The Sight Beyond The Haze

Chapter 1: The Academy of Truth: The Arrival to the Middle Ground

He looks like me, I thought.

How odd, again I said in my mind.

Those black eyes that were so deep I thought I was looking into mine. The form of his lips mirrored the curve of mine, his high and regal cheekbones, his very expressive eyebrows and his angular jaw were pretty similar to me I was starting to think maybe that was the reason why I was drawn to him.

"Hey!" Bianca waved her hand right in front of my face, and when she finally caught my attention she looked at me smugly. "You still here, Seraphim?" her voice rasp and teasing.

"What?" I finally said after glimpsing him for the last time before he got out of the dining hall, where most of the students eat their meals.

"Ahh." Bianca rolled her eyes at me. "Now you don't know what I was saying? Don't tell me you are not actually listening to me! I've been talking here for like forever and you're just gawking at him stupidly, checking him out in public, open-wide for all the people to see!" she whispered s***h shouted at me.

"It is nothing like what you are thinking," I said, my brows furrowed slightly. "He is just..." My voice faded, trailing away like my thoughts.

There was something odd about him that I cannot exactly point out.

"He is just what?" She squinted her eyes as if we hadn't had this conversation long ago.

"You know," I shrugged, even saying this doesn't make me flinch with shame. I was not embarrassed to say these words. "He is really too familiar, as though I have seen him before."

"You know, Sera." Bianca sat properly, eagerness was in her face, and inched closer to me so that her other friends wouldn't hear us. "But if you did see him somewhere, wouldn't he be like? I don't know, won't he be so memorable? I know that he is very good-looking, but you really should start to stop looking at him that way. I think you creeps the hella out of him. You also creeped me out too, to be quite honest. And you are starting to attract the attention of other girls which is not a very good kind of attention considering they are crazily in love with him and probably will kill you if it's legal."

I chuckled lightly with what her statement implied, and then shook my head at her.

"Stop it," I smiled gently at my only friend here in this school and started eating the food at my plate.

The first time I have heard of my current school was also the day that I was supposed to go. I stayed still, looking at my mother with a steel gaze. My jaw clenched tight as I was trying to contained my irritation and keeping my face neutral.

"Boarding school?" I asked with a hidden incredulity, one of my brows c****d upwards.

I shook my head with disappointment upon looking at the school's brochure. It was neat and pressed appropriately, and the scent of it was those of new magazines in a waiting room of some office.

Academia Amitiel, it said on an elegant font letters at the front of it. The contents of the brochure promised of quality education with top-notch facilities and faculty members.

"Mr. Tharraleos is already kind enough to pay for the expenses and your education, so you don't have any right to complain, yeah?" Amara, my mother, replied sternly to me. Her eyes were sharp and turned into slits while looking at me, I could almost see the irritation and annoyance brewing within those eyes.

I stayed silent for a while, not answering her still. I was clenching and unclenching my jaw just so I could contain my own irritation and annoyance towards my own mother.

Instead of saying anything back I just stared around the manor.

And for a moment it distracted me. I was walking inside Mr. Tharraleos' manor and must I say that it was bigger than I initially expected. I looked up and saw a glass ceiling dome where I could see the sun shining brightly.

When refracting to the glass, the sun's rays make beautiful prismatic rainbow colors throughout the whole hall. It was amazing and beautiful. The floor was polished parquet on the floor so whenever Amara's heels made contact with the floor it says:

Tock!

Tock!

Tock!

Amara and I went past an elegant mezzanine with intricate railings up ahead. The sun rays shone above so that it created a silhouette down here. The lights were in the old-fashioned candelabras and chandeliers, every now and then were the grecian columns with intricate designs on top.

Was it called Corinthian? But then again, I was too distracted to even distinguish it.

Daedal and beautiful tapestries, vases and paintings decorated the wall-papered walls with light floral prints. Every part of this manor seemed like a piece of art. It was really interesting to walk among these walls, to study those beautiful things.

This house was the grandest place I have ever been in my whole life.

All my life I have been living and moving in and out of different places, but I have never been in a place as luxurious and elegant as this. It wasn't that I was so awed by it that it rendered me speechless, I was just rather surprised at elegance. Though I didn't want to look around like a foolish person, I couldn't help it.

It was just this house was really beautiful and I can't help looking around like a foolish boor I may be looking like as of the moment.

"Is he here?" I asked Amara. "Mr. Tharraleos? Your boss? Is he here?"

Amara looked back at me, lips red with too much lipstick, cheeks rosy because of thick blush-on, eyebrows high in an arc.

My mother, Amara, doesn't look anything like me. She has this all-fierce and angled face whereas mine was soft and delicate. Even our attitudes were different.

Even when I was just a kid, she would always drop me somewhere so she could go to her work. So even if we were not that close, I feel grateful and at the same time indebted to her even though I knew it was just an obligation of hers to me as her daughter.

That was also one of my reasons why I don't feel like depending on someone. In the long run, you would always be alone. There wasn't an exception to that.

"Yes, he just came back actually," she answered, "he's with some of his friends here."

I heard people talking first before I saw them. A handsome boy and a very pretty girl were walking toward us.

"Good morning Sir Leigh!" Amara greeted the boy, which I just realized was his boss, Leigh Tharraleos. "Good morning, miss."

A well-known business magnate, Leigh Tharraleos has the most successful real estate in the country and I don't doubt he was at the top just by looking at his beautiful house that clearly depicted his success. He also has antique and furniture shops that offered the best furnishings.

I just didn't know he was around the same age as I am.

"Good morning," the pretty girl greeted Amara back and smiled as Amara and Mr. Tharraleos dived into a deep conversation about business.

The girl was as tall as Mr. Tharraleos but she moved gracefully as she tucked some of her yellow-blonde hair beside her ears that twist into big perfect bronze curls at the ends. Her blue eyes scanned the surroundings and finally settled on me and shock disrupted her blue eyes. She was wearing this weird pink Baroque dress that really suited her fair complexion.

She made a choking sound and tugged at Mr. Tharraleos' shirt then she pointed her slim finger at me. There was nothing I could do so I smiled awkwardly, curving my lips upward just for the sake of it.

"So this is your daughter, Amara?" Mr. Tharraleos interrupted her, his eyes flashing to her then turned his red eyes on me, red not because it was bloodshot, but because it was in solid deep dark red color. "Nice to meet you, uh... I'm sorry, but what is your name again?"

The girl let her hand down and looked at me intently. She blinked several times and bit her lower lip.

"Sera, Mr. Tharrleos," I introduced myself to him. I smiled at him, returning my gaze to him. "It is an honor to meet you and thank you for the scholarship." I held my hand but he didn't shake it so when I thought that he wouldn't really shake it, I just held it down on my side.

"I'm also studying in Amitiel, so I hope you enjoy there and make new friends, " he said gently at me, "and Amara, Sera, this is one of my guests, Eris."

She looked incredulously at Mr. Tharraleos as if she couldn't believe him but Mr. Tharraleos just smiled at her and shook his head a bit; just a bit that Amara didn't notice it. After that, Mr. Tharraleos left Amara some business things to do before leaving with his friend.

Huh, I thought. As I ponder about it, their actions seemed to be weird, but then again, it was none of my business so I just casually shrugged it off.

"Handsome, is he?" Amara asked me maliciously. She smirked at me and abruptly stopped at a door at the end of the hallway. "This is my room here."

"How long will you stay here?" I asked her, almost in a sullen way.

I sat on top of her bed in the room, while Amara busied herself with fixing the curtains that shadowed the windows so she could open them for the light to come in the dark room

Her room was a decent one, white walls, bed, intricate-designed coffee table and cabinet, packed with a bathroom. So if an employee like Amara gets to stay in a room like this, I wonder what the grander rooms looked like? I was mildly curious to be honest.

"How long will I stay there?" I asked when she didn't answer my first question. I was getting impatient that she was taking her sweet time so I gestured at the school brochure that was given to me by her earlier. "I'm tired of hopping from one school to another."

"You should feel lucky because you are still studying," she retorted back at me and crossed her arms over her chest. "After you shower, you might as well go along. This is your first day, you need to make an impression to your teachers and classmates. Now, go take a shower!" she commanded me, and pointed at the bathroom's door inside the room.

"This is absurd, the school is so close here," I stood up so she could look at me in the same eye level. "Why do I need to stay at that boarding school? What about Mr. Tharraleos? He lives here, doesn't he? So why can't I stay here? Why can't he extend out his generosity?" I asked quietly in speedy successions.

Amara rolled her eyes and pursed her lips, unable to hide her displeasure to me.

"I don't want to have this conversation with you right now so go and take your shower," she repeated again.

Amara's high heels clopped loudly, like those of a horse's hoofs, at the floor while she walked to get to the door. Just a moment later, I was the only one inside her very empty room.

I sighed deeply, and clenched my jaw tightly. Did I really expect more from her? Maybe, I shouldn't have.

After taking the said shower that Amara almost forcefully made me take, I rearranged the things inside my bag. Only when I was satisfied, I also left Amara's room.

Outside the room, it took me a good long while before finding one of the servants to ask how I got out of there or if she knew how to get to the academy. Instead of just answering my questions, the maid led outside where a driver and a luxury car were waiting for me to get on. I didn't shied away from the send off, whoever told these people to send me to the academy, be it Amara or her young boss, then that was fine.

While looking outside and admiring the landscape, I suddenly wonder within myself of what would happen to me once I get to that boarding school.

We passed about three gates, the outer citadel, and the main manor before really getting out of the Mr. Tharraleos' castle-like property. Yes, it was that enormous. The extravagance of it didn't ruin the elegance of it, and I commend Mr. Tharraleos for that.

As we neared the school, the gate and walls rose like a boundary between the outside and the inside world.

"We are here, Miss," the driver told me after he parked the car in front of a great building.