Page 3 of A Dusk Of Stars

Still, there’s something else there…

Something that makes me want to go over and ask whether she truly understands — how many Originals there are who couldn’t care less about whether we humans live or die in misery.

None of your business, I tell myself. Don’t get yourself in trouble.

My coffee now just the right temperature, I finally take that proper first sip. Jaeger was one of the few at the Academy who never seemed to care thatIwas human. Who never tried to make my life miserable or disrespected me simply for not being one of them. Besides helping me get the position of Librarian in the first place, she was the closest I had to an actual friend there, and more than once, she’s willingly taken on the role of mentor with me.

And now she’s gone.

What snaps me out of my ruminations is the soft ping that comes from the middle of the three doors in front of me.

My eyes dart to the sign above, the green light now turned on.

I hear the scraping of chairs against the floor when the vampire and his girl get up.

I take another sip of my coffee, but as soon as I do, I grab my tote and my suitcase and I walk up to the door.

Just as I open it and step onto the vast, noisy, crowded space that is the Pull Platform, sensing the vampire and his girl following suit, it finally hits me — what the resignation means among other things.

That the Archivist role is now open.

I hold my breath, the possibility of me applying for the job and getting it exploding in my mind.

***

It snaps me out of it, when that vampire pushes past me.

“Bloody move, will you?” he snaps without even looking at me.

The girl moves to follow him, throwing a look over her shoulder. In a split second, our eyes meet, I make the mistake of truly looking. She stops midstep, staring into my eyes.

My gaze drops to her lips, to the bite marks on them.

Then our eyes lock again and I see the pain and shame in hers. There’s a moment of silence before she whispers, “I sometimes feel so alone, I want to die...”

She breaks off and keeps standing there, breathless in anticipation.

“Nothing to be ashamed about,” I whisper, feeling breathless myself. “It's hard.” And I move to hold my hand out.

“Sofia,” the vampire’s impatient, scolding voice booms from somewhere behind her, and I see her pulling herself together, confusion and shame twisting her features.

I open my mouth to call after her.

The very next moment, I see her disappear into the crowd.

I keep standing there, my mind lingering on her eyes, and her eyes filling me with sadness. Then my mind rushes to her ‘boyfriend’ and I feel anger swell inside me.

No, not going there, I snap at myself.

I force myself to shake it off and start looking for the right Chamber. The world is a shit place, if you really look, there’s pain in the eyes of almost everyone you ever see. Some people are just better at hiding it.

So yeah, serves me right for letting my guard down like that.

I look around the Pull Platform, the crowded, echoing hall all in onyx stone stretching endlessly to my left and right, people coming out of the rows of doors behind me and disappearing through the rows of doors in front of me. I identify the longest queue, the one mostly made up of students, and I join it, taking a look at the sign above the door we’re all waiting for, just to check if it really is the Grimm Academy one.

It is.

As soon as I settle into the waiting and slowly moving in line, my mind rushes back to the open position. They’ll need to fill it, as soon as possible. The selection processes at Grimm Academy are far from standardized. They always give you a task to earn the position with, but what they choose varies wildly depending on who you are and how much you still need to prove yourself.

---