Lost Horizons

Chapter Three

Chapter Three

“Animal, you’re an animal

Don’t take anything less” -Muse

“My name is Mrs. Hale and I am the director of this excellent school.  You will each be given a key to your new dorm rooms and will be escorted to them.  Each of you will be assigned a student from the school to be your partner for the first week of classes.  You may leave your bags and belongings there and your corresponding student guide will meet you there in five minutes to begin the school ground tour.  This student will be in charge of guiding you through your schedule and things until you become accustomed to our methods.  I trust that you will have a pleasant stay here at Oak Wood.  Any questions?” she asked with an air of arrogance as she darted her eyes over the crowd.  Sienna couldn’t help but compare her eyes to those of a crow.

Either no one had any doubts or they were too afraid to ask anything because no one dared to speak.  She motioned for them to follow her inside the building.  Sienna wondered if these were the only new students they had this year as she glanced around the small group of eight.  They walked through a sterile-looking office, passed a bunch of rooms and entered a three-story building.  She instructed the five boys to follow a man up the winding stairs and made the girls follow her as she walked away from it.

The remaining girls had to take a five-minute golf cart ride to reach the girl’s dorms.  Mrs. Hale explained that the dorms were so far apart to avoid temptation and mishaps between the boys and girls since it was prohibited for either gender to be in the other’s dorm.

Once they reached their building, Mrs. Hale handed out the dorm keys and ushered them up an exact replica of the boy’s winding staircase.  Sienna’s room happened to be #313, which was located on the third floor, meaning that she had to climb the entire set of stairs.  At least it will be a great form of work-out, her sarcastic inner voice commented.

She opened her door and looked around the small room.  A twin-sized bed with a night table on each side was placed in the center of the room.  There was a dresser with six drawers, a T.V hung from the wall, a nice-sized closet, and a narrow door that she assumed led to a bathroom.  She noticed with utter disappointment that the room had only one window but at least it had a nice view of the soccer fields.  The boy’s dormitory looked small and far away.  She placed her bags down on the wooden floor and glanced disapprovingly at the color choices of the room.  The walls were a light shade of puke green, the furniture was all made of the same mahogany material and the bed sheets were egg shell white.  The room had a certain calming aura around it but overall it could be described as plain.

There was nothing in here that would identify this room as her own and everything seemed foreign.  She didn’t doubt the other rooms had the exact same design and she itched with the urge to paint over the walls and place posters up everywhere just to cover the green walls.  After all there was only so much green one could stand.

A light knock jolted her out of her day dream and it was then that she remembered each person’s assigned student would show up.  She opened the door and found a boy who must have been close to her age.  He had an oval-shaped face that was held high by an elegant neck, fair skin that had some scattered freckles sprinkled on his face, a pinched nose, a lean figure, thick arched eyebrows that showed a perpetual expression of surprise and orange-red hair that reminded Sienna of fire.  His hazel eyes wandered down to her shirt and for the second time today she felt self-conscious about the stain.

Stop staring at it! She wanted to shout at him, but wasn’t quite brave enough.  His gaze snapped away from it as if he had heard her and he showed off his signature dimpled smile.  Since she didn’t know his name, Sienna had decided on nicknaming him Ginger which was clearly what he was.