore College, once home to the nefarious Scarlet Family, now boarding school for young men. I’m Oldein of the Wyvern. And you must be Avery, yes? Yes….”

Oldein looked me over with a smirk, it did not seem to be a cruel one, but a rather proud look of superiority was imprinted onto his face.

I looked him in the face hesitantly and shifted to the see the inside of the dorm behind him quickly. It looked strangely welcoming, and a fireplace crackled with heat.

“Well then, would you like to see the dorms?”

Oldein put a brotherly arm, onto my back and gently pulled me into the maelstrom that at the time, seemed to only be a breeze.

The wood floors were chestnut brown, and there were stone pillars with different mythical beasts carved into the stone, serving as statues, but also holding up a massive ceiling that spread over to the second floor like a wildfire. A balcony to the second floor sat above the main hall, and I saw students stop to stare at the new arrival, me. Most wore a uniform similar to my own. Where some of the older students wore a more mature dapper blazer like Oldein, there was no silver button or ring. I could tell from a glance that only he could command such an aura of entitlement. And he knew it.

The second floor shared the ceiling with the great hall. Light shone in from a many coloured window, in the shape of a wyvern, the pale light illuminating a grand staircase. To one side the carpeted stairway crept to the second floor, and the stalked downwards to what I would assume to be the basement. The dorm was a cathedral that prayed to privilege and opportunity. A temple that was its own god.

“As you can see dear Avery, this is the beautiful dorm of the wyvern. For the duration of the Welcoming, you will sleep, study, and explore the crevices of this excellent sanctuary of knowledge. Once you have ingrained yourself in the knowing of our school, you may join the constant study of our curriculum, history, and understanding. But only after the Welcoming, will you be one among the pack.”

As the rumble of hushed voices, shifting eyes, and quiet laughter spread over me like a straightjacket, I felt the uncomfortable sensation of what a lamb in a wolf’s den must feel.

Harkening it up to anxiety, I asked,

“So where’s my room? I have a lot to unpack.” I gestured to my luggage. “You know, I’m going to need help getting this up those stairs.”

“Charles! Could you kindly come and help Avery to his room!” Oldein yelled across the dorm, the words echoing, as if in answer.

Suddenly a small figure made his way down the grand staircase, awkwardly with his head pointed at the floor under his feet, rather than looking Oldein in his eyes.

He was a little shorter than me, maybe an inch or two, and wore the same uniform as I did. His hair was long and blond. It seemed to be unkept.

He looked up to smile at me briefly, shy.

“Hello Avery, You can call me Ch-Charlie. I’ll be your roommate. Let me help you with your luggage.”

Inside the spacious dorm were 3 bunk beds, and a computer. The room was not nearly as elaborate as the hall. It seemed to be a storage room turned dorm room. None the less, the floor was red carpet over hardwood floorboards. There were several chairs and tables, as well as two windows overlooking forests, and a small lake in the distance.

There were also two great wardrobes, and I was shown by Charlie to one that he would share with me, I quickly met Arlong, a student a year older than us who was dorm leader of the 6 students in our room. I noticed that on his collar was a bronze button with the same wyvern design. He was very busy playing a portable gaming device, and simply gave me a “hey” when I entered. He seemed distant and very self-involved, surely the wrong choice for anyone in charge.

It was there that I started to feel at home finally, my heart no longer thumping in my chest, I decided to ask Charlie some standard questions.

“So what’s it like at Greymore? I’ve never been to such a snobby rich boy school before.”

“W-well, freshman year was extremely gruelling, f-for me at least.” Charlie looked back sheepishly at Arlong, who was so engrossed with his gaming experience that he didn’t even look in our direction.

“We learn much history on the occult, as of course, I’m sure you know of the Scarlet family’s notorious reputation as devil worshipers.”

Puzzled and curious, I pressed him for the details.

“So? And What about it?”

Charlie again looked at Arlong with what seemed to be anxiety in his eyes.

“W-what I mean is that we learn about the dangers of the occult. W-we are the first line of defence, the only school that prepares humans to prepare us for the endless void that is paranormal.”

I snorted.

“Bullshit, you’re just f*****g with me, right? That sounds ridiculous. You’re really trying to tell me that we are going to learn about spooky scary skeletons?”

I heard a knock from the other side of the room, to see that Arlong had just dropped his game on the floor. He was looking right at me, with no sign of emotion anywhere on his face, other than a sliver of a crescent moon on his lips.

“Don’t believe in the supernatural then, huh? You think we humans just dominate the earth?”

Unfortunately, I didn’t get to hear the rest of what he was going to say. There was a knock at the door, and Arlong opened it.

A man who must have been in his early thirty appeared. He had dark gray hair and aviator glasses. He wore a tuxedo complemented by a tie with the school's hexagonal crest on it. I found myself strangely disturbed by the tophat he had, seemed unnecessary, I also noticed a gold wyvern button on his collar, and he held one hand behind his back, and steadied himself with his other hand on a cane. His skin was pure white, and his fingernails were black.

His blood-red lips parted slightly to reveal yellow teeth, and two words.

“The Welcoming.”

My world was falling out of the fire, and into Greymore.

Arlong nodded and made his way outside the room. The door closed, with a slam.

Author's Note

Been a while since I've written stories, it's mainly been poems for me. I have a course I'm taking for short stories though, so I figure I'll share this.

Reviews

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I ended my third read.
Some things I want to point out, it's unlikely that mom calls Avery, "Avery Miller" rather she'd short the name 'Avey' or something like a nickname. And Oldein should address him as "Avery Miller". Take real-life examples story isn't just a story you must turn it into virtual reality. It's a paranormal adventure so I think you can amaze readers with creativity and fill them with anxiety and get goosebumps.
I don't think you had to suffer a writers block, it was smooth. I'm suffering from that right now, I have awesome prompts but my mind doesn't go beyond the consequences so this is continuation to my reading but it's not magic, you'll have to do a lot brainstorming. But I can tell you it's 100% better than mine, I don't know when I'd be able to write such actions. I make them in my mind but eventually I lose it. I'm badly struggling with my content, I dropped the idea of dragging it any further. Now I'm searching for new contents.
I think you can do this, utilize the advantage. Don't let this die, my first story is still unfinished and I don't think I can start writing it again.

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

I'll work on it again someday. But for now, poetry is my favourite thing to write.

[barleygirl]

This is well-written & compelling, with a strong storyline. I was noticing that you use quite a bit of description of one's surroundings to convey the mood of your story. That's well done & it's something I often leave out (setting). On the other hand, you don't include much in the way of introducing us to your characters, as far as what they look like or if they have any weird mannerisms that may help us identify a certain character type. All in all, your story is more & more compelling as it goes along & by the end, I really want to continue reading! (((HUGS))) Fondly, Margie

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Stories are different than biographies, just description isn't enough sometimes you have to make readers visualize what you want to tell them. I have been told several times to show instead of tell, this is applicable here as well. You can add dialogues, multiple characters at a time to make it more interesting. From dialogues, short dialogues, sometimes silly things sound great and though this sounds to be in a serious type, you have to make some breaks with little humor or sometimes gentle, if you keep writing like going on a straight line, it will become boring.
I will keep the compliments for the next time, I think suggestion is more important as you've just started writing this and it won't be difficult to make changes right now.
:)

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Hey! don't be upset, I didn't mean it not good, it's great but I expect more as I know how well you write. On the other hand I am not a great writer, and I've reviewed this piece as a reader only. I know all this from several books. You have your own ascent and style, never change it but improve it, work in it.
Good Luck!

[R.J Calzonetti (SinisterPotatoe)]

Thank you for your honesty, I'm a little rusty when it comes to story writing, so I have a lot to improve on. I'll try to make it better for the next chapter.

Thank you!

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No problem, just try to get the best and it will certainly happen.😊