At Valor Academy * EDITING *

Chapter Two

 ❝God save thee, ancient Mariner

From the fiends, that plague thee thus

Why look'st thou so ? - With my cross-bow

I shot the Albatross.

Ah. well a-day. what evil looks

Had I from old and young

Instead of the cross, the Albatross

About my neck was hung❞ - The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Samuel Taylor Coleridge

Z O E     W I L K E S

T H E   A L B A T R O S S

P A R T   TWO

II

Valour Academy

It was a while before everybody calmed down and retreated to their beds. For the school being a old and really frightening academy it was quite a surprise to learn that this bed really did feel like a luxurious cloud; I felt like I was floating. Amelia and Hannah were sound asleep, but I looked at the two spare beds. If six of us were here -  the twins, me, Bart, Richard and Toadie. I wonder where everybody was, maybe they could’ve gone to heaven or hell. It was probably likely for Tiff to go to heaven but Tom? Nope if the bastard got to heaven before me, I’ll be questioning the angels. He might be down in hell, I snickered to myself. Jackson and Demi would probably be in heaven, they never swore, drunk or did something outrageously reckless. Why was I thinking about the idea of heaven and hell, I was agnostic so I wasn’t sure if there was a God or not. 

I couldn’t help thinking about my Father’s family though, they were all catholics and deeply religious. They forced me to go to Saint Catherine’s. My Mum was the most materialistic person you probably could meet and she was never one for spirituality and Freya, well she was exactly the same but she often did ask questions and try to think about how things can function but I think that made her so much more talented at science. Me? I was never so sure. I have tried ouji boarding, went to Church and read the bible but each time, it was kind to hard to believe something like this might have happened. I’ve never been gullibe, I have always been hard to fool according to Toadie but on certain occasions I do try and believe things. When I tried the ouji board nothing happened, when I went to Church with my Father’s Grandmother , the vicar couldn’t answer my questions and said it was all about belief, and reading the bible I found it to hard to trust it. Then again, something in my brain was telling me there has to be more than this when I was doing all my coursework, exams and my part time job as a waitress.  

Who was Puerum? What power did he have? Why was we here? What did Belphegor mean about a albatross? What was even an albatross? Wait shouldn’t I be in heaven or hell? I was to tired to process everything. So was I understand this was a school. ‘Valor Academy’, was this a school for the dead? Was this the afterlife? No I watched the Angel Beats anime and I don’t have the stomach for that. I hope there was a chance that I was still alive. 

Hell, I needed a drink to stomach all of this.   

What kind of school let demons wander around on their own free will? Maybe, they didn’t have their own free will, I deduced.

I needed to explore this school, I needed to learn who people are and I needed to see Professor Momento.  That was on the top of my to do list but as I got out of bed I realised that I was still in my Saint Catherine’s uniform. These were my only clothes, so I guess it was goodbye to my leather jacket, converse and skinny jeans for a little while. I went outside of my dorm room to see that Belphegor was watching me.