Forum Thread

Avery dreamt of stars.

Avery had desperately wanted to see the sky ever since she'd found a picturebook shoved behind a bookcase she knew she wasn't supposed to be reading. Unlike all the other books in the Orphanage, this one told of stars and blue skies, planets with rings and a big ball of yellow called a sun. Avery had been only six when she'd found it, but it still was like a key that had unlocked a part of her that she hadn't been aware even existed. From then on, she'd badgered the Nannies, the men and women who ran her home, about seeing what lied beyond the doors to the great building for herself, but they'd quickly shut that down, as well as questions about what the Village, where all the older kids went when they turned eighteen, would be like. But Avery wasn't too frustrated. Just curious. After all, she could wait. Avery had her friends, and her work. After the picturebook, Avery had spent the next four years conducting various "experiments" that drove the Nannies crazy. (Or so Avery figured. The girl had considered whether or not they were robots.) Today, when she should have been at lunch, Avery was absorbed in her dorm with a makeshift catapult made of a stolen spoon, a pebble she'd taken from the garden room, and some string. Her eyes squinted and her tounge poked out as Avery attempted to line it up with the door.

---

Kaori sat at a lunch table all by herself. She had been sitting alone all her life, which was a very long time. She supposed that people just didn't want to be friends with a lonely girl who tried to avoid everyone. And it was true! She had always been very shy. She tended to avoid the nannies, other orphans, and the visitors that came to the orphanage. She rarely spoke a word; the last time she spoke was 2 years ago! Rumors about her were everywhere. 'Kaori is mentally ill. She has brain damage. Kaori hates people.' was only a couple of the rumors that went around. Not to mention bullies! Because of her extreme shyness, she was often bullied. Pushed around, kicked, punched, etc! She often got hurt, and she often burst into tears. But all the bullies had one question: 'Why don't you ever speak??' they asked. Kaori always responded with a shake of her head before fleeing the scene.

Kaori sighed. She wished that just one person would attempt to make friends with her. She couldn't even remember the last time she's ever had a friend! 'Loneliness is a true virtue of my life' she thought, looking at the full tables where kids were laughing and giggling. If only she would have friends!

---

A sense of coolness seems to flood into the room when a familiar girl enters the lunchroom. She was older, her gaze sharper than most. She scans the faces of her peers, obviously looking for someone specific. She was both incredibly rebellious and incredibly compliance with the orders from the Nannies, her sense of unpredictability often alienated her from the rest. Already, she could see one of the nannies whizzing around nearby. It's lifeless gaze holds hers for a moment before turning away.

She moves deeper into the room, closest to the center. Her jacket flapping behind her like a cape while she moves. She refuses to wear it correctly, possibly another sense of rebellion. Unlike with Avery, she didn't need to see a picturebook to sense that something was odd. But she could never place a finger on what that was. This was her life, it always has been, so what was so strange to her?

A voice calls her name, stopping her in her tracks. She turns around, eyeing a girl her age who was sitting with a large group of friends. The girl excitedly points to an empty seat next to her with hopeful eyes. Dakota forces a smile onto her lips. "No thanks" she tells the girl. "I'm not hungry." She continues her pursuit towards the back of the lunchroom where she grabs some food.

Nearby, she catches a younger girl sitting alone. Dakota immediately recognized her as a mute who seemed to be a target for bullying. She fixes her gaze on Kaori with a sympathetic look before tearing her eyes away to sneak out of the lunchroom.

She had work to do. There was someone she was meaning to talk to. A girl named Avery, who shared a similar fascination with her into understanding the outside world. Dakota knocks on her door, then leans against the doorway. "Skipping out on lunch again?" Dakota asks in amusement.

---

Click. Click. Click-click. The pen tapped out the quiet song whispering inside of its owner’s head. A steady, soft, rhythmic beat, a music all its own; Cahya, as usual, was daydreaming.

He was meant to be studying as he sat in one of the hallways with his back to the wall, reviewing history notes seemingly meticulously. One would assume the activity to be boring, but as the textbook recounted the terrors of the outside world and the horrors of humanity’s past, he couldn’t help but fade into a fantasy of the dangers. The teen had never seen “fire,” but the book described it as starving and vicious, consuming all it touched. His mind danced with this fire, flickering and churning, burning away at its own misery. It was fascinating.

A world of fear was all he knew outside to be, and even then, the children of the Orphanage were hardly permitted an understanding of what the source of that fear might be. The textbooks described horror, but they were nonspecific and foggy, pure fear with little substance. However, he still dreamt of it; an angry, deadly world was at least more colorful than the monotonous one he called home. If he had known to desire something more hopeful and free than the life he lived, it would not have mattered much; he would have never been able to know that anything else existed, and any such desire would quickly be crushed.

Even for a daydreamer, one cannot imagine possibilities that they do not know exist.

---

Kaori saw Dakota's sympathetic look. She was surprised that one of the most popular girls in the orphanage noticed her! Rarely did anybody even speak to her, nonetheless look at her with sympathy!

She gives a small smile and looks down at her lunch. Millions of thoughts raced through her head. 'How does she happen to notice me? After all, nobody does.' she thought. She just smiled to herself again and rearranged her food so that the peas were in one section, the rice in the next. She continued sorting her lunch, as sorting and rearranging helped her forget that she was lonely. When she finished the sorting, she went to rearranging her utensils; from the fork, to the spoon, to the knife. She starts folding her napkin, fiddling and folding it into a new shape. When she finishes with that, she is left with the result of a 3-D flower. She crushes her peas and mixes it with some crushed rice, making a green paste. She puts the paste on the tips of the napkin, and dips the napkin into her water for a couple of seconds. She then tends to removing the paste, which turns out that the tips of the napkin turned green! She smiles to herself, and continues with her carrots, tomatoes, and lemon.

The end result make her smile again! It is a lovely napkin flower with a combination of yellow, orange, and red petals. The stem is nice and green. Her water cup is now vegetable juice! She also has a pile of paste on her plate, but she doesn't mind.

---

Avery had been lost in thought, consumed by her work when Dakota's voice made her jump, sending the small objects scattering out of her hands and across the floor, the sound muted by the carpet cover. "Geez, you scared me!" Avery protested. She suddenly registered what Dakota had said, and her mind race to think of an excuse, and a lie to cover how she'd managed to leave the ever present and ever-watching Nannies unaware that she wasn't where she was supposed to be. Elaborate plots raced through her head, but the only thing she managed to say was a defiant, "No..No I wasn't." Avery crossed her arms, her face burning as she realized how horrible of a lie that was.

Mrs. Green
Though most of the nannies were currently walking in an almost-dreamlike fashion through the rows of benches where children of all ages ate their lunch, there were a few that kept to the halls, patrollers, and in some cases, searchers. Or as it seemed as one woman with a tight brown bun and empty blue eyes traveled past empty classrooms until she happened upon a dark haired boy with green eyes sitting, his eyes glued to the work in front of him. "Cahya." she said, her voice even and monotone, though perhaps one could say that hers had the tiniest bit more of spark than others. She knew this boy, had taken a special interest in him for reasons that seemed absolutely alien.


It was as if a snowflake had entered a twister, the way that one of the eldest members of the orphanage slipped into the lunchall. The nannie that intercepted her didn't seem very happy, but she sent her on her way with a nonchalant wave of her hand. Once the girl had retrieved her food, she almost seemed to dance her way through the crowd, even if her tall height made her stick out like a sore thumb. She glanced up, and it appeared her gaze had landed on a nearly empty table, save one girl who had folded her napkin into a flower. The girl smiled slightly, and moved towards the table in a graceful fashion, sitting down and putting her plate on the wooden surface in one fluid motion. "Hey," she said quietly. "I'm Alina."

---

Avery's panicked reaction was clear, even if Dakota couldn't see it from behind the door. She chuckles at Avery's lame excuse. "Oh? I didn't realize these hallways and your dorm was the lunchroom." She rests a head against the wall and turns her head slightly so that her face was pointed towards Avery's closed door. "What are you working on now?" She asks. "I'll cut you a deal. You show me what you're doing and I'll keep quiet about your absence from lunch." She winces, realizing just how threatening she sounded. "I brought food" she adds, glancing down at her armful of fruit and snacks.

---

Kaori looked up, surprised. She nodded, and waved shyly. She pointed to herself, dipped her finger in the water, and wrote on the table. She wrote: 'My name is Kaori.' and smiled. 🙂

She then waved her hand on the table, erasing what she wrote. She replaced it using cucumbers to make into words. This time, she wrote: 'What on earth possessed you to sit here? Nobody else sits here. It's always me.' and looked down sadly. She pulled out another napkin and started to fiddle with it, hoping that she wouldn't scare Alina off. Many times before did people try to be friends with her, but they either got creeped out or they only tried to be friends with her as a dare.

---

oops sryy- plz ignore this

---

Avery hesitated. The promise of food was enticing, as well as someone who seemed curious about what she was doing, instead of being bent on shutting it down. Still...Avery got up, went to the door, and opened it a crack, poking her head out just enough so that she could scrutinize Dakota carefully. "Seriously?" she asked. "Because I really, reaallly don't wanna get in trouble." Especially if this was a trap. Avery was starving, however, and she was struggling to put up a show of resisting the temptation in front of her.

Alina smiled. "Because I know what it's like to be invisible too. But I don't mind so much. Because tomorrow's my eighteenth birthday! And I'll finally be able to go to the Village, and live a new life, where everyone is so much happier." She seemed lost in an almost trance-like state for a moment, before blinking and nodding to Kaori's creation. "That's very pretty. But why aren't you eating?"

---

It took a moment or two for Cahya to return to Earth. The fire in his mind slowly faded away and the clicking of his pen ceased, making way for silence. After a pause, he looked up, acknowledging the Nanny without making eye contact. To do so would have been disrespectful, insinuating that he might aspire to be on even ground with her. Eye contact in general was a personal dislike of his.

His approach to life was simple; keep low, stay calm, comply whenever necessary. That way, he could dream without anyone interfering, and someday, in less than two and a half long years, he might just be able to make his dreams real. Until then, it wouldn’t do well to ignore the Nanny who seemed to speak to him most frequently, as much as he might have been tempted to. “Mrs. Green,” he nodded, voice devoid of emotion; a tone very appropriate for the Orphanage, and very commonplace for the boy who lived his life like a chilly mist, fading through the halls and leaving barely a trace.

---

Kaori looked at Alina, surprised. She rearranged her cucumbers to say, 'You're already turning eighteen?', then looked down at her plate pitifully. She molded a pinch of her carrot paste to write 'I normally skip lunch, but I still get the food so that I can make my flowers. They're my only friends.' and sighed.
She often dreamed of what it would be like to finally leave the House of Despair, also known as the orphanage, and start a better and more meaningful life than now. 'A place without cruelty. A place of business. A place worth living for. That's what the village must be like.' she thought, looking back up at Alina. She then molded a pinch of her spinach paste and wrote 'You must be very excited to finally leave.'.

---

Looking far more serious, Dakota nods. "I swear I won't tell a soul!" Dakota promises. She glances around, suddenly feeling paranoid herself. She glanced down the hallway, suddenly nervous that a Nanny would approach the hallway. She tries to hide her sudden unease when she turns back to face Avery again. "So, what are you working on?" She asks casually.

---

Avery still had her hesitations, but she was bursting at the seams to tell someone, anyone about her latest project. It felt as if she was being stuffed into a box, with no room to breathe. So, Avery nodded. "But get in here first!" she urged, rushing Dakota in and glancing up and down the hall. Then, Avery picked up the catapult and it seemed as if all of the words spilled out of her. She seemed to get more and more energized with every sentence, until she stopped for breath, and looked up at Dakota eagerly. "So that's it. Any questions?"

Alina nodded eagerly. "I can't believe the day is finally here!" She leaned forward slightly. "I'll be honest, I don't really have, well, any friends here. Too quiet." The girl shrugged nonchalantly, but in an almost mechanical way, as if she were reading from a script. Still, she asked Kaori, "Would you like to be my friend? You could see me off, and, when you're eighteen, you could visit me too!" There was an eager look on her face as she waited for an answer.

She wasn't supposed to feel this way. A moment's paused passed as the woman felt an unusual surge of affection for this quiet boy, and Mrs. Green didn't know what to do. It was a foreign feeling, one she didn't understand at all, but a flash of confusion and...pain..filled her expression for a moment as she struggled to find words, something none of the nannies ever did. "Are..Aren't you supposed to be at lunch?"

This was bad. But it was over. Just a mistake.

Even if she wasn't supposed to make any.

---

Kaori perked up. She smiled, and wrote on the table 'Of course! I'd love to visit you when I'm older!' She actually found a friend! A friend who actually wanted to meet her again in the future. But 4 years is a long time to wait...

---

A surprised yelp sounds from Dakota when she was abruptly rushed into the room. She quiets down quickly though, so that she can listen to Avery. A small, but growing smile appearing on her face as Avery excitedly explains what she was doing. "So that's it. Any questions?" Avery asks her.

An intrigued look appears on Dakota's face and she shakes her head no. But the slight moment of silence causes an uncertain look to appear on her face and she quietly asks: "So what is that for?" She points to the catapult and leans over it to get a better look.

---

The Nanny's silence and temporary difficultly finding words struck Cahya as extremely odd, but he knew better than to acknowledge it, at least outwardly. Internally, he mulled it over with great perplexion. Had he ever seen a Nanny slip up like that? He really didn't think so, though he wasn't exactly the best at consistently paying attention to his surroundings. He would have to take more notice of their behavior in the future.

"Yes, ma'am, I think so," he said, subconsciously staring past her. He knew the reason he was not where he was supposed to be was enough to get him in trouble in-and-of-itself; good children in the Orphanage got their studying and homework done on time. If he explained that he had accidentally slipped into a daydream during study hours, he knew it could only make things worse, but something about Mrs. Green made him feel as if she might just understand.

Understanding was not something Nannies did. Cahya kept quiet.

---

Avery felt a slight twinge of guilt at Dakota's question, because she knew the answer was complicated. One might be willing to overlook the fact she was skipping lunch and messing with stolen items, but maybe she wouldn't be so willing to ignore this. Still, Avery was silent for a minute, wringing her hands as she stared at the floor, before mumbling, "I wanted to see if I could break the greenhouse ceiling with a bigger one." Inwardly, she cringed, waiting for the response. That wasn't just rebellious, that was downright bad. Avery didn't want to be bad. She was just too curious.

---

The only sign Dakota gave that she heard Avery was a sudden tension that appeared in her back and jaw. She slowly straightens up. Turning towards the door to gaze at it cautiously before returning her gaze to Avery. Multiple questions flared through her head. How will you do it without being caught? Why are you doing it? What will happen if you do that? Still, Dakota couldn't help but be intrigued.

An amused smile appears onto her face. "Is there anything I can do to help?" She asks boldly, but she is careful to keep her voice low in case a Nanny was nearby. Feeling braver, she continues. "I've always wondered what the outside world was like. I can't explain it, but something about being here always felt... Strange" she practically whispers these words, knowing the danger behind them. Again, she glances towards the door anxiously again, a gesture that was very unlike her.

---

Caspian sat in a corner, enjoying a good book. Inside his coat pocket though, he fiddled with a coin. The metal was already worn away, but it was his Talisman. He finished the book and flipped to the back to write a note. Along with some doodles, there were always times when he finished; Waking, noon, Nighttime, etc. He wrote noon this time. He glanced around, making sure no one caught him, and took his coin out. He was too excited to eat, so he held the coin to the light. That very morning, he was looking at the edges and found letters and words. They might've been gibberish, but as far as Casp knew, it was custom made and he might be able to trace his heritage.

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