Benchtrio's Amazing Guide to City Living | Ft. The Hermits & SBI

In a window, I saw shadow and I'm rushing up the stairs

The building in front of Tommy can only be described as imposing. Tall, monotonous, spray painted walls that fence in a wide, cement yard and the paint flaking off the edges of the roof, revealing the rough concrete underneath it. He had passed by this middle school a lot of times before with Tubbo, whilst they were walking towards their desired street with a bag of paper towels and some CDs (which they'd definitely not stolen from the video club).

Back then, it looked fun, when he watched the kids play football during PE or after hours. They looked happy to be there and so Tommy wanted it too. He wanted to be like the other kids; to go to school, to carry his own books and not the ones they'd been lent, to have his own stories of angry, weird, and downright silly teachers.

Now that luck has shined upon him, he wants to take it all back. It is nerve-wracking to stand at the gate with a backpack on his shoulders and about to try out something incredulously new. It's the first time he's stepped so close to a school with the intent to enter and not to pass by and even with his friends at his side, he can't help but chew on his lip. When he looks behind him, Stress and Cleo proudly smile at them all, the latter placing a hand in his hair and ruffling his golden curls. At her side, Phil has taken off his bucket hat and he holds it to his chest, smiling as cheerily as the two women. Most of the nerves melt away.

"Let's get you enrolled", he says right as the gate clicks open.

It should've been exciting. It should've been liberating to finally be able to get a greater degree of education than Cleo was able to give him (having three lessons per week, each lasting two hours tops, wasn't the best they could get). The experience would've been better if Grian was with them, too.

In the principal's office, they're all silent, letting the adults speak but listening. The old lady doesn't look too bad but she does look strict with a black suit and a pressed dress shirt beneath the jacket. Guess that's what they get for being sent to a private school instead of a public one. Cleo told them that the teachers would be stricter than her and honestly, that wasn't the best news. Phil insisted that after living in the streets, it would be better for them to go to the private one, though.

Something is better than nothing and, hey, it's Phil who is going to be paying their tuition fees so, it's his loss, really! Tommy is going to try –they all agreed they'd try– to last a week.

"They've been homeschooled until now. I've talked with them about it but I am worried that they won't adapt well to this", Stress says as the worried mother-hen that she is.

They probably won't adapt to it but they can play nice. Tommy saw a trash can on their way to the principal's office and he couldn't wait to scare the cleaner lady as a raccoon. It's going to be pure gold! Tubbo side eyes him; he agrees. Ranboo is looking at the both of them with his lips pulled into a thin line. They've found their cameraman!

"I understand your worry, ma'am but I can assure you that they will adjust wonderfully in our school", the principal says with a smile that reaches her ears. Tommy still doesn't trust it. "We'll be extra careful with them as well"

Tommy doesn't like the sound of that. What does that mean? Will every teacher in here watch them like a hawk?

Not too long after, Tommy, Tubbo and Ranboo are walking side by side through the halls of the school, getting acquainted with the rather complex layout. The windows opposite of the many doors of classrooms on the first floor are massive, letting natural light in as well as allowing the students with a bountiful view of the half-destroyed city.

Most of the carnage has already been taken care of by Martyn. The one remaining Listener is still out there, slowly reforming buildings and streets and filling in holes full of void liquid that seem to reach to the Earth's core. He hasn't shown his face at the block of flats; actually, Tommy last saw him when he came by to fix it up.