“Another dark corridor? Are you kidding me?” The group was growing very old of all the darkness.

Hailee turned around with a bit of an annoyed look on her face. “Man you guys are impatient. Give me a second to turn the lights on. We don’t just leave everything turned on all of the time. The front entrance only gets used, for the most part, at the beginning of the new term when the first years arrive. Otherwise, this part of the castle remains empty and dark.”

The group looked relieved to hear that it wasn’t always going to be this dark. Hailee walked through the stone archway a little ways and flipped a large switch on the wall. One by one, a light on the ceiling twenty feet overhead switched on. The hall seemed like it went on forever looking at the lights. “How long is this corridor?” Alexis asked with her mouth hanging open. They could hear Hailee laugh a little.

“Oh, it’s not actually that long. There’s a mirror down there. That’s why it looks like it goes so far. If you look straight ahead instead of up it looks much shorter because you’ll see yourselves.”

“So where are we going to go now since we’re the first to arrive?” Alexis had many more questions but she figured she’d get plenty of time to ask them later after they were settled. The group noticed that Hailee was already making her way down the hall. “Wait up Hailee!!”

When they were catching up, Parker leaned over to whisper to Alexis. “What do you think it meant out there when it said, ‘Lancastre: Academy for Imperials’?” He could see the gears turning in Alexis’s brain, trying to figure out what it was.

“I’m not really sure what ‘Imperials’ are, but I’m going to guess that we’ll find out very soon.”

The smile had returned to Hailee’s face. “Just this way! When you get to the dining hall, just find a table to sit at and the others will begin joining you as soon as they get here.”

“Where’s the dining hall at?” Multiple of the kids asked this at the same time.

Hailee laughed to herself at the front of the group. “Duh! It would probably help you guys if I gave you directions wouldn’t it?” She could see a few heads nodding here and there. “Well, if you go down this hall, take a left just before the mirror. That is going to take you into another hall that has a bunch of doorways connected to it. The dining hall is the seventh door on the right. If you’ve made it the spiral stairs at the end of the hall, you’ve gone too far so you’ll need to turn around.”

“Are you not going to be taking us there? Why stop here, it can’t be that much farther right?” Hailee looked at the group, not saying anything.

They could tell that she was reliving the moment her group had arrived the year before. “You’ll be okay!” she said. “I have to go be ready for the next group to arrive. I’m sure you won’t have any problems.” With that, she turned and skipped off through the entrance, the doors creaking closed behind her.

Everyone stood still, not willing to be the first one to head to the dining hall. Alexis turned and looked at Parker. “Well, we should probably get going.”

He paused before responding. “I don’t know if I want to keep going. We have no idea what’s in this place. I mean it looks cool and all, but there could be anything here.”

Some murmuring came from the group as they parted to let someone out from the middle. Caleb started walking toward the large mirror at the end of the hall without saying a word. Parker whisper-yelled, “Caleb! What are you doing? Don’t go by yourself!” He ran forward to catch up with him. When Alexis saw Parker take off down the hall and disappear around the corner she panicked and took off after him.

One by one, each kid from the group appeared from around the corner. “It can’t be that much further right?” a kid in the group mocked.

Alexis looked down this new corridor and couldn’t believe what she saw. “There’s gotta be thirty doors in this corridor! And look at that staircase! It’s HUGE! It just disappears into the ceiling.”

Slowly, they began making their way down the hall looking in each of the open archways that they passed. They looked like enormous classrooms. Filled with seats, desks, tables, chalkboards, projector screens, and even animals. Just like outside, all of the walls, ceilings, and floors were made of stone.

Parker said nervously, “Have you guys noticed that the only person we’ve seen so far is Hailee. There’s been absolutely no one else.”

As he said this, the group slowed down to crawl. “Well, think about how big this place is. Chances are we won’t see anyone.” Alexis said.

“Alexis, it seems like you always try to find some spark of happiness or light in every situation.”

She smiled as he said it. “What’s the point in being negative about it? That won’t do us any good. Now, what door did Hailee tell us the dining hall was in?”

Caleb, still at the front of the group, turned around, face full of fear. “She said it was the seventh door on the right and we’ve passed two on the right so far and two on the left. I wonder if those are the actual classrooms we’ll be in.”

Alexis chimed in, “See! Only five more rooms to go until we’re there!”

Parker rolled his eyes at how optimistic she was being. He still was not a fan of being in this situation where they were in the dark about everything. They didn’t know anything about what they were walking into, what this school was even for. What the name of the school meant. Where anyone was. Why they were left on their own to figure all of this out. Question after question rolled through his head.

Finally moving again, they passed two more rooms on the left but only one on the right. Parker looked at Caleb to see if the fear on his face from a little bit ago was still there. Instead, Caleb’s face didn’t show much emotion at all. It just looked like he was making his way forward with absolutely no feelings about what was to come, good or bad.

When they made it to the fourth door on the right, something caught the groups’ attention that they had not seen yet. Inside this room, the chairs and desks were scattered around the room there were scorch marks in the middle of the floor like an explosion had happened. The chalkboard on the wall was half hanging and half on the ground.

“What in the…” one of the kids said.

Fear struck each of their faces. “Let’s just keep going… I’m sure they’ll let us know what happened in there at some point.”

Parker heard voices coming from a little further down the hallway. He figured it must’ve been the other group that had already arrived when they got there.

They finally made it to the seventh door on the right. Parker was the first to poke his head in. Caleb had fallen back to the middle of the group again. They could hear Parker’s voice, “Whoa…”

Curiosity got the better of everyone. Any fear they previously had was washed away. They rushed around him to see what was through the doorway. Disbelief washed over the group. The room they were peering into looked bigger on the inside than the castle looked on the outside.

Colored, circular stone tables were all over the room. Green, white, red and blue tables, each with eight stone seats at them. It looked like there were hundreds of tables in the room. Caleb spoke up from the center of the group, “If there’s twelve of us in our group, and there’s three more groups that are about the same size as us, that means there’s only going to be about forty-eight first years. Hailee said she was a second year. I wonder how many years we’ll be here. If I knew that, I could figure out how many kids there are here. Assuming that each class is roughly the same size that is.” The group looked rather shocked at Caleb’s mental math.

“Wow, you’re pretty good at math aren’t you?” one of the kids said. “I… I uh… yeah. I can do math but the other subjects aren’t so good.”

No one acknowledged the group of kids already sitting at red tables in the room. They just sat there and stared at the new group of kids as they stared in amazement at the large room.

They started walking into the dining hall to get a better look. Parker was at the head of the group, not really sure how it turned out that he was the so-called “leader”. He looked up at the ceiling that lay way over his head, not sure how high. It was arched just like the doorways all around the school. Each of the walls was covered in very tall windows that were a few feet wide. There were pillars that lined the walls, each holding a large bowl with fire in it that lit the room.

At the very front of the room, opposite the doorway they had walked through, there sat a very large table. Parker was looking at it, counting how many chairs sat in a straight row, arm to arm, behind it. “What do you think those seats are for?”

Alexis tapped him on the shoulder, “I’m sure it’s for the teachers.” He nodded, figuring she was probably right.

“I say we just take a seat and wait for the others to arrive. Hailee said she would be bringing them here when they showed up.” Alexis turned to the group and asked, “Why do you think the tables are different colors?”

The group stood there for a second trying to think of what reasons the tables might be colored. “Remember what Hailee said? Once everyone is here we’ll get placed into our houses. I wonder if each different color is a different house. That would mean there’s going to be four houses. But I wonder how they’ll split us up.”

They chose to sit at two white tables near the entrance to the dining hall. Parker, Alexis, Caleb and five others sat at one table and the rest sat at the other table. Parker spoke up first at his table, “So, Lancastre: Academy for Imperials. That’s the name of this place. I wonder what's so special about it.”

Everyone nodded in agreement as if saying, “Why should I be here? What can they teach me that my parents can’t?”

Everyone just sat around chatting for a while, passing the time. After what seemed like an hour, they heard some commotion coming from the corridor. A voice rang out over the murmuring, “What do you think happened in there?” The two groups laughed a little thinking about how they had said the exact same thing not that long ago as they passed by the fourth room on the right.

They turned to look at the doorway to see who would be joining them. A group of kids began walking in and it seemed like the group would never end.

“Hailee said the other groups were supposed to be about the same size as us…” said Alexis faltering a little.

Finally, the entire group walked in and sat at blue tables. “Maybe it’s more than one group and they just got here at the same time.” Alexis whispered to her table.

Parker spoke up out of curiosity. “So… uh… are you all one group? Or did you come from different stations?”

All four tables of this new group turned and looked at Parker. He could hear them all turn to look at him, so he slumped down in his seat in an attempt to make it look like he hadn’t been the one to ask the question. “What do you mean different stations? We were all picked up at a dock. There’s thirty-two of us. Is part of your group still on its way?” The questions and answers came from the blue table closest to Parker and Alexis’s table.

“Uh… no, there are only twelve of us though. So how’d you guys end up getting here from a dock?” Alexis asked.

“Well, at the end of the dock there was a symbol etched into the wood,” a girl with curly brown hair said. “I stepped forward to look at it closer and just fell straight through the dock and landed in the arrival cave. It took a little bit but soon everyone else arrived as well.”

“How did you get to where the dock was?” Parker was very curious as to what the answer to his question would be.

“Well, I don’t know about everyone else. But my parents dropped me off at this abandoned looking subway station in the middle of nowhere and I had to walk around these pitch black tunnels by myself and eventually just found myself at the dock.” When the girl said this, everyone else at her table and the three other tables nodded their heads saying that their story was very similar to hers, if not the same.

Parker and Alexis stared at each other, talking without words. “So, our story is very similar to yours in fact.” Parker told the other tables his story. Both white tables nodded in agreement about their story as well. “It looks like we were all dropped off in similar ways. It may not have been the same station entrance but it was the same method.” He was so focused on figuring out what got them here that he didn’t hear the commotion coming from the corridor.

While he was deep in thought, a large group of kids entered the dining hall. Filing passed the full white, green and blue tables, the new group began sitting down at the red tables that were around.

Hailee walked in behind the group and began speaking when the last kid from Group Four took a seat. “Hey everyone! I hope you’re getting to know the people you’re sitting with because I have a feeling that most of us are going to become the best of friends!” Hailee hadn’t changed all night, even though it felt like it was dragging on. She was just as chipper as when she picked them up from the arrival cave.

Alexis asked the new kids if they’d arrived in the same manner. There was a lot of mumbling at first, as though they didn’t trust any of the other kids in the room. Then one kid from the furthest table said, “Yeah, that’s what happened to me. Then I had to go through a bunch of tunnels and ended up on a platform where there was a symbol carved into the ground. I stepped on it and fell through to the arrival cave.” All of the other red tables nodded in agreement.

Alexis spoke again. “I remember in the tunnels coming to a four way cross and I wasn’t quite sure where to go. I picked the tunnel that made me feel really calm. Parker, what one did you pick?”

He looked at her, remembering being in the same position. “I did the same thing as you. One of the tunnels had a breeze coming from it that made me feel at peace, so I went down that one.”

The other tables began talking about which path they chose. Everyone at Parker’s table had chosen the tunnel where the wind came from. It turned out that the kids sitting at all of the blue tables chose the tunnel that sounded like there was an ocean at the end of it. And the kids from the red tables all went down the tunnel that felt really hot. No one from the green tables could explain why they chose the path they did though.

Parker and Alexis stared at each other but not actually focusing on the other. They were both deep in thought about what it would mean.

Caleb started talking out of nowhere, catching everyone off guard. “Well… I would guess that it has to do with a certain element. Like the breeze has to do with the wind or air. The tunnel that was hot might have to do with fire. And the tunnel that sounded like there was an ocean down it is obviously water. Which means everyone else must be the ground or earth.” Caleb always sounded so intelligent when he talked, even though his nerves poured out of his mouth as he talked. “And if you look at the colors of our tables, they match up with that theory. Red is fire, blue is water, white is air and green must be earth. The other tunnel that we could’ve chose had a lot of rumbling coming from it which could’ve been the ground moving around.”

Parker sat there thinking about when they got to the front entrance of the school. The name that was carved over the doorway. He mumbled to himself, “Lancastre: Academy for Imperials”. This perked a couple of ears from the tables near his.

“Hey, that’s what was above the door to the school,” a voice said from a blue table. “If this school is about the elements then that kid’s theory must be right. But what does it mean by ‘Imperials’?”

Kids at the red table closest to Parker’s table began talking about what it might mean. The other tables followed suit, trying to figure it out. Parker leaned into his table, trying to make it so no one else could hear. “What do you think an Imperial is?”

“Welcome to Lancastre everyone! You are going to so love it here!” The last group filed in behind Hailee as she made her way toward the front of the room.

Alexis whispered to her table, “I thought the blue group was big with all thirty-two. And then red was just about as big with twenty-eight. But this, this is crazy, they just keep coming.”

When the green group had finished sitting, filling six tables, Hailee began speaking again. “As I said before, welcome! I cannot wait for you to meet everyone. This school is going to open your minds to a whole new world of possibilities.” When she said that, everyone immediately began thinking that maybe being able to control the elements was a real possibility. “You will learn more than you thought you could possibly learn. You will be tested to the greatest extent of your abilities. And you will have fun for all of it. You get to meet people from all over. People with personalities similar to you and completely opposite. That’s what makes Lancastre the best place on Earth to be.”

Parker couldn’t believe how she could give that speech with the smile she had on her face. As he was listening to her he continued to think about the possibilities of controlling an element. When he thought about what it would be like, he remembered his dream and experiences at home. “Maybe this is all real. It would explain all the stuff at home. But that would mean my family controls fire, and I’m not at a red table. Maybe that’s why Dad was so upset.” Alexis looked at Parker mumbling to himself.

“Are you okay Parker? You’re mumbling. Is there something I can help with?”

He jerked up, caught off guard by Alexis’s question. “Uh… no… I’ll be okay.” The look on his face did not convince Alexis, although she let the issue go.

Refocusing their attention on Hailee at the front of the room now, up by the big long table. “What you are about to see is what this school is all about. Prepare…” The lights shut off and the dining hall was pitch black.

“I’m really sick of all the darkness!” a voice shouted and others started to giggle. A fireball came flying from where Hailee had been standing and exploded against the wall behind their seats.