January 15th. Monday, 12:02 PM.
All the first-year students had gathered in a new location. A place that none of them had been to before.
A lecture hall.
A tiered space built to seat two hundred students and more, with each row climbing higher than the one before. Foldable chairs with soft carpet cushions stretched across the hall in neat lines, separated by a staircase in the middle. A sturdy platform stood at the front where the lecturer would command attention. This was one of the many lecture halls the academy had. The majority of lecture halls had a capacity of two hundred or more, but there was a bigger lecture hall that was used for special occasions, which the students may see sooner than they think.
The atmosphere was as you expected it to be. Loud. Conversations layered over one another and laughter echoing off the walls. What more did you expect? All the classes were in one place. Groups of people were seated around unfamiliar groups of people. The students weren't arranged in classes. They had a break before this lecture, so everyone separated from their classes before arriving. Creating unfamiliar matches of students. There were gaps between seats as there were more seats than students.
The lecture was supposed to start at 12:00, but students were still settling in. Mr White stood at the front, waiting for all the students to be seated and ready. He would've started the lecture by now, but since this was the first lecture for the first years, he let it slide.
Bzt!
"Mally said he's here", Benjamin said, looking at his phone and checking the notification.
The boys perked up, scanning the crowded stairs to spot Malakai.
"Mally! Over here!" William shouted, standing up and waving. He hadn't even seen him yet, but still called out to him.
"His tie isn't even on properly", David smirked, spotting him first and seeing him walking up the stairs with Delilah behind.
Malakai saw them and was slowly making his way up. His eyes darted around the place, not looking at people, just at the architecture.
"This lecture hall is nice", Malakai said to Delilah while gazing around.
"I don't know how you keep forgetting how prestigious this academy is", Delilah replied, slightly swivelling her head, glancing at other students sitting down. She felt like a lot of people were looking at them.
"It's cuz I'm here. I don't know how I made it here", Malakai said, turning his head to look at Delilah. "Where's Nada?".
"She went to sit with her friends", Delilah replied, pointing behind.
Malakai followed her finger and saw Nada sliding into her seat in a row full of girls who looked happy to see her, "Rah (whoa) someone's popular", he said, seeing the welcoming Nada was getting.
The two ascended the stairs to a row near the back of the hall. The rows had ten seats each, and there was a row on the right and left, with the stairs separating the two in the middle. The row Malakai and Delilah were approaching was on their left, and seated on that row was,
Ray, David, Lucas, Benjamin, William.
"Yo", Malakai greeted his friends with his trademark smile as he slid into the row and shook all his friends' hands.
"Where were you?" William asked with a big smile on his face.
"Heh, you said you were half an hour away two hours ago", Benjamin added with a little laugh.
"A lot happened, innit", Malakai said, like nothing happened, making himself comfortable.
"Hey Delilah".
"Hey".
The girls in the row ahead turned around and greeted Delilah as she sat down next to Malakai. In the row in front were Maria, Tanisha, and the other girls from 1-C, like Sarena, Nicole and Rose. There was no space on their row, so Delilah sat next to Malakai. She probably would've sat next to Malakai if there was a free seat, unless it was next to Maria or Tanisha. Delilah started to talk to them while Malakai spoke to his friends.
"Why did you come so late, though? What happened?" David curiously asked, wanting more.
"Delilah's car broke down", Malakai casually replied. "I can't lie, it felt like we were gonna die. I thought it was gonna explode".
"How did it break down? What happened ot it?" Lucas asked, leaning forward to see Malakai.
"It's an old car innit", Malakai shrugged.
"Aye", Delilah cut in and jabbed Malakai with her elbow after eavesdropping on their conversation. "Tell them what actually happened and what you did to my car".
"I didn't do anything", Malakai grinned, guiltily looking at his friends.
"No!" Delilah quickly interfered before he could say anything more. "This guy drifted and did doughnuts with my car", she said, pointing at Malakai. "And then! He tried teaching Nada how to drift and do doughnuts in MY car!".
The boys started smiling and cracking a few laughs. Even the girls in the row ahead broke into smiles after hearing that.
"Aryt, I overexaggerated. The car didn't break down", Malakai said with his hands up, lying.
"It legit did", Delilah immediately replied, not letting him lie.
"Aryt, it did, but it wasn't that bad", Malakai said. "I paid for the damages, and it didn't even cost that much, so that proves it wasn't that bad".
"You still damaged my car", Delilah complained.
"We're alive, man. Stop crying", Malakai smiled, leaning back.
"It sounded like you had fun", Ray said, amused.
"Yeah, man. It was good", Malakai replied. "We were singing Fast Car in her shit car".
"Don't call my car shit!" Delilah said, playfully punching his arm with a little smile on her face. She couldn't help smiling at the joke because the memory of them singing Fast Car flashed back into her mind. Everyone else joined in and laughed at the joke.
"Am I lying though?" Malakai teased.
"Yes", Delilah replied, holding up a fist ready to punch again.
The laughing and smiling continued. It was good vibes all around. It seemed like everyone was happy to be back.
"I weirdly missed him", Tanisha quietly said, catching herself smiling, looking at Malakai and Delilah.
"Yeah", Maria replied, smiling, staring at Malakai.
Maria was sitting next to the wall, so she was the furthest away from Malakai and Delilah. If she wanted to talk to Malakai, she had to wait until the lecture ended. She wasn't bothered, though. Just seeing his face was enough for her for now.
"Okay, let's make a start now".
The voice everyone knew carried over the chatter.
Mr White. The principal. Stepped forward, mic in hand.
"It looks like everyone is here. We are a couple of minutes past twelve, but that's fine".
There was no screen, no presentation. Just him and a mic.
"Welcome back. I hope all of you had a nice winter break", Mr White began. "I'm sure all of you have already had your introductions and welcome back messages, so I'm not going to waste time on that. I know you all know what we expect in terms of the standard, and we expect to keep that standard during this second semester. So I'll skip past all of that, and I'm going to get straight to the important points. Today I'll talk about all of your futures at this academy".
Hearing the word future led to anxiety creeping into some students. Some would love to know what to expect and what was to come, while others preferred to let it happen when it happened.
"I can't lie, I think I prefer lectures to classroom lessons", Malakai whispered to William. "The view here is crazy".
"I know", William whispered back. "We could go to sleep if we wanted to".
"I'll probably do that for tomorrow's lecture", Malakai said. "I wanna know what he has to say".
"Let's start with the not-so-distant future", Mr White continued. "This semester, you will be having lectures. You will still have lessons in your classrooms, but you'll have more lectures and fewer lessons. This is to get you used to the second and third years. Attendance will be monitored. Don't think that just because you have lectures, we won't be able to see if you come in or not. Your attendance will be registered by your ID card. At the end of the lecture, you will tap your ID card on this device that your lecturer will bring", he held up and showcased the device that will register their attendance.
"Damn, man. I thought fo sure we could've missed these lectures", Ash said, so far down his seat.
Jason looked at him like he was a lost cause and said, "To this day, I don't know how you got accepted into this academy".
"We don't want to see any drop in attendance. Lucky for you, the content for each subject isn't too complex, so the lectures aren't that long. That's all regarding attendance and lectures. Now moving on to challenges. You'll have more challenges this semester. More than five at least".
"They really switched it up this year", Ryan thought with narrowed eyes. "We're going to have more than ten challenges. All that information I got from the older years is useless".
"Your next challenge will be next week", Mr White said. "And it will last the whole academy week".
That broke the room. Murmurs rose instantly. A challenge that lasted five days. That sounded exciting but tiring. They didn't know what it was, but it made them curious.
Frank turned his head to Alexander. Alexander didn't even have to turn his. He could feel Frank's eyes. Frank didn't even say anything, but Alexander responded with,
"I told you".
"That's all the information I'll give about the upcoming challenge. I can't give you too much", Mr White interrupted the noise. The mic overpowered the voices, so the voices instantly died down. "Moving on to your futures here at this academy".
The air changed around the students. It was like everything got a little serious again.
"As you know, you study five subjects. Maths, English, Chemistry, Biology and Physics", Mr White said. "At your ages, some of these subjects mean nothing to you. Some of you probably hate a few of these subjects and want to do something else. In that case, I'll be glad to tell you next year you will not have to do any of these subjects".
Relief over the whole lecture hall. The challenges were the main attraction of this academy, but the academic side was still a huge part of the academy, and the majority of the first-year students hated the academic side. They did these five basic subjects in high school, and then they had to continue them at this academy. It was torture for some of them. So hearing this was the best. However, others had more heightened reactions than others.
"Why are you so calm?" Malakai asked William, looking over at him, expecting more of a reaction. "I thought you would be gassed".
"I already knew this was going to happen", William replied. "If you did your research on this academy, you would've known too".
"Bro, why did no one tell me this?" Malakai asked.
"We did", David dryly told him. "You probably forgot or didn't even listen to us in the first place".
"Did you know this?" Malakai asked, turning to Delilah.
"Kinda. Me and Akari talked about it, but we weren't sure exactly", Delilah replied.
"Damn, I need to pay more attention", Malakai mumbled.
Let me explain more. If students had done basic research about this academy, they would've known that they wouldn't have to continue with these subjects, and they could choose another subject if they wanted. So hearing this was confirmation, but they didn't know how they would go on to choose or continue with a different subject.
"Next year, you can choose what subject you want to study, like in a university system. Your options will be clearer near the end of the year, and that is when you'll choose. You'll still have homeroom lessons and a few English and maths lessons because there are still some skills you need to keep sharp", Mr White said. "But! Just because I said you will not be doing these subjects next doesn't mean you can slack off. You still have your end-of-year exams that you need to pass to advance to the second year. A lot of students miss out on moving to the second year because of the exams, not because of the final challenge".
Whispers of the final challenge rang around the hall. A few of the students heard about this from the upper years, but nothing was clear.
"What's the final challenge!" someone shouted.
Mr White tried to look for the student who shouted out, but couldn't locate the face, "I can't tell you what it is", he said. "But it will be the last challenge of the year, and it will be a challenge that decides a lot".
"He said a bunch of nothing", Benjamin said.
Lucas started snickering beside him.
"That's all the new information I have to tell you. I wish I could've told you more, but unfortunately, I don't. I could've kept you here longer, but I didn't want to bore you with stuff you've already heard and know", Mr White said. "That's the end of the lecture. I'm sorry it was so short, but at least you're free for the rest of the day now. You're all free to leave now. Don't forget to scan your ID cards here".
"Is that it?" Malakai rhetorically asked. "That was like ten minutes".
"Why are you complaining? Did you want it to be longer?" Delilah asked.
"Nah, but this was too short", Malakai replied.
"I'm glad it was short", Delilah said, getting up. "Now I can go to my dorm and sleep. I actually missed my bed".
"It's gonna take ages to get out though", Malakai said, nodding to his left.
Delilah looked to her left and saw everyone else standing up and trying to make their way out of the lecture hall. It was crowded. Students were already on the stairs waiting for other students to move. The stairs were clogged with students funnelling down.
"Sitting at the back might have been a bad idea", William said.
"It won't take that long", David reassured him. "Five minutes max".
The students exited their rows and slowly made their way down the stairs. Delilah and Malakai came out of their row and met with someone they'd both had altercations with last semester.
"Heyyy!" Destiny said with a ring.
"Yo/Hey", Malakai and Delilah both greeted at the same time.
"Did you miss me?" Destiny joked with a teasing smile.
"Yeah, man", Malakai sarcastically replied. "How's your stomach?".
"My stomach?" Destiny questioned, confused. "Oh. Ha", she quickly figured it out. "It's great. I've got a little battle scar now".
Malakai smirked, happy she wasn't sour about it, "My bad. But the game's the game innit. I had to shoot you".
"It's fine. I understand. I would've shot you too", Destiny said easily. "Delilah, how are you?" she enthusiastically asked.
"I'm good. What about you?" Delilah asked back, not matching her energy, but still had a little smile.
"I'm great", Destiny replied.
"When did you two become friends?" Malakai asked, surprised to see the two talk like that.
"Us two have always been friends", Destiny replied.
Malakai looked at Delilah, who gave him a look that showed she was just going with the flow. Delilah didn't consider Destiny as a friend before, but if Destiny considered her a friend, then she didn't mind.
"Are we friends?" Malakai asked as a joke.
"I don't have a reason not to be your friend, but I'd rather not be your friend", Destiny bluntly said. "It would be more fun if we weren't friends".
"Just say you don't want to be my friend then", Malakai replied, smiling.
"I am", Destiny said, smiling.
"I think you two would make good friends", Delilah said, butting in.
Malakai and Destiny glanced at each other and smirked. They knew it was true.
"I wanna be at the top of the leaderboard. Being friends with him won't help", Destiny said.
"Aye, you heard her", Malakai shrugged. "She's the one with the problem".
"I don't hate you.", Destiny clarified. "I don't wanna be your friend, so in the challenges, I don't have a soft spot for you".
"That's fair", Delilah said.
"How? That's stupid", Malakai said.
"You can't say that. In the last challenge, you gave 1-E a ball because they had Nada", Delilah reminded him.
"Aryt, fair enough", Malakai nodded. "But Nada gave me a ball first, so I had to give them one back".
"Be grateful Destiny doesn't hate you", Delilah said. "That's one less person who hates you in this academy".
"True", Malakai replied.
Everyone slowly moved down the stairs as students gradually left the lecture hall.
"This semester is going to be a long one", David quietly said.
"Why?" Ray asked, just about hearing him.
David looked at Ray, surprised that he had heard that. He just said a thought out loud to himself. Now he had to give an answer. His eyes swept the crowd. David felt like the air was different around everyone. All the classes being this close together will bring more problems,
"I can just feel it".