Chapter 36: A welcome warmer than hell
Damien watched Kingston disappear into the black portal. He took a deep breath and waved to Charles and the rest of the staff.
"See you later, guys," he said, stepping into the portal after the wolf with Ahara following closely behind him.
Unlike what he was expecting, his foot stepped on hard ground on the other side where a crowd of Gibbits was stationed in a systematic order. They were forming queues aligning with portals that led into a large stone wall surrounding the academy. It extended high up into the skies, and when Damien raised his head to look where it reached, his eyes were burned by the sun’s rays before he saw the walls top.
Rubbing his eyes, he decided to focus on the school later and looked around him instead. Everywhere his eyes reached, Damien could see teens around his age standing with their parents, waiting for their chance to enter the school’s walls.
Grateful to Kingston for his fake family idea, he glanced at the other families around them.
To his left was a family positioned around a very short girl. A redhead with bangs, she looked the most relaxed among the anxious lot of students; a ray of blinding innocence that outshined the gloomy darkness surrounding her. And it wasn’t just her. Her parents oozed the same pure energy as she did, a stark contrast to the family on Damien’s right.
They were a scary bunch. Both the parents and their son—a beefy, tall guy with a deadly serious expression on his face. He must have sensed Damien staring because he glanced at the boy from the corner of his eyes, making Damien look behind him instinctively; towards the most supportive family among the lot.
They kept patting the back of a plump boy who was biting his nails and glancing at the portals ahead nervously.
"It’s going to be okay, you’re not a Rogue Troy," his mother soothed him, tugging the hand he was biting away from his mouth.
Damien watched as the boy stopped shaking for a second, before he picked it up again, glancing at the portals once again.
"But what if they say I’m not pure? I don’t want to enroll at the school back home. The guys there are bullies," the plump boy whined, on the verge of tears.