…On the other side."
The sun beams in the morning sky as all the students move as one mind.
I stand among them, a single drop of water.
Drowning in an ocean.
In an instant, someone slams into me from behind.
The ground rises up to swallow me whole.
I hit it hard, pain blooming through my body as my suitcases scatter. I lie there, breath knocked from my chest, waiting to become a doormat beneath the tide.
Half a second passes.
No footsteps crush me.
Slowly, I open my eyes.
I see a goliath.
He stands alone above me, broad and immovable, the crowd splitting around him as if he were a rock in a river. Light bends around his frame. He stares down at me, then slowly bends and offers an enormous hand.
I grab one of his fingers and pull myself up, snatching my suitcases before they drift away.
"Thanks," I say.
"It's nothing," he replies softly.
And just like that, he turns and walks away, large, quiet, almost unreal, like a passing phantom.
I dust myself off and follow him.
"Can I ask you something?"
"Go for it."
"I'm sorry if this comes off as rude, but… were you born like that?"
"Yes."
"It's cool."
"I suppose," he says, something like a grin tugging at his face.
We walk together in silence—a short, dark, ordinary man and a blue giant. My shoulders loosen. Somehow, I feel a little taller.
Eventually, we reach the gates of the academy.
Two of them stand side by side. One gold. One black.
Between them sits a man in a chair.
He looks at the giant and immediately points to the black gate.
Then he looks at me.
He pauses.
His gaze digs into me, sharp and searching, like the harsh desert light. I find myself wilting beneath it. After a moment that stretches too long, he finally raises his hand and points slowly toward the black gate.
I gather my things, pass through, and reunite with the giant on the other side.
"What was that?" I ask.
"Sorting," he says, nodding toward the fence that separates us from them.
The padres.
They look like statues brought to life, perfect, radiant, wrapped in gold robes. Compared to my plain black robes and my normal face, they shine unbearably bright.
I turn back to the giant.
And freeze.
If what he wore before was a grin, what he wears now is a scowl.
"They hurt you," I say quietly. "The padres."
"They dragged my mother away."
"I'm sorry."
"It's okay," he says, anger transforming into something heavier. Sadder.
I look back at them—their smiles, their gold, their happiness.
I turn away.
I walk after the blue giant.
Turning my back on the other side.
— — —
I watch them from beyond the fence.
The blue giant.
And the dark thing beside him, wrapped in soot-colored robes.
On the other side.
The dark thing stares at us.
At what the gods themselves have given us, with something close to jealousy and contempt.
For a moment, something stirs in my heart, a flicker. Recognition, maybe. I don't linger on it.
The thing turns away and follows the mutant.
"Nero! What are you doing!"
I turn toward the voice—bright, loud, and already disappearing into the crowd.
"You're going to be late!"
"I'm coming!" I shout back.
I fall back into rhythm, the noise around swallowing me whole. Whatever hesitation I felt fades as quickly as it came.
Those mutants can stay there.
…On the other side.
— — —
The man sits there in between the two gates still thinking about that dark-skinned boy.
He feels off even for one of the changed.
He almost looked like a…
No that's just… Impossible.
Definitely impossible.
He gets out of his seat and went through the gold gate.
It didn't matter anyway, he still had an obligation to tell the headmaster about this.
He would know what to do.
Too deep in thought about more important things than his surroundings, he eventually makes it to the headmasters office.
And hears something thud from beyond the door.
Out of sheer idiocy, or just out of utter confidence he still reaches for the doorknob and opens the door.
Inside a slightly ruffled old man sits, looking wise with his long beard and light blue robes.
"Hello Rufus. What brings you to my office?"
Inside Rufus's heart he could feel something soften from the familiar sight.
He steps in and closes the door behind him.
The headmaster leans back and used his foot to nudge something further under the desk.
If Rufus was a little more observant, a little less blinded to the shining light that was his headmaster, he would've noticed a couple things.
The tiny blotches of red on a wall and a lamp. The slightly messy robe the "headmaster" wore.
And the hand, the actual headmaster's hand that was just barely sticking out of the side of the desk.
It didn't matter either way. Even if the man noticed, he would be disposed of in the same manner.
The show must go on after all.