Mary was lying in her new bed and staring into the ceiling. It was a nice ceiling, mostly white, with only a few cracks. It had some stains on it here and there, but not enough to give it an overall dirty feel. A few minutes ago, a fly came round to see how the little heroine was doing, but it was soon consumed by a more permanent, too-many-legged resident.

Mary sighed audibly, not having to worry about waking anyone - for tonight, she was placed in an uninhabited - well, by humans, at least - room. It was too late for her to be sorted properly, which, of course, required more paperwork of various kinds. Fortunately, it seemed that she wouldn’t have to go through yesterday’s nightmare every time she needed anything... Some people seemed actually reasonable.

She rolled to the side, noting the time on a simple, mechanical alarm clock. It was half past two am. Mary groaned. For half a day, all she wanted was to collapse and not move until she made a perfectly detailed imprint on the stone floor below her, and when she finally got the opportunity to rest - and on an almost soft bed, no less! - she couldn’t fall asleep.

She glanced at the flying saucer, currently not flying on a nearby desk. It started resting shortly after she did, which seemed to be the only mercy the device’s creators deigned to grant her.

“You know,” Mary whispered to the motionless thing, “I wish you were here to help me. It would be like having a friend.”

Most heroes she read about had a companion or two, and in her experience, the tiny ones were usually the best. She yawned and closed her eyes in an effort to force the sleep upon herself. “Even if you’re here just to steal the money I don’t even have… Just this once….”

The next morning welcomed Mary rather brutally, with the alarm going off inches from her head. She bolted upright, and looked around with bleary eyes for a few seconds before shutting the unregistered torture device down.

For almost a minute, Mary let herself daydream about covering her head with a pillow, pretending that nothing ever happened and going back to sleep. Unfortunately, that wasn’t how stuff worked. Well, at least if she wanted to make a recoverable first impression. It was still nice when it lasted, even if it never actually did...

It didn’t take her long to get herself presentable to the outside world, considering the circumstances. Mary didn’t bother getting all of her stuff out of the backpack - she’d be moving later today anyway. She gave giving her hair a semblance of order an unusually honest try - this was the day she’d be making a first impression, after all. Well, for most of the students, at least. The dormitory management had already had the unpleasantness of meeting her yesterday, after the struggle with the local… whatever that thrice darned place was. Her SJW didn’t comment on the uphill battle she was fighting - it didn’t seem to care about anything that didn’t seem punishable with a fine. So futile and senseless actions were all right. It was just the words the thing had problems with… good to know.

“You know, I think I’ll need to give you some proper name,” Mary said. “I can’t keep calling you SJW all the time. It has what, 4 syllables? How about… a Mossie? You know, since you’re a money-sucker, and all that.”

The flying saucer buzzed with all the annoyance its internal rotors could convey. It didn’t speak, though, and neither did Mary feel any new papercuts anywhere on herself.

“Mossie it is!”

She left the room to face another day of the Mad Wonderland with Mossie trailing slightly behind her, still buzzing annoyingly.

First thing, she headed back to the office - the nice lady said she’d need her signature on some papers, and the earlier she could get done with that place, the better. On her way there, she took her time to properly admire the bizarre architectural collage - the morning sun gave everything a surprisingly different look than the evening one. In some cases, it literally gave buildings any look at all - Mary could have sworn that half of the buildings she saw weren’t there yesterday, and a few she remembered were missing.

She shook her head a couple of times, but the missing pyramid didn’t magically come back. She distinctly remembered the red illumination dancing on the high steps of the enormous… actually, were those pyramids graveyards as well? Hopefully not… anyway, there were two giant ones then, and now only one of them remained. A bunch of smaller ones seem to have appeared in the meantime, though, which was… nice? Well, definitely not comforting.

Luckily, the office was one of the buildings untouched by the hands of thieves, or whatever happened when she (finally) fell asleep. She passed the door and found herself greeted by the same inviting smile that gave her the false hope of doing something normally the day before.

“Good morning!” the brunette said from behind the counter. “I hope you’ve slept well. Here, all you need to do is sign here, here, and here.” In the day’s light, or however much of it managed to enter the building, Mary could see her name tag - it said Anna. Just Anna. No surname, no job title, no nothing. Just Anna.

Mary skimmed through the papers, slightly giving up by this point. It wasn’t like they couldn’t slip in a bit about eternal slavery wherever, with the further terms and conditions mentioned only by reference. She’d already given them enough opportunities, so there wasn’t much sense in getting careful now, was it?

Everything was done in under a minute, and the woman gave her a few parting instructions before sending her off. She also got her first homework - a five-inch-thick book of school rules that she was supposed to follow. Reading the book wasn’t technically mandatory, but the girl knew that the lack of knowledge would not serve as an excuse.

So…it was almost time for the fun part. Mary was supposed to go to the north-north-eastern lower arena (she didn’t ask how many of those were here for such precision to be necessary). The ceremony of selection would be held there at exactly fifty-three past ten am. She, and a couple of other children who had mysteriously arrived at the academy just yesterday, would be presented for others. Then, hopefully, some of the incomplete parties would invite her to join in for the ride.

So, basically like team picking for a school event, except that it was for being a sidekick for life, instead of just another player for a game, the purpose of which was to give the PE teacher a ten-minute break to read some magazine about cars he could never own or women that would never talk to him willingly.

Oh, joy.

Mary glanced at her watch and decided to grab some breakfast before the embarrassment of the day. She went to probably the most boring of the buildings around, rectangular with grey walls - according to Anna from information, she could get something to eat there, and do so without risking bankruptcy. Bromman gave her some pocket money but warned her that it was supposed to last - so, spending it on food the very next day didn’t seem all that wise.

Well, at least not when there was a free option available. Mary was too nervous to properly enjoy fancy stuff anyway - her stomach already threatened her with open rebellion if she would eat anything bigger than a fingernail.