If I was going to start this jouro pass the Benta schorship right, I knew I had to be on time for our first day of css. I roud of myself for waking up early, and I looked great in my uniform, had time to enjoy breakfast, aered css radiant and ready for a.

  Then I woke up to Oka poking me in the shoulder.

  “Hellooo. You up?” Oka said.

  “I am now,” I said groggily. “Thanks.”

  I checked the time. Only a little te from when I wao be up.

  “Didn’t want you to miss anything!” Oka said.

  For the weirdness of the massive life ge, I actually slept pretty well. I ged into my new unifht away. I ot describe how overjoyed I felt that we could actually wear skirts with our new uniform pared to the gross prison es I would have had at Staverius. Matg Rising Shards’ official branding, we had a color scheme of dark green, a grayish green, and white. Since we were first years, we each got a pin with a single fang on it.

  After I got ready with my brush, double brush, brush, double brush, triple brush, double brushing of hair and tooth brushing with Sparkly Diamond Sunbeam Raspberry toothpaste, I had hit about 13% as good as I looked in my dream. We went down to breakfast. Oka couldn’t get Kalei out of bed at the same time as me, but she still found us when she finally woke up. The waffle sticks weren’t quite as good as the pael usually made for me, but they were new Rising Shards waffle sticks, so that made them feel a little more special.

  “Hey, how e you guys got syrup packs and I didn’t?” Oka asked.

  “They had a little tray at the end of the line,” I said.

  “How did I miss that?” Oka said. “I am not having dry waffle sticks today.”

  We watched as Oka marched over to the front of the line, cheg with one of the cafeteria workers for syrup. The worker wasn’t budging, and by their body nguage it looked like a debate started immediately.

  “You think we should help her?”

  “Nah,” Kalei said. “I mean, she coulda just asked us for some of ours.”

  “Would you have given her any?” I asked.

  “No,” Kalei said. “But she could have asked, ya know?”

  Each table in the cafeteria had a little radio box that was tuned into a few big ss pying TV. One was weather, one was a m news show called LE M Croissant, and a wele video for Rising Shards simir to the default el in hotel rooms that was going over features of the school and pictures of the nearby beach.

  “Oh, oh!” I said. “Tu to that news ohey’re doing a Tower of Hate and Love preview today!”

  Kalei fiddled with the audio a bit.

  LE M Croissaured about twelve people all seated around a couch shaped like a croissant. The camera was only focused on two wheuned in.

  “Fresh off the start of a new semester at their majority owned i school, the Kinders are at it again,” A male host said. “Rumors of infighting and intense drama about their ret purchases and acquisitions paint a picture of battle!”

  “Luckily the camera crews are always hem!” The woman host said.

  “I hope a paparazzi spots them and gives us, you know, a little sneak peak of the season of House of the Kinder House.”

  “Oh, but spoilers! Don’t you wanna start the season not knowing anything that’s gonna happen?”

  They ughed together.

  “Speaking of spoilers, after this break we have aing sneak peek at the episode of Tower of Hate and Love.”

  Kalei muted the s while the ercials were pying.

  “How many Kinders evehere?” Kalei asked.

  “There’s Peam, Kitty, Berin, Aki…Aki’s married to our teacher Caya, I think. There’s Raz, Reit, and that’s all the younger geion. Then there’s their parents, Mr. Kinder and Mrs. Kinder.”

  “Wow, Kinder expert.”

  Oka got ba time with four syrup packs just to see Kalei and I geeking out over a 10 sed clip of Tower of Hate and Love. She didn’t seem to get ere so amped about a hypnotist menting his boyfriend’s uping tightrope performa the underworld circus, but one day I knew we’d get her hooked.

  “The fourth season is my favorite.” A memory of Jeans’ voice, just a whisper.

  “Hey, let’s look over css schedules!” Oka said. I wondered if Oka could tell I was a smidge upset.

  Kalei snickered.

  “Then we observe our calcutors’ processor units and pare microchips!” Kalei said in aly nerdy voice.

  “Oh, shut up,” I said before trying the doofy voice myself. “I would rather pare, uh, video game…stuff?”

  “Points for effort at least,” Kalei said.

  Oka vinced Kalei to get her schedule out too, and I was gd roup got to have all the same csses.

  Student: ZETA FALEUR

  ID: 14419814

  Age: 16

  Gender: F

  1st Period: i Biology 9 A2E3 DIAST

  2nd Period: Literature 9A B3E4 SOLERI

  3rd Period: Social Studies 9A A1G4 ATRAX

  4th Period: Mathematics 9A A1D1 POPPI

  Lunch

  5th Period: Physical Training for Void Fields KRANGEL

  6th Period: Void History and Studies C1A4 ORCAS

  7th Period: Void Practice C3C3 ADV

  “Oof, sce, books, social studies, and math all in the m.” Kalei said. “What did I do to deserve this?”

  “I don’t want to miss today though, so we should head to css soon,” Oka said. “Our first css is with Dr. Diast so I want to set a good impression.”

  “So?” Kalei asked. “We…met her already.”

  “So we should treat our advisor who’s gonna e with us into the void with respect?” Oka said.

  I hoped we wouldn’t go into the void on our first day. That just seemed like too much. I needed like a week or two more to prepare. I knew I had to eventually though.

  We were in one of the ss for our first css. There were weird cheesy posters that had i proteg their fangs from sce b stuff, and one had a Kanibari proteg their fur from an open fme from a b experiment. I sat dowween Kalei and Oka, which made me feel a bit safer.

  Dr. Diast walked in with a sigh and threw her folders on her desk. She wore a zy jumpsuit. She opened an energy drink and took a gulp before starting css.

  “This is what I’ve said to the st few years of students,” Diast said. “So if you watched this online on one of those weird css recs they put online, sorry for the repeated words! Instead enjoy me looking much better than I did three years ago. The Gold Press Thigh Bsting Workout is really amazing. I’m not paid by them to say that, I just really like it. But I did tell them they should sponsor the school. I mean we could use one non-Kinder owned sponsht?”

  Diast loaded up a 3D proje slideshow that looked like it ut together about five minutes before.

  “Oh and wele to Rising Shards, by the way,” Diast said. “I’ve been studying i stuff my whole life, before and especially after the ol’ fangs came in. And that’s what this is all about! That weird ol’ mutation but it’s not a mutation thing.”

  Diast brought up a slide of all the possible i traits. The biggest diagram was of a mouth with the fangs, but they also showed the other utations, like ears or tails or whatever.

  “You guys are all in various early stages of being i, which, yay, is like Puberty 2: But Worse. While saying that, sometimes sequels are the best part, so you get some great stuff out of this. The power part.”

  I could see heads start to nod off. A long ruler smmed to the ground, making me nearly fly out of my chair while the sleepy students so attention. Diast turned around.

  “Ha! Gd that worked,” Diast said. “Last time I tried using my gift with my back turned I actally projected er…something I shouldn’t have…into my teacher’s assistant’s mind. Awkward. You’re lucky I didn’t do my patented psy-kick. Eh? Anyone?”

  Nobody said anything. I put on my best “teacher made a joke that I personally didn’t find funny but I didn’t want them to feel bad” smile, but Diast wasn’t looking my way so my efforts were in vain.

  “And the other thing, the void thing,” Diast said. “That thing everyone keeps talking to you all vaguely about.”