Page 12 of Caelum

“True.” I sank down onto the cool tiles, appreciating the chilling effect against my body. Even though we were cold-blooded by nature, we often ran hot depending on our activities, say if we worked out, for example. Pretty much like humans except our base temperature would have most doctors running for the hills.

Our core temps weren’t the only things that would have most people running scared. Screams weren’t unusual here, so that made it stranger when I thought about why the girl’s hoarse cries put me so on edge. I knew, point blank, I’d be hearing them for a long time to come in my dreams, and after my childhood, nothing had the potential to haunt my sleep.

At least, it shouldn’t have.

“She’s late to enroll,” Eren pointed out, his dark black brows furrowing as he rubbed his calf muscle where Nestor had kicked his feet out from under him fifteen minutesago.

She was a semester late, and normally the instructors didn’t bring anyone in past the first two weeks.

“She must be special,” I murmured softly.

“Stefan, we’re all special.” Eren’s lips twitched. “Haven’t you figured that out by now?”

He wasn’t wrong, nor was he right. Most of us had been considered ‘special needs’ until we arrived here, then when we’d crossed through those gates, which had that girl screaming like she was being tortured, it had been similar to being reborn.

Even thinking of that day had the power to bring tears to my eyes. Tears of gratitude and relief.

I loved my country, but the way they treated orphans was no laughing matter. And sick orphans? Who required money from the state to care for them? I’d seen more horrors in the so-called state homes than I ever had in my time at Caelum.

Back home in Romania, I’d been a kicking post. Something to laugh at, something for the younger children to fear.

Here? I was one of many. One of four hundred pupils, in fact. Each of us was the same yet different.

We’d been gathered from across the world to be here, and I’d never felt that privilege more than when I’d seen that girl earlier.

She’d been dressed in something that looked like it was fromTheHandmaid’s Tale. A white dress that dropped down to her ankles, swirling around black boots that were scuffed but highly polished. The dress billowed out on her frame, as did the dark brown cape that had covered her from her shoulders down to her thighs. She wore a kind of headdress that reminded me of something a nurse might have worn back in the First World War. It kept her hair from her face, and there was netting at the back to contain her bun.

It made me wonder where she came from.

I’d come in rags. I’d worn dirty jeans with big holes in them and ragged cuffs that had threads dragging under my bare feet. My shirt had been threadbare and filthy. My coat was thick wool, but it was two sizes too small for me and had pinched under my armpits. Not that I’d cared though. It had sheltered me from the bitter winter back home.

Living on the streets in Ploie?ti hadn’t been easy, but it had been a damn sight more pleasant than staying at the orphanage, which sometimes felt as cold as the streets anyway.

Now, I wore thick workout shorts and had sneakers that not even the middle-class would wear back home. We had an allowance that we couldspend on whatever we wanted, and I’d saved four months to get these sneakers. Because of where Caelum sat on the atlas, I was constantly warm. Had no fear of freezing to death, starving to death, or being beaten to death.

This was, for all intents and purposes, the heaven it was labeled.

As I stared down at the muscles on my body that had been skin and bone before, I murmured, “Do you think we should volunteer to show her around?”

Nestor frowned, his brow creasing in surprise. “Why should we? They don’t want volunteers. You know the Enforcers show them everything.” Just as they had with us once upon a time.

“I do, but she was… Well, those screams. She must be frightened. Maybe it would be nice to show her around from our perspective. The Enforcers don’t remember what it’s like to walk through those gates. They’re too old. But we’re not.”

Eren jumped to his feet, and I knew I had him. “I’m game,” he stated, confirming what I already gathered—he was a sucker for the underdog.

I nodded and rose too. With a sigh, Nestor stood and the three of us, dressed in our sweaty workout clothes, headed away from the gym where we’d been training and toward the administrative block.

Caelum consisted of over three hundred smaller buildings that had been linked together over time through necessity and a need for space. The gymnasium was closer to the admin block simply because we worked out so much, and training had been important since the earliest days of the Academy. Without working out, there was no way to control the souls who’d overtake us at their whim, and no means of defending ourselves against those who wished to destroy us.

No expense had been spared on Caelum. All creatures paid a tithe to fund the Academy, the only haven on this Earth that people like us had. I looked forward to the day when I could pay my dues. I was two years away from that privilege, but it would be my proudest moment when I could help fund the important work done here. The work that had saved my sanity and had saved thousands of other kids who had been just like me.

Society’s rejects.

As we walked out of the gym, I grabbed a towel and wiped off. We weren’t going to make the best of impressions, but impressions didn’t matter here. Not much. Whatever we’d had before Caelum, we no longer had now. We were on a level playing field for the first time in our lives.

Of course, there were those who didn’t appreciate that, and on our way out of the gym, we faced three douchebags who liked to think they were better than us.

Nestor, Eren, and I came from poorer countries. Living in the Academy was a blessing. Nestor was from Brazil, Eren from Turkey, and I was from Romania. Alexandre, from Mexico, was another of our friends and he too had come from a poor background.

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