A Snake's Treasure

2. A Riddle Unresolved

Word count: 1564

————————————————

She shared a room with him. Great.

Though vanesa didn't have anything particularly against Tom, after their first encounter, she didn't really like him either. "You keep to your side, and I'll keep to mine." The eleven year old boy glared at her as she got a little too close to the wrong side. "And don't touch my things" she nodded lazily and sat on the bed, trying to smooth out the wrinkles.

He looked up and smirked, "that's not going to get you very far" She rolled her eyes and walked up to the small window, only half a step away. She gazed out, wondering how she had ended up there. What had she done to deserve this? Surely something horrific.

A loud bell rang through the building and Tom stood up quickly. "Dinner," he marched out, leaving Vanesa to scurry along behind him. The room he led her to was far from sizeable, next to the amount of infants, pre-teens and teens it was made to house.

Children were rushing in, all fighting to get a seat at one of the lengthy tables around the room. Despite her not knowing why, the need for her peers to get a seat sparked her own, and so she started forward at the sight at the last, unseen spot between two girls. Unfortunately, Tom had seen this and was now stringing ahead of her, but thanks to the small head start she just managed to beat him.

He groaned and glared at the girl next to her, who suddenly cowered and sunk down to the floor where the rest of the unlucky orphans were sat, drinking or- eating? Their grey mush. He sat down and pulled his food towards him, sprinkling something over the top and eating as though he enjoyed it, unlike the rest of the children. She knew better than to question it, and pulled her bowl towards her.

Just then, a large hand grabbed her shoulder and pulled her backwards off of the chair and onto the floor. She cried out and looked up, only to find a large boy with broad shoulders and thick forearms stood above her, laughing. He stepped over her, about to sit down, only when he saw Tom sat on the seat next to, he immediately stepped backwards.

He glared at her and walked away, a small party of older boys not far behind. The other children at the table, at noticing Tom, slipped silently onto the floor until there was no one on either side for two seats or in the three seats in front of him. Tom glared at her until she begrudgingly moved one seat down. Vanesa looked back at Tom, his back to her, wondering why the other children- even the older ones seemed so scared of him. She soon shook off that thought. What she needed to do was work on getting used to a place such as this, and so such questions were irrelevant as of now.

She sat back down and brought the bowl towards her once again, lifting the watery goo to her mouth wearily. Vanesa took a breath and slid the spoon in her mouth, only to spit it back out moments later, gaging. It was impossible to say how it tasted, as this 'food' was of a completely different category of vial. The texture, taste, temperature.. alone all three were ghastly, but together.. no combination of words in the English language could even begin to describe it..

To put it lightly, the substance she had just put in her mouth made the thought of cutting out her own tongue with a blunt knife sound like sweet relief. She threw the spoon back in the bowl and pushed it away, crossing her arms. Tom looked over and sniggered, and Vanesa replied with a stern glare.

"Do you not like the food?" He teased, smirking.

"How in the gods you are consuming such filth is beyond me.."

"Well you better start doing the same.."

"And why's what?"

"Because you won't like what matron will do to you if you don't.."