Crooked Destinies | An ONC2021 Entry

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~5 MONTHS BEFORE CURRENT TIME~

I wish I was nervous. I wasn't. I wish I was wringing my sweaty hands or fidgeting with the strings on my backpack. I wasn't. I belonged here. There was no reason to be nervous. The feeling of fitting in was overwhelming as I looked around the auditorium to the perfect rows of students seated in their immaculate uniforms.

I stood with my chin slightly up, shoulders pressed back and gave my full attention to Headmaster Moriens, a thin man with a monocle on his right eye. He paced slowly across the elevated stage at the front of the room, his eyes shifting and studying students as he made his annual speech.

I didn't pay attention to the words, but instead his reaction to the students. To a burly boy in the front row, he smiled. The girl on my left received a small wave. A tall girl in the very back received a frown, a clear distaste. I made a mental note to stay away from her.

As his eyes continued weaving their way through the crowd of kids in neatly pressed uniforms, I couldn't help but yearn for his attention but it seemed he was trying to look everywhere but me. A wave of panic went through me, did he know?

I shook my head to myself. There was no way he knew. All my paperwork had been reviewed multiple times by different counselors. The boy who had mysteriously died and opened up a spot in the school was well-buried far, far away from here.

But then again I had drawn too much attention to myself when I had taken the entrance exam and forgotten to not do my best. The drugs had thrown me off. I scolded myself once again for not expecting it. All I could do now was hope it would distract everyone enough that they wouldn't dig any deeper.

Besides, I was a king here, no one would dare to question me, right? I remembered the whispers that had started as soon as I stepped through the double doors of the main auditorium. Murmurs of "that's him" and "I heard he got a 98%, higher than King Enrique, himself" had made my head spin. I had barely made it through the hall.

I'd get used to it.

~CURRENT TIME~

I wink at a group of blonde girls as they pass me in a flurry of blushes and giggles. A "Hey, man" leaves my mouth almost automatically as I slap a junior on the back, he nods acknowledging me. Walking through the hallway, with my broad shoulders pushed back and my feet moving with a natural arrogance, I grin as I reach my locker and found Eli and Aoife.

It hadn't been hard to fit into my life here. When everyone expects you to be something, you just are it. I knew who I was, it wasn't anyone else's business. That was the whole reason I ran away. To start over.

A look of annoyance sits on Eli's face. His left hand rubs his forehead and his feet shuffle as if someone was about to burst into here and arrest him. A shine of sweat highlights his dark skin, making me roll my eyes. There was no one more dramatic than Eli.