Mundane-ish

Enclaves

Even though I deliberately went to bed. I still couldn't sleep well. It was, for the most part, just like the previous night, except I was actually laying down in bed. The bumps and the scratches and whatever other noises that happened in the hallway kept me up and staring at my door. I kept the spell book Penelope had got me under my pillow. I'm sure if something had happened, it wouldn't have done me any good. I wouldn't be able to look up, learn, and use whatever basic spell was in the book and hold off mals at the same time. I did have a shield spell now, and a quarter of the way through the night I, after a particularly weird sound, got out of my bed and did 50 pushups and 50 sit-ups and got back in bed just in case. When I got back in bed, I happened to glance over at the power sink, then I got back up, put whatever mana I had just built in the power sink, did 50 more of each exercise and got back in bed again.

Halfway through the night I realized that I had to go to sleep. 'Rest and awareness go hand and hand,' my dad would say. He was right too. I did not want to be unrested during the day in case I did encounter something deadly. I didn't want to miss any clue that something bad was going to happen because I couldn't go to sleep. I didn't want my body to decide when I needed to fall asleep either. My body only new basic levels of self-preservation. My mind knew if my body had a choice to put me to sleep, it wouldn't care that a noise should wake me up. So, at that moment I decided, intentionally, to go to sleep.

As a person who suffered from severe anxiety outside the Scholomance, I had numerous techniques to make me fall asleep. My favorite technique that worked for me was creating a story in my head. I did just that, creating a story where I completed building the mech I aspired to build. It worked; I was able to fall asleep yet still able to wake up when some sound warranted me to.

I was able to sleep decently all the way to the first bell, but I didn't get out of bed until I heard doors opening. Once that happened, I got up and put my clothes back on. Out of curiosity I decided to open my door after I was dressed, and unfortunately for me the first person I saw, who looked me directly in the eyes was Kenzie. She was walking by with a large group of girls heading to the bathroom I presume. All the girls looked at me, and if I had the skin tone to blush, I'm sure they'd notice.

"Hey," Kenzie said in that, why are you staring at me tone.

I stuttered but managed to say a hello at a very low volume. At this point I was worried they'd think I came out of my room just to look at them. I contemplated going to the bathroom myself as if that was what I was doing in the first place but didn't want to chance anything, like my life. They'd all stopped looking at me anyway, and I began to retreat into my room, but not before Kenzie turned and looked at me one more time, our eyes meeting again, and me quickly adverting mine, and closing my door in a hurry.

I mentally beat myself up over the awkward encounter. Once I got over it, I started to do some push-ups. After reaching 50 before I practiced the light spell and the shield spell, both of which were looking a lot better. I ended the session with 50 more pushups just as I heard a knock on my door. Aiden and Chang had stopped by so we could head to breakfast together. I grabbed my things, what little I had, and joined them in the hallway.

Chang was not playing about being early for meals and classes, the freshman bell hadn't even rung yet, and he was speed walking toward the cafeteria. Come to find out he had dragged Aiden out of his room as well in a bid to have access to a decent table. When we made it to the cafeteria, however, it was immediately clear today wasn't going to be like yesterday's breakfast. A crowd of students were hanging around the entrances, talking loudly with each other. The three of us squeezed through the crowd and into the cafeteria. The cafeteria was just as loud as the hallway, maybe more so because of the wide-open space sound could travel. There was a crowd of sophomores around the food, which hadn't even finished turning over for them yet, but they were pushing and shoving for a good space in line.