Chapter Text
Every obstacle is for a good reason, or so the ancient Greek proverb goes. I never believed that. What fortune could come of breaking a person’s soul, and leaving it to rot? I suppose that’s what my experiences have taught me. Standing in front of a high school building with nothing but the books on my back and the mind that was given to me, but sure, every challenge will benefit me. Right? Sighing, I shoulder my leather backpack and walk towards my fate.
High school. Getting shoved into lockers (been there), blackmailed into giving homework answers (done that), your worth being measured by the mark given by your teachers and the popularity given by your peers. Unstable High can’t be that different, but there’s still a sliver of hope in me that looks for the place I’ll call home. Moving towns doesn’t help you in your high school worth any more than being the smart kid with no social life, and unfortunately I fit into both. Great.
I tilt my head up at the building in front of me, complete with old bricks, graffiti by too-bored students, and stairs leading up into the classrooms, lockers, cafeteria, and my doom. My blue-green headwings flutter in nervousness as I fold my wings into my back and brace myself before walking into Unstable High School. The second I step in, my ears are bombarded with a cacophony of teenage noises, including but not limited to the slamming of lockers, obnoxious laughing, too loud conversations that can be heard from across the hallway, and the yells of teachers directed towards tardy students. I wince at the noise coming around me in all directions. Awesome day to have ADHD, I think facetiously.
I pick up my pace and stalk towards the end of the hallway, hoping to find the principal’s office or a teacher that can guide me to it. Unstable High is one of the few schools that accept any creature, so I’m not surprised at having to weave myself through a crowd of teenagers of demons, voidlings, nether-spawns, humans, avians, hybrids, and who knows what else. I finally release my breath after pushing my way through the majority of the crowd, reaching the end of the locker-lined hallway and looking around to find a door with a gold furnished plaque next to it. I squint at the engravings to read it.
Principal Robert’s Office
Holding my breath, I knock at the door three times and am greeted with a human with dark brown hair speckled with gray, hard eyes framed with plain glasses, and wearing an earthy brown sweater over a collared white shirt and grey slacks with black polished formal shoes. Looking at me, the principal gestures at me to come in and take a seat at his cramped desk covered with piles of unorganised papers and folders, and stationary scattered across it.
“I’m assuming you’re a new student?” He starts the conversation and sits down at his office chair facing the seat I sit in.
“Yes, my name is Parrot. ParrotX2.” I respond, holding my hands together under the table in an attempt to steel my nerves.
“Alright. I’m going to get to the point, because I’m sure you know we are extremely busy. I’ll give you your class schedule, and am I right in trusting you to reach your classes by yourself?”, he raises his eyebrows and looks at me over his glasses.
“Yes, sir.”
After receiving my schedule and being hurriedly rushed out of the principal’s office, I walk down the nearly empty hallway just as the bell rings for homeroom.
“Room 2AB, Room 2AB,” I mutter under my breath while looking down the hallways, and finally reaching the classroom three minutes late.
Pushing through the door, I’m greeted with what I think is the most unorganised and loud classroom I’ve ever been in. At the front of the room, the teacher is nowhere to be seen and the class seems to be going insane. Students are grouped up into friend groups, lounging across chairs and tables with no regard for where their teacher even went. Creatures are obnoxiously laughing and throwing paperplanes, sticking gum under their desks, and someone is drawing on the wall at the back of the classroom. I stiffly walk around the groups of people and sit in an empty chair in the second row, next to the window which looks out into the school oval that has a class having PE right now. After about five minutes more of this chaos, a human teacher walks into the classroom and sits at their desk, and half the class settles down while the other half continues whatever they’re doing.
“Ahem!” The teacher announces, which causes a few more people to take their seats but overall doesn’t change what’s happening with the rest of the class.
“Class! It’s the first day, don’t make this difficult.” The teacher is starting to look mildly angry, and I sigh, thinking about if these are the types of classes I’m going to have. The last few troublemakers take their seat, but don’t seem eager to cease their ruckus. A voidling with pitch black skin, glowing white eyes, and rainbow bandanna and accessories sits down in the first row with a few other people surrounding him, and immediately starts pestering the teacher.
“Spoke,” the teacher sighs, exasperated. “We are not doing this again. I already told you that you cannot start a club with the sole purpose of dethroning the principal. And we are also not getting vending machines.”
“Gee, you’re no fun.” The voidling, Spoke, scoffs with a smile. He then continues laughing with the people around him and doesn’t look at the teacher again. The teacher, pinching the bridge of his nose, walks up around his desk and claps to get the class’s attention.
“Alright! Welcome back to Unstable, freshmen. Pretty much all of you are familiar with how this works, as you have all come from Unstable Middle School previously, apart from a few exceptions.” The teacher pointedly looks at me. I feel almost every pair of eyes in the room turn to me as my pale face heats up.
“Speaking of which, let’s introduce our new student to this class, Parrot!” He says enthusiastically. My face once again heats up and I cover part of my face with my hand in a pathetic attempt to escape the embarrassment laid in front of me. Apparently, it works. Somewhat.
“Ok, I’m assuming you have all got your class schedules, and I have nothing else to announce. Welcome to high school, students!” The teacher finally finishes his speech and turns back to his table, and just as the class is about to turn back to their conversations the door bursts open and a creature walks into the classroom with insane confidence. It’s a demon, with long dark purple hair and bangs tied up into a sleek ponytail, lighter purple skin, small pointed black horns on his head, and thin black tail with a sharp point at the end. The demon is notably wearing extremely fancy clothes, with a frilly purple-cream shirt, formal pants, dark purple laced boots, and a long purple cape lightly dusting the floor behind him. On the demon’s head sits a shining gold tiara.
“Wemmbu, why are you late?” The teacher asks from his desk.
“Uhhh, because?” The demon student says dumbly.
The teacher clearly doesn’t want to deal with this, so he gestures at him to sit down at a seat. Wemmbu walks to the very back of the classroom and lounges in his chair with his feet sticking out. He casually blows a large bubble of purple bubblegum and pops it, while maintaining direct eye-contact with the teacher. The teacher looks away and starts fumbling with the papers on his desk.
Next to Wemmbu is a tiger animal-hybrid with bronze skin, dark brown dreads framing his face, fluffy orange ears sticking out of his head, and a furry striped tail moving behind him. He’s wearing a simple black hoodie with a fire emblem on it, with similar black pants that have red-orange accents. For some reason, the hybrid is wearing a black blindfold that covers his eyes, with a thin half-red and half-orange bandana that sits just above the blindfold, mostly covered by his dreads.
“Bro, can you stop blowing your gum so loud, like bro what are you doing?” the hybrid says to Wemmbu, annoyed.
“Yo chill, I’m not even bothering you.” Wemmbu smiles. I can tell that this is only going to escalate. Before I can listen into what’s happening in the back row, a black figure in the corner of my vision catches my eye. Looking at the oddly shaped shadow, it moves from the floor of the classroom near the wall. The dark shadow creeps along the wall, and the second I squint at it - it is gone. As if it hadn't been there in the first place. There is one thing I know for certain among the sea of unknown awaiting me; something was definitely not normal in Unstable High.
That was quite uneventful, I think to myself while walking out of homeroom, but as much as I tried to ignore it the weird shadow plagued my thoughts all the way to my next class.
Reaching into my backpack, I pull out my white wired earphones and connect it to my phone and start playing ‘Bored’, by Laufey. With a small smile, I stroll to my next classroom and drown out the sounds of the high school.
‘I’ll marry you someday you’re perfect for me’, I got in the car just to drown out the plea ‘cause I’m-
My song gets interrupted as my shoulder gets shoved to the side, and I look over to see Wemmbu and the tiger-hybrid from homeroom shoving each other in the hallways, arguing about something with no regard for anyone else in the school.
“HEY! I KNOW YOU STOLE MY PEN. GIVE IT BACK.” The hybrid shoves Wemmbu again and walks up to him. Holding the pen above his head, Wemmbu laughs into his face.
“You want it? HAHAHAHA, come and get it!”
The animal lunges at Wemmbu, but Wemmbu maneuvers out of the way and pushes the hybrid towards the lockers. By this point, a small crowd has formed around the two, as if this isn’t the first time this is happening and wanting to see more.
“FlameFrags, The Immortal Demon, can’t get a pen?” Wemmbu laughs again and runs around while getting chased by the hybrid.
It takes me a second to catch on that FlameFrags must be the name of the tiger-hybrid. FlameFrags shoves Wemmbu by the shoulder until his back is against the locker, and he throws a punch towards the purple being’s face. Wemmbu just narrowly dodges and tries to move, but FlameFrags keeps him in place. Before anything drastic happens, a random teacher runs into the circle formed around the two and forcibly pulls FlameFrags off Wemmbu.
“Boys! It’s the first day, you need to stop fighting each other!” The teacher shouts at both of them.
They both sheepishly distance themselves from each other and hang their heads slightly down, facing the teacher.
“Go to class. Don’t do this again. Flame. Wemmbu.” The teacher sighs, but Flame and Wemmbu are already walking away in the same direction.
“Ok, everyone! You have class, don’t wait around and encourage this behaviour!”
The crowd simultaneously groans, and few people boo the teacher before walking towards their respective classrooms. I take that as my cue to leave, and continue my way to my classroom a few doors down.
This day is gonna be interesting.