"What do you think you're doing?"

William was furious. The anger wasn't directly shown through any action, but his emotions were enough to pierce through the air so everyone around him could feel it.

"I won't let you go to Noah."

"Oh? And how are you going to stop me?"

William ran straight towards Saha. She braced herself for the impact. Instead, William mockingly did a little spin around Saha, attempting to just evade her. She stuck out her leg and tripped him, making him crash onto the ground.

"Who do you think you are!"

He tried to kick Saha from the ground. She hops backward and just barely dodged the kick. In retaliation, Saha kicked William in the stomach with a thump. He clenched his stomach and called for Mackenzie.

"Get her away from me!"

Mackenzie charged at Saha and tackled her to the ground. Saha was completely overpowered by Mackenzie, being pinned to the ground. Saha gripped Mackenzie's hair with all her might and tore it towards the ground.

"Arghhh!"

Mackenzie let out a squeal of pain.

*

I found my time here at this school somewhat unsatisfying.

It wasn't that the school was necessarily boring, it was more that I didn't take enough interest in any specific event to find it interesting.

What did I even want to do here?

I could go help Maia with her plans, or I could try to figure out who this puppeteer was, but in the end, these are just arbitrary goals set by me with no real meaning.

Then again, wasn't everything like this? Like what the story of Sisyphus demonstrated, a person's life was just a series of actions given arbitrary meaning, with any and all actions capable of being just as fulfilling as any other.

But I was looking for something more. There must be things that have inherent meaning to me. Something that I want to do. If Sisyphus showed anything, it's that a person's life is dictated by something, no matter how small.

I am not an impartial human, nor a human completely detached from everything. I have an unconscious bias to something. Something I yearned for, something that means a little bit more to me than everything else.

Ah.

I do have something.

Something locked away so deeply at the bottom of my heart I thought I'd never see it again.

It's not like I hid it on purpose.

This subtle craving.

So insignificant that it couldn't even be considered a bias.

Like a seesaw tilted one degree towards one side.

Ever since I saw her,

I felt like a tiny flame was lit inside my heart.

I wonder what would become of this.

*

It was getting pretty late into the night.

I decided that I wanted to get some seaweed snacks from the convenience store.

Ding. As I exited the elevator, I saw a light gathering of people in the reception area. They all seemed to be looking at something on their phones. I slowly made my way over.

I wasn't that interested in what was happening so I was just going to go straight outside.

"Hi, Ollie."

It was Trista, I was hoping to leave without interacting with people but I guess this wasn't too bad.

"Hey."

"Did you see what happened near your classroom today?"

I guess I was about to find out what the miniature commotion was about.

She showed me an article posted by the student council.

"Students Saha Mapps (1C), Mackenzie Scollins (1B) and William Hunt (1A) were found fighting near classroom 1C. They will have a meeting with the student council on Monday."

I suppose tensions between Saha and Caleb's assistants ran as high as ever. I guess the student council will sort out this issue so I'll see what happens then.

The students were huddled up in little groups discussing the situations.

I wasn't that interested so I left the reception area and made my way towards the convenience store.

At this school, at the middle and end of every year, there is an exam. Depending on the end of year exam results, you will be moved up and down classes and ranks accordingly for the next year. If you do not pass the exam threshold of 50% you will receive one warning. Two warnings and you're instantly expelled. You can also receive warnings for breaking any of the school rules:

*

One warning if a student commits any of the following:

1. Committing a severe act of violence towards a member of the staff or a fellow student.

2. Releasing any information about the school to the public without prior consent.

3. Purposefully causing extensive damage to school property

4. Getting below 50% on a mid-term or end-of-year exam

5. A cumulation of major misdemeanours.

*

Two warnings if a student commits any of the following:

1. Getting below 25% on a mid-term or end-of-year exam

2. Access or possession of any sensitive school paperwork or information

*

If any student is expelled, there will not be any students accepted in order to replace the student. Instead, the total number of students will decrease.

As I entered, I noticed that the shelf the seaweed snacks were meant to be on was completely empty.

This is weird.

There wasn't anything else I wanted to get, so I decided to make my way back to the dorms without buying anything.

**

Run and Don't Look Back (5)

I looked up at the window near the top of my room. The window itself was actually always open, I could've escaped at any time, but I never saw any reason to do so.

Suddenly, I heard a noise coming from my window, then, two stray arms clung onto the frame. One hand was holding onto a little teddy bear that was dressed like a prince.

Heaving herself onto the opening, the little girl hung there like a sack of potatoes, half of her body in the room and half of her body outside.

"A little help here?" She muttered whilst gasping for air.

I gave her a little pull and she crashed down onto the carpet.

After patting down her clothes a little, she turned and looked at me.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"Oliver."

"So what do you do all day?"

"I usually just watch television or read books." The way I watched television and read books was probably different to how she would've imagined it.

Suddenly, I heard some angry frantic footsteps rush towards this room.