Sanctuary | Jenlisa

PART ONE

A/N: Make sure to read the NOTE for Trigger Warning!

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I.

At first it started innocent. A routine, maybe. They were so young then, so naive.

Jennie was there first. At the age of twelve her parents left her at the academy as a punishment for breaking the antique vase her family owned for generations. It took one raging look from her father to make her life miserable.

Her teachers at the academy were strict. No one was allowed to talk to each other until instructed, no quiet whispers on the halls, no lights on at rooms, no teddy bears to hold at night.

She missed her friends, her maids, her aunts. But she didn't miss her parents. Not even a bit. They never visited her anyways. And she was okay with that.

She had her own room with a window so small she could barely see what's behind. It was dark, it was scary and her white blanket was so thin she still felt the cold creeping inside her bones.

For weeks and weeks she was alone. Doing the same tedious routine over and over again. Woke up at dawn, fixed her bed, joined the rest of the girls for breakfast, took classes, dinner, then back to bed to face the darkness again.

They never played at the academy. No one was allowed to. Well, except for the pretend playing every sunday when the parents visited their daughters. But of course Jennie never got to pretend playing, there's no use of it when she never got any visitors. Instead she was left at her room, locked up to the rest of the world. She decided she didn't like sundays. Well, at first.

Most girls grew at the academy and Jennie often wondered if will she end up the same as them. Never getting out until they were twenty-one, or never getting out at all just like the woman at the library. Will her parents ever wanted to get her out? Jennie always thought that they probably will since she was an only child. No one would take care of the business if they didn't.

It took so many months, Jennie had lost count, before someone finally started to talk to her.

Jisoo was her name, her new roomate, and she was two years older than her.

"What's your name?" She asked.

"Jennie." She told the older girl. It was strange to hear her name spoken out loud again. The teachers always called her Kim, and the other girls never called her anything.

The older girl became her big sister as the time passed. They never talked much but she knew that her unnie Jisoo was always looking out for her, always making sure she was comfortable and well fed. She whispered stories of fairies to her as the night came. She even gave her a doll made out of paper.

Jisoo got visitors every sunday and she always came back to their room with candies and chocolates that she shared with Jennie.

One night as they were getting ready for bed, instead of another fairy story, her unnie Jisoo told her the story why she was thrown to the academy and how she missed her little sister so badly. She was crying and the twelve year old Jennie didn't know what else to do but to hug her and made sure that her unnie was quiet enough for the teachers to not hear her cries.

She held her unnie until she fell asleep. The next morning, she was alone in her room, clutching the paper doll in her hands.

"They took her back because she already learned her lesson." The teacher said when she asked about her roommate. Well, old roommate. "That's the prize for being an obedient girl."