“I suppose the fourth trip back was for Rio, but he can go back on his own with his own pet.” Noah replies to the five people currently boarded inside his flying food truck.

Yes. A legitimate flying food truck.

The truck was levitating a solid hundred feet or so just above the grassy terrain, the shadow following under the vehicle ever so often dimming at the sunlight in front. “Christ, this is so weird.” Robin exclaims with bug wide eyes, his mouth agape as he peers over the ledge of the food truck.

The truck itself looks vintage, antique if one were to compare it to something in their time. The interior was loaded with plates, cups, silverware, glassware, pots and pans, etc. Each small closet inside was rimmed with golden linings, the handles being glass curved and carved into an intricate design.

But what really struck them the most was that it was alive. Hell, this thing had a mind of its own. Well, if what Noah said was true, then they couldn’t say anything against it. Meanwhile, Travis was internally freaking out at the altitude they’ve been going at.

The infamous playboy with a dozen pick-up lines to his disposal is now clutching onto the ledge of the truck, his knuckles were a powder white as he visibly shudders. His eyes were close shut as he sits in the back, muttering sweet prayers and occasionally singing himself a lullaby to hopefully calm his nerves. It’s already been three minutes and he’s already flipping out.

The stoic and quiet Alisson turns to Charlotte, both have been watching the poor guy shudder like a new born puppy for the past minute. “Poor guy.” Charlotte mutters, eyeing the blonde who they notice is trying to hold back a whimper.

“Yeah…” Alisson replies quietly, “I wonder how we’ll turn out. Seeing as Travis can’t handle even—“ Alisson gestures to the food truck, “—This.”

“Ugh, you’re right.” Charlotte says, her heart feeling heavier as she looks to the other people in the truck. The scrawny boy in the back next to the shivering Travis notices Charlotte’s dazed expression; he tilts his head to look at her with a worried look. “Charlotte? You okay?” She perks up in place, her attention wandering to the one who called her. She gives a reassuring smile to Wynn, nodding her head as she shifts in place. “Yeah… Yeah, I’m fine. Just remembering…”

“Remembering?” Wynn echoes, furrowing his thin brows.

“Yeah, about… the others.”

All of a sudden, the calming breeze passing through the open truck just got colder. The wind got quieter as their hair tossed around in the wind, fluttering softly against dim faces.

Noah notices this, his eyes still on the road, or more like the front. He grips the wooden wheel that’s used to steer the truck, he quietly clears his throat. “That’s why we made the Prestige guild. Why me and the other ‘commanders’ didn’t leave. We’re here to help and make sure that you guys don’t get killed.”

Noah’s way of sputtering out what he thinks of any damn situation just makes him sound like a dick. But, he was straight to the point. He was honest and talking out of opinion. Even if they didn’t want to hear it from him, it was probably for the best if it was he who broke it out to them like that. After all, what could white lies and false hope do to already broken resolve?

Travis, Alisson, Robin, Charlotte and Wynn were quiet for the rest of the trip. Travis was mostly quiet because he was too afraid of looking down from the ledge, but other than that, everyone else were solemnly listening to the quiet whisper of the wind flowing past the truck.

Within a few minutes of quiet flying, Noah lands the truck down on a residential area. There were a few houses with dull hues of blue and red and some even just plain hay and wood, Thatched roofs if that was the correct term, but where they landed was somewhere different. In between a small wooden fence was a dark gap that led into the darker part of the forest that surrounded the residential area. After Noah snaps his fingers, the truck disappears into thin air with a gust of wind and a white hue replacing the empty space. The teens inside flinched at the sudden loss of platform before falling onto the ground with thuds and squeaks. “Ugh, a little warning next time, Noah.” groaned an irritated Robin before hopping up on his feet, dusting off his back and ass.

Just as Robin was patting away the dirt and grass from his uniform, the ground shakes as the five others behind him looked up to see a galloping black steed and a—

“Is that a m-magic carpet?” Travis finally speaks, his voice breaks at the last bit which sounded pretty hilarious from Robin’s end.

“You know, I should be expecting a lot of weird stuff by now but It’s still so weird seeing things out of… the norm.” Wynn adds as he turns to Alisson with a heavy sigh, he squints to the now approaching commanders and their friends.

Grey came in first with her Flamemare, The tall gentle giant sitting behind her was clutched onto Grey’s waist for dear life as if it were his life line, his hair was pulled back as if he’d stuck his head in front of an airplanes’ turbine engine. Grey pulls on the black reins of the horse, it whines as its tugged back just a few feet in front of where Robin stood, Matthias gives a quick yelp before the horse stomps on the ground, shaking its head with a whine.

“Phew, alright. Last batch.” She says with a stoic look before noticing Matthias’s hands around her were unmoving. She looks down to her waist then peers over her shoulder.

Grey glances at an immensely frightened Matthias with eyes shut closed and shoulders pulled up to his neck. She couldn’t help but give a small smile before clearing her throat. “Matt. Hey, buddy. We’re here.” She pats his hands on her waist and he instinctively flinches at her touch, he jerks in place and his eyes shoot open. “Wha-Oh thank goodness. That was terrifying.”

“Never been on a horse?”

“Never.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to get used to it then.” She says with a hint of a stern tone to it before helping him hop off the horse first before she did.

Their feet plants onto the ground with a small thud, a circle of dust pushes away from where they landed as both Matthias and Grey rub their butts with a small pained look. Grey groans, “But damn does she go fast.”

“No kidding, I felt like we were floating.”

As Matthias says this, Elijah, the shortest of the group, walks forward from behind Matthias and pats his back. “Well we were on a freaking magic carpet, I’m pretty sure that was more terrifying that being on a flame horse.”

Vallerie saunters up next to Elijah, her preppy way of walking still visible by habit as she looks around. “So, where’s the house?”

“The Guild.” Josh corrects before he snaps his fingers, his dark green magic carpet rolled up and disappeared out of thin air.

“Right.” Vallerie sheepishly clears her throat and lets Josh pass by her and Elijah.

The group was now in front of the dark gap; Grey already sent her Flamemare away and was standing in front of the darker part of the forest in between the wooden fences.

She puts her hands to her hips and announces, “Alright, last batch. Just like I told the others, you all won’t be able to leave the Guild or venture out of these grounds. Not unless you’re accompanied by either of the following commanders or we allow you to do so.” She looks into the dark interior of the forest, vines and shrubs obstructing the way inside as she turns back to them and points to the eight of the teens and directs them to the trail leading inside. “In you go. Come on.” She says hastily before entering herself, leaving the group unsure of how to even get through the densely packed forest.

Josh and Noah usher the eight of them inside, upon entering, they seem to trip over broken logs, dips in the terrain and even what they thought was a giant snake was actually just a really thick root of a massive tree just by their right. The way through the forest was linear since they followed the only trail that was barely visible through the greenery. Thankfully, the sunlight of the now bright morning helped them traverse through the forest as the beams of light seeps through the thick foliage above them.

In a mere few seconds of snappy branches slapping them from behind and leaves tickling the sides of their faces, Grey finally leads the band of teens outside of the forest, the rays of the sun hitting them directly as they exit. They squint and flinch at the light as they bring a hand up to shield their eyes, but as they blink past the blinding light, they start to see what lies ahead of them.

“Welcome to your new home.” Grey’s voice starts to their side as she pulls a hand up, gesturing to the large wooden building they now branded their own.

It stood at around fifty to sixty feet high with a ninety-ish feet of width. This place was massive, intimidating and kind of homey now that they took a better look at it.

The brown patches of trail lead to a cobblestone pathway, the zig-zagging trail leads straight to the large wooden steps of the guild. Leading up the steps was the open porch where two column bases held simple columns of light concrete. From the looks of it, it seemed like it was a good four or five storeys high.

They noticed the other people in front of the giant guild watching them enter, calling out to them. “Hey! Guys, come on! Check it out!” Called the familiar voice of Ava, despite the circumstances they were in she seemed rather excited to check out their new home. The eight frazzled teens turn to each other with a look that says ‘eh’ and shrugged before they walked forward, going closer to the guild.

The front of the guild had visible beams and posts sticking out to support the entire building, but that’s what brought out the medieval feel to it. It had this polished sheen to the entire building, like a varnish washed over every nook and cranny to it. The roof was entirely made out of what looked like dark brown slates which accentuates the timbers redwood that covered the entire house. There were windows trailing the front all the way up to the top with large Palladion-styled windows in the bottom near the door.

The door was what caught their eye, which was a large wooden double door with a large eye-catching brass door knocker. The door knocker’s design was forged in the Prestige’s school design, a simple globe with four divided parts. The heart, the brain, the soul and the hands.

“Is that…” Vallerie starts, a bit taken aback at seeing their school’s symbol before Josh confirmed her thoughts. “Yep. Everoe has this forging system that can create a specific type of design based on what you enter. We were lucky to even get the door knocker with the design. It was Rio’s idea.”

They all looked somewhat happy and amazed at the symbol, being carved into hard brass and placed in front of the guild like that.

“Wow…” Caine had a hand above his brows as he squints to look up at the large structure, “This is… amazing.”

“This is where we’ll live?” asked Elijah, who was rather hesitant to even step closer to the foreign building.

“How did you guys even get this?” followed Augustus with his eyes ogling every little detail of the guild.

“Our earnings.” Grey answered with a hint of a disgruntled tone to it. “Nevertheless, it’s all ours. Now—“She pushed forward past the crowd and huffed, climbing the few steps leading up to the open porch.

She turns to the crowd, hands on her hips as she sees Rio shortly exit the forest and wave for Grey to go ahead.

“Welcome to your guild. Your new home, Prestige. The guild is going to be three things for us.” She raises her three fingers and pulls on her index finger, “One, it’s going to be your home. A place where you can sleep, eat, drink, bathe and keep your belongings. You can also cook in here, do your business and etc.” She then pulls her middle finger, “Two, it’s going to be your school. We have classrooms, a library, laboratory and even training grounds in here.” As she mentions ‘training grounds’, a few visibly tense as their mouths for an ‘o’ shape. At least they’re excited for that part, makes her job easier to catch their attention like that.

“Three,” she pulls on her ring finger, “It’s a place of trade, since we are going to be a guild. We’ll be given quests, but those quests, for the meantime, will only be done by me and the commanders. Those quests are the things that would pay for our repairs in armor and weapons along with the stash of food we’d by every week.”

She then looks to Josh and Noah with a nod, the other two nod back as if they’ve planned for something already.

The group watches the silent exchange before Grey turns her back to them and pushes open the double doors, “Everyone, stay behind me and just follow along.” They quietly follow, ever so often looking around with curiosity as they walked up the wooden steps, heavy feet creaked against the sturdy wood as they begin to enter the guild.

Noah and Josh both stayed behind, “Let’s head to the back.” Said Josh before Noah gives a short nod, “Okay. I’ll get the place ready.”

As the group find their way inside, they are lead first into the foyer where a stone statue greets them in the middle of the room. There was this large statue of a woman with wings, tilting her head down to peer at whoever enters the room, her eyes were lightly closed and the stonework emphasizes her smooth features such as her long hair being pulled back by a circlet on her forehead, the arching bridge of her nose and even her faint small lips being pulled up into a faint smile. In a kneeling position, her body was wrapped by some sort of a large cloth dangling down past her shoulders to cover her body like a toga. She kneeled on the pedestal with both her hands grabbing onto the handle of a longsword that was piercing down in front of the pedestal, the emblem on the hilt shone a shiny blue color. Her wings however were not as big as they were expecting it to be proportioned, as it was straight and less detailed and more for support on her back.

“Who’s that?” Asked someone in the back, Grey didn’t answer for a moment before walking forward, lightly pressing her fingertips onto the blade’s fuller. “This… is Goddess Morrighan. The Goddess of Revenge and War…” She slowly turns to her side, “…Also, the protector of humans.” She steps back and she could feel a chill run down her spine the moment she stepped away.

There were a series of astonished gasps and whistles as they looked up to her statue, “Is she here for protection or just for show?” Grey could hear this coming from Lemuel, who they call the ‘Holy Child’ of the class. With an appalled look on his face, he steps forward from the crowd with crossed arms, skeptical. “You mean we’re going to have to worship different Gods in here?” He says with a disappointed tone.

Grey shakes her head with a shrug, “I’m sorry Lem, I mean. We don’t really have a choice—“ She points her hand back up to the Goddess statue and looks back to him. “The Gods here are well… more pro-active than when we were back home.” She takes a step back and gestures for Lemuel to move forward, pointing to the sword the Goddess was holding. “Try it for yourself. Touch the blade and feel it for a moment.”

Lemuel pauses for a moment, looking to Grey then slowly eyeing the Goddess from head to pedestal. He takes a step back, shaking his head. “No. No not yet, I’m sorry. I’ll try it later.”

Grey nods her head, understanding his position. He will forever be dedicated to their old God, their only God of course. But for now, they had no other choice but to rely on these Gods and Goddesses for now.

“Moving on—“ Grey moves around the statue and pulls her hand up, motioning up to what was behind the statue. “Here, we have the foyer for our Guild. Where we keep the bulletin board, To my right, for quests that we’d receive over the next few weeks. To my left… Well, we’ll put something on that boring wall soon.”

As the group follows her, they look around the foyer to see it being lit by four black framed lanterns planted on to each corner of the room, there was a big bulletin-board posted on the left wall with coffee-brown paper and maps pinned to the board with pins and hooks.

But as they turned the corner from the statue, there lies in front of them a simple arc leading into a large open space where Grey walks in through first.

“This… is the guild hall and, well, sort of also your dining hall.” The group follows through the arc and are again left to stare in awe at the interior design of the large dining hall that stretched out till the back of the large building.

The Guild hall, as they entered, had a small space to move around in the front. The wooden floorboards of the entire dining hall were now covered entirely by a dark crimson rug that stretched out to the four corners. There were six long and thick wooden trestle tables that had a dark forest green table cloth draped over its length with small white tassels dangling from the long edges. With each table came a candelabra, all four candles on each of the tables lit with a small blaze of fire. The tables were arranged to have each of its shortest edge face them, three tables lined on their left and the other to their right, arranged in a straight line.

On each side of the closest corner as they entered were two large staircases, both wooden with thin spindles holding onto the thick square hand railings. The staircases were facing away from them so if they wanted to go up, they would have to face back to the entrance to go upstairs from there.

Grey leads them further into the interior and points up. As she does, all eyes look up to gasp at a very lovely wooden chandelier, the wooden arms that held up the candles were spiralling around each other, like snakes hugging their bodies close, then roots up to hold the now melting candles held in place by a metal pan platform for the wax to not drip over. The chandelier spirals down from the ceiling of what they think is the third floor’s base. The second floor was visible to anyone who wanted to look up and from this angle, being in the middle of the dining hall, they could see a few more rooms upstairs with the spindles lining the edge of the second floor.

“How many floors is this place?” Asked Orlando, already impressed by the handiwork and placement of each object in the first floor.

“Four floors.” Grey quickly replied before clapping her hands to get their attention. “Alright, first floor is your guild hall. This is where we hold meetings; strategize if needed and where we eat our breakfast, lunch and dinner.” She points to her right, which is to the crowd’s left, to the large wooden wall that had two doors a ways from each other. The first door closest to them was a dark blue with a glass pane that was currently blocked by a dark grey curtain inside. Above the glass pane was a wooden plate nailed onto the door, which reminded them of what Dentists would use to put in vacant or not, “The first door here is our laboratory, this is where we brew potions, alchemy crystals, enchant items, mostly anything specified under what we do back in Chemistry class… But with magic. If there is anyone inside and are testing some potions, then please swipe the wooden sign there that says vacant to occupied.” She then moves her hand to point to the other door to the farthest to them and nearest to the corner.

It was a pale white color with green linings on the door that popped into clover designs at each corner of the door. With a heavy golden handle to push and open with, it had a large K painted on its front with an eye-catching design and color of gold. “That’s our kitchen. A pretty big space to cook, stash food and grab munchies if you guys would like. But do know that we’re on a tight budget, so we’re going to have to stick to frugal eating. This means—” She points to the crowd with eyebrows pulled up, “—Diet.”

There was an audible groan before a few guys and girls snicker in the back, “Food…” Some people start to mutter as they clutch onto their stomachs.

“Come on guys, we still have the other floors to check up on.” Grey says before stopping, “Oh, right.” She quickly points to the opposite side of the first two doors and points to two lone doors near the staircase. “Those are the first floor restrooms, not bathrooms. Use ‘em when you don’t have time to go upstairs to the fourth floor.” She then points to what they already knew was the fire place. It had the lovely décor of brick wall tiles leading up to the ceiling, a clear white mantle sat above the firebox which was currently empty. “Over there’s the fireplace. Nice place to just grab a blanket and sleep next to whenever we’d get rainy days.”

“Grey?” asked Matthias, who seemed to have fixed his hair back to normal but had some loose strands of hair still pulling up from his forehead.

“Yeah?”

“Where do those doors lead to?” He points to the very end of the room, two of the same wooden double doors that were for the entrance were posted there, silently.

“Ah, I’ll show that to you guys tomorrow.” She stated vaguely before ushering them up stairs to the staircase on their left. “Come on. Up we go.”

They rubbed their arms, looking around the dining hall in amazement. The moment they had even stepped in through that archway gave them goose bumps as they marvelled at the large and intimidating interior. It was cold inside, but warm at the same time. The smell was like stepping into a forest that had just been rained on. Like a mix of an old wood smell, expensive cloths and burning wax. It was pleasant to say the least.

“So, here is the class floor, where we’ll be taking our classes, of course.” Grey leads the following group upstairs to the second floor; they peered down to now get a good glimpse of the first floor from where the gap is open.

The teens inspect the second floor that was spread out to different parts of the floor, as if the second floor had a square cookie-cutter and removed the middle part of the floor, leaving a giant square missing in the center. The flooring was carpeted with the same red rug from the first floor. “There are four different classrooms here, each specific to each subject that we’d teach you. You guys can check it out once classes start.”

The crowd groans at sound of ‘once classes start’ but Grey knows deep down that these weren’t just any other ‘classes’ they had back at their old school. No, THIS was a new and improved Prestige.

“We’ll be learning how to… fight. Right?” asked a meek voice. Grey turns to peer at the group, past the other teens looking down the railing to peer at the first floor. She spots Arthur, looking as timid as usual, walks out of the crowd and faces Grey with a worried look.

Grey furrows her brows with a hesitated nod, “As I said. We have no other choice, but don’t worry. We’re making sure that that won’t happen. Alright, Arthur?” She turns to the rest of the crowd and gives a hopeful look. “Same goes to you guys. Just, trust us… Alright?”

The small group nods in response, giving her the eye contact she needed to proceed with the little tour. “Our names or on the designated plates on each classroom, so it’d be easier to find our class. It just four rooms so, it’s not really that much of a waste of time.”

The staircase is now at the very end of the second floor as they pass by the left side of the guild where there were a row of uniformed windows plastered on the walls, they were framed with light brown timber and had dark red curtains shadowing the now clouded greenery of the outside. The windows were symmetrically placed on the right and left wall, just as the two classrooms across each other.

“What time is it by the way?” asked Seth, the more observant and yet somewhat more rational person of the class. The way he speaks always has some manner of… danger to it. His suave way of enunciating his words could be because of his influence at home, but the class never bothered to ask. That or they were just too afraid to.

“Oh yeah, is there even a time here?” Followed Augustus with a nod.

“Of course there is. Clocks are still a thing here, it’s just different from our old digital watches.” At the sound of this, something clicked in their heads.

“Oh shit. We don’t have our phones.” muttered Elijah with a slowly shifting frightened look on his face.

Kaden, the smart-ass of the group gave a quiet snicker, “You noticed that now?”

“No phones. No wifi. Oh shit-“ Martin places both his hands on his head, as if all of reality was just now coming to his realization.

Grey groans, moving a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose, “Oh dear.” She turns to face them and opens her hands to them, waving them to get their attention.

“Guys, listen. I know we’re a ways back home but we have to focus on what we have right now. Alright? We have to focus.”

“Yeah but… Our homes. Our families, will they even look for us? Look for the others who die—“

“I don’t know.” Grey cuts Martin short, he jerks back as her voice got a bit too loud. She gives a quiet sigh through her nose, before looking to them apologetically. “I don’t know, alright?” She echoes. “I’m not sure how we got here, how we’re even going to get out of here with the time we have-There’s a lot of shit I don’t understand either. Trust me. But, all we can do now…”

Lemuel spoke up as Grey trails off, “…Is to move forward. We understand.” He nods to Grey, giving a faint smile to assure her. Everything’s fine. We’ll be okay.

Grey give a thankful nod, biting her lip with a smile before turning back to the stairs leading to the third floor. “Alright then, off to the third floor.”

As she says this, Caine whispers in the back. “But she didn’t tell us what time it is.” Someone quickly hushed him as they followed along, not steering away from the group.

Now on the third floor, the rug covering the ground was still the same colored crimson. The ceiling was a bit more elevated than the second floor, it being because the second and first had to share the same space of ceiling. Unlike the second floor, the third floor did cover the entire area. In the floor was about ten feet high or even a bit higher than that, as the second floor was probably nine feet high.

Propped in the center of the floor was a very large round table with what looked to be a large map covering the whole table with a glass table top perfectly shaped on the circle table and map. To go with the vitage design was a small metal taper holder sitting in the middle with an unlit candle on it. Surrounding the large table were about ten chairs wooden chairs with a wing symbol carved on each of its back, all chairs being pushed inside the table. Grey led the crowd to the center, near the circular table and pats a hand on it. The metal close to her arm clink against the glass on the table.

“This is the third floor, or should I call the Variety floor, V-Floor for short. This is where you all come to do different skills and hone your talent… sort of.” She jerks her head to the direction of the table then looked back to them, “This here is a strategy table. You may use the dining tables downstairs to strategize, sure. But we figured that some others who want their peace and quiet away from the large dining hall would want a secluded area, so we had this made for people who want to… you know.” She motions her hand in a circular gesture before moving on. “Anyway,” She points to the sides of the floor. The floor wasn’t as big as the first or second, maybe because of the rooms here needing more space to take up the higher it goes.

She points to the faint light of small lanterns dotting the sides near the windows. Unlike the second floor, the windows were in front and at the back and not placed to their sides anymore. To their sides were doors. Fancy dark doors aligned to the ones across from it. There were three doors to their left and two to their right, all having the same design of curves and vines on it just as the double-doors downstairs had.

She points to the first of the three doors. “The farthest over to the front is the armory room. It’s where we all stash our weapons, armor and other equipment that you can drop off. Like a storage room, I suppose.” She points to the one next to it, “That over there is the tailor’s room. Yes, we’ll have you guys learn how to sew here cause money is very hard to acquire in this world now and repairing your clothes or even BUYING new clothes is a very veeeery hard thing to do.” Grey says with her pitch slowly rising up, she pinches her lips together as she waits for a reaction. They nod, understanding that only four out of twenty-eight of them were making money for all of them for now.

She then points to the nearest door to the staircase they came up from, “That’s the healer’s room. First-aid and clinical injuries all happen in there and we usually don’t have that too bad of injuries in the game…” She waits for a moment before holding onto her arm, her gaze shifts to the ground.

If Augustus remembered, she had a pretty deep wound on her right elbow when she took the blow of an attack from that headless creature. Did it already heal?

“No, nevermind. We’ll have to keep the healer’s room close to the staircase just in case somebody gets hurt.” She shakes of the down-ridden feeling of hers that began to well up once more, she then clears her throat. “Now the other two doors to your right—“ She points her index and middle finger to the two other remaining ones across the floor. “The one near the other staircase is the Library. The other is the Chapel.”

Grey could feel the sensation of Lemuel’s recoil behind her as she shakes her head, “You all can check that out soon, again, once we get into classes.”

She then brings them to the staircase that led up to the final floor, which the group thankfully reaches after about an hour or two into the tour. “Now lastly, we have the fourth and final floor. Our chambers.”

“It’s in the fourth floor?!” Some manage to say in unison.

She waves a hand behind her, not facing them as she walks upstairs and plants a foot on the still crimson carpeted flooring. “Yep. We figured it’d be easier to wake you guys up if you had to wake up and climb down the other floors to eat at the very bottom floor.”

“Evil.” Wynn whines.

“Yet practical.” Seth adds with a shrug.

Grey lets them pass upstairs and they take note of floor being a bit smaller than the rest of the floors. She motions her hand to the first few doors lined up. “Girls will be on the right side,” Grey then brings her hand to motion to the doors across from where they were. “And boys on the left. We have eighteen boys, not including Rio, Noah and Josh, along with six girls, not including me, and we all gave you bunk beds ‘cause we were having trouble buying the regular beds. Weirdly enough, bunk beds cost less than regular beds here in Everoe.” She says with an awkward smile, “So, girls and boys are in different quarters.”

There was a sigh of relief for the girls as the boys in crowd give a bit of a disappointed glance to the girls.

Grey shakes her head disapprovingly, ‘Horn-dogs.’ she thought.

Aside from the similar looking doors with a plate that says ‘Girls’ and the other saying ‘Boys’, the group spots two more doors in the back.

“I’m guessing that’s our bathroom?” Asked an unsure Nick, adjusting broken lenses as he squints through the cracked glass.

“Yep. Again, boys on the left, girls on the right.” She said, pointing to the doors that had an obvious color coded ribbon on the knobs.

Curious, the girls and boys go out of their following lines and bolt for the bathrooms. “Wha-hey.” Grey flinched as soon as she saw them run towards the bathrooms. Were they seriously excited to see the bathrooms or just needed to pee.

They all rushed inside in a waiting line, Robin almost running into the girls’ area until Caine grabbed him by the collar of his uniform and dragged him into the boy’s bathroom.

Grey sighed and followed suit, knowing that they’d react in three… two… one.

“No! NO! Ugh, oh noooo…” Groaned a female voice that can be made out as Ava. Grey follows the short groan in the female bathroom, she steps into light cobblestone that was peppered in different colors of white, grey and black stone. She steps in, seeing the lanterns lit at each corner and the highest part of the bathroom having small eyebrow windows where the fading light of the outdoor sunlight seeping in.

The stalls were just as she asked for, and the only kind that were available at their expenses. They were wooden stalls that only reached to a maximum of five. Three being actual toilets and the other two being places to dip into your own bathtub.

Well… if you count the tub not being the usual rectangle glass bathtub but… More like a giant wooden bucket.

Ah… glorious is the bucket.

Grey pushes past the five other girls to see Ava hastily pulling down her skirt, her face mortified at the ‘toilet’ she was going to use.

The toilet before them was a squat toilet. The cobblestones had a gap in the middle of the stall where it seems to be the… ‘area’ where they should do their business.

“Oh Christ, I have to squat to pee?!” Ava whined with a sort of desperate squeak to her voice, “No… No, no. Grey, isn’t there a normal toilet anywhere?”

“Um… No. Sorry.”

Ava gives a frustrated whine before shooing the rest away from her stall, “Fine, fine. Go! Shoo! Let me pee in peace!”

“Heh, Peace. Pee.” Charlotte snorts in the back which earned her a repulsed look by Alisson and a chuckle from a less tense Hope in the back.

Grey ushered them all out to leave Ava to her ‘Peace’ and sees a few other boys exit the other room with relieved looks.

“Why didn’t you guys go to the bathroom downstairs when we had the chance?” Grey asked, perplexed at the thought of them not wanting to pee yet after their experience.

“I guess we didn’t have to yet.” Answered a relieved Kaden, huffing as he pulled up his zipper.

‘Bullshit.’ Grey thought with a small pout of disbelief, “Oh… Alright.” She sighs, giving them a good five to ten minutes to wait for each of them to take a good dump or a quiet pee.

After what seemed to be forever in the awkward silence, Grey had to wonder why they didn’t want to ask any questions yet. Were they too tired? Too hungry? If so, there were some things she was going to plan for them anyway.

The rest have finished their businesses and fixed themselves up, making their way down the staircases as Grey ushered them down.

“You guys hungry?” She suddenly broke the silence against shuffling shoes creaking against wooden steps.

There was a resounding ‘YES’ as they all groaned and pleaded behind her, she gave a smile before nodding as a response. “Alright, yeah. I know… Don’t worry—“

By the time they reached the first floor, they were greeted by a lovely aroma of seafood, fried bacon and the familiar scent of rice.

At this smell, their faces morphed from a dazed look into a surprised and slowly inkling excitement as they rush down the last set of steps to find a wonderful surprise waiting at the end of the two tables.

“We’re done!” Noah announces, placing what looked to be the last plate on the very corner of the table as Josh adjusts one of the silverware on the table.

The last two dining tables were riddled with food, plates and drinks. “fourteen by fourteen.” Josh says, pointing to one table then the other. “We have Abb Neagh Carp Stew, Bacon Wrapped Tuna, Chicken Soup, Vegetable Steamed Chicken, Fried Egg and…” He opens one of the covers of a wooden pot to reveal freshly cooked rice. “Rice. Now come, eat.” He motions the currently drooling crowd to come over.

Unsure, they all turn to Grey with a look. She laughs and nods her head. “Go on. We’ll explain more as you eat.”

With that, they bull-rushed towards the long tables. Grey was glad that if only for a moment, even just for a little bit. She could distract them from the undeniable truth of their horrendous week of training.

Hopefully, she could distract herself too.