Dark Academy

Amity wasn’t alone.

Her fingers tightened on the cold handle of the knife hidden in the folds of her pleated skirt. She started walking down the cold empty hallways, watching out of her peripheral vision for any signs of movement. The air was so cold her breath came in clouds of condensation.

She kept her back straight, posture pristine, stepping carefully on her heels so that the hollow clacking echoed through the marble halls.

There. A flutter of breath. The soft clatter of heels on marble. The unmistakable sound of a knife being drawn from a sheath.

Amity whirled and ducked into a roll, coming up directly in front of her target. She delivered a swift kick to the knee, her ankle nipping out behind their ankle. She shoved them in the shoulders. They toppled and Amity came with them. She scrambled to pin down the arm and draw her knife with her other hand.

She grabbed a fistful of chestnut brown hair and slammed the person’s head, hard, against the marble floor. There was a sickening crack. She pressed her silver switchblade to their neck so hard a bead of blood appeared, stark against the white of their throat.

Amity’s chest was heaving with exertion. Sweat dripped from her brow. Her eyes met the terrified gaze of her victim’s, just long enough for him to utter a single word.

“Please.”

Amity slit his throat.

She sat back on her haunches, panting. She wiped the sweat away from her brow with her sleeve. Her knife lay, abandoned, on the floor. She scooted over and picked up her knife. She stared at the little droplets of blood dripping from the hilt. She fought back the irrational urge to giggle. My first finishing. How easy it was.

She stood and tucked the knife back into her pleated black skirt, to where it hung from her chatelaine. She took out her bottle of lemon-zest perfume and sprayed some over the man’s body. She then dabbed a bit on the floor. She straightened her uniform, making sure there were no excess stains. There were none.

She then removed her lace finger gloves and tucked them into her breast pocket, making sure they didn’t wrinkle the fabric.

I’ll have to send these to Mattie, she thought. For analysis. About who this man was and why he’s following me around the school after hours.

She turned on her heel and ran back down the hall, but the clacking off her shoes seemed way too loud in the silence, so she took then off and held them in her hands as she ran.

I should probably have taken a closer look at the man. But perhaps not. I guess my stomach isn’t strong enough for such endeavors just yet.

Suddenly, a loud, shrill wail filled the halls as all the gaslamps flared, simultaneously, then died with a shower of sparks.

Amity clenched her jaw and doubled her pace.

A perimeter alarm. Which means we’re under attack.

Amity’s foot caught on something and she stumbled. Her training kicked in, like a second instinct. She ducked into a graceful roll, coming up in a sort of deep curtsey. It would have been graceful, had not her foot give out under her, and send her stumbling forward. She pulled herself to her feet and kept running, her heart beating like a frantic bird in her ribcage. Her throat stung.

She rounded the corner and smacked straight into something. She stumbled back, her knife was already drawn.

“Hello. Are you an intruder?”

The voice was light, airy. Amity recognized it immediately.

“Mattie. What are you doing out of bed?”

“Going to show you something. Amity, I’ve made such progress! it’s fascinating, don’t you think?”

Amity let out a huff of breath, half relieved, half annoyed. She peered at her friend.

Mattie was fourteen, just like her. She wore the Dark Academy uniform: A pleated black skirt, black tights, black shoes with shiny brass buckles, a white button-down, a waistcoat, and a red tie with the school’s insignia on it: a sort of dodecahedron with a D in the center. Her friend’s uniform was wrinkled, the tie lopsided. Her hair was blond, tied back in two plaits that went halfway down her back. Her left eyes were the palest of blues, while her right was a dark brown. The wrinkled uniform, dreamy expression, and soot-smudged face only added to her ‘crazy inventor’ vibe or whatever the hell it was. It made her quite confusing.

“Mattie, whatever is on your face? You’ve come over all smudged.”

Mattie swiped absentmindedly at the mark of soot across her chin. “Yes, I know! But you won’t believe what I found-”

“Not now, Mattie. You can tell me when we get back to the dorms,” Amity said, making sure to keep her voice down.

Mattie’s sin was Greed, though Amity couldn’t fathom how her autistic, absentminded friend could ever fall to such a thing. But then again, Amity’s sin was Wrath, and she was anything but vengeful. She rather fancied herself to be cool as a cucumber. A shortcoming, but not one that couldn’t be dealt with.

“But-”

Amity grabbed Mattie’s wrist and started tugging her down the hall, still in total darkness. Mattie didn’t give any fuss at being dragged, instead, she ran along, loudly humming to herself.

Amity pulled her along the last corridor, almost slipping on the turn, and yanked open the door to the dorms. She pulled Mattie inside and closed the door behind her.