The silver holders had only two lessons left today: one was Advanced Literature, and the other was Mathematics. Jake had never been good in Literature, for he'd never actually understood the feelings from various masterpieces whenever he needed to read for his essay. Literature only had already been hard, then Advanced Literature must be dead harder. Jake hurried back to his dormitory to get his coursebook and notebooks, then followed William and others to the class.

"How was class?" William peeked in Jake's desk.
       "The best," he stated sarcastically. It was time for lunch, and they were of course going to Main Hall. "What did you think?"
       William said nothing. He greeted lots of people on their way down to Main Hall, which filled Jake with jealousy. As they entered Main Hall, his friend group was already there, waiting for them. It felt completely different from yesterday when he first met them. They greeted friendly when Jake and William had settled down. Danielle was nowhere to be seen, and there was a new kid in the group. He was rather pale, and he'd got a silver badge. William was observing him dreamily when Terry spoke up, "Has anyone seen Vanessa?"
       "No." Everyone told him in unison. Well, not everyone, it was everyone except Jake, who later asked, "Who's Vanessa?"
       "My younger sister," Terry responded, "she's a bronze holder, by the way." Then he noticed William, in his dreamy phase again, was still staring at the new kid, so he pointed at him, "This is Kai. Kai Kamal Huening." Kai nodded, then answered William's stare with a gentle but seducing smile. William blushed immediately. Kai turned to Terry, stated, "Hiyyih said she saw Vanessa going with someone, each of their hands clasped together."
       "Who's Hiyyih?" Jake turned his gaze to Kai. "Bahiyyih Jaleh Huening. My annoying sister."
       "He's got two sisters," Terry corrected him, "One is Hiyyih of course, the other is a golden holder, Lea Navvab Huening."
       "We don't look alike though," Kai sassily stated, "More like Lea and Hiyyih are sisters, then there's me, a literal outsider."
       "You aren't, Huening."
Danielle had already stood behind him, and Kai let out a high–pitched squeal at the sight of her. Her auburn hair, instead of being heavily curled like yesterday, had been straightened and tied to make a long ponytail.
       "Huening Bahiyyih was wrong, by the way," Danielle spoke to them, "Vanessa had her first Day of Absence today."
       "What?!" Terry widened his eyes. Everyone seemed to understand why he was flustered, so they also turned to her. "How come I didn't know? I'm literally her brother!"
       Danielle shrugged. Jake could sense that there was some sort of suspicion in the air when Terry observed her. It was clear: Terry didn't trust Danielle one bit. He stood up, left his food tray untouched to leave Main Hall. Steve quickly followed him. The other two Chois also couldn't resist the temptation — they had also left to trail them. Kai and others turned to each other, gazing nervously, while Danielle was looking at nowhere, her face gave a weird impression. She definitely was up to something.

⌈💫⌋

Danielle was in front of the Golden Building. She scanned the whole thing derisively, then stepped in when someone wasn't looking. The receptionist of the building was a rather wrinkly woman with horn–rimmed glasses. When Danielle approached her, the pointy small eyes behind the pair of glasses gazed up at her, startled. Danielle whispered something, then the receptionist let her in.
       She went higher and higher from floor to floor, finally stopping hesitantly on the 5th floor. Danielle patrolled the corridors, paused, then continued patrolling in a loop until she'd found a door labelled '504.' She silently spotted every corner around her before knocking, and when Danielle knocked, the doorknob turned by itself. The room door opened, welcoming her into a dimly lit room at which there was a male student sitting in the middle of the dorm room. When he heard footsteps, the person stood up, only to see somebody he knew which made him sit back down again. There was a silence, then Danielle broke it.
       "I came here on your dad's orders."
       Another silence responded to her statement. The male student suddenly let out a mad howl. He turned at her fiercely.
       "So what?!" he scowled. Danielle was taken aback by this. "You are different from the actual Danielle doesn't mean I'll be treating you differently!"
       Anger had almost swallowed Danielle wholly at this sentence; luckily, she held it from losing her control. Still, she couldn't help but grab his collar — veins had appeared on her knuckles.
       "Don't you dare mention my sister, Ethan!"
       "She's dead!" Ethan was still laughing manically, "Why would you be offended when I mention her, huh, Penelope Marsh?"
       Blood rushed in Danielle, or Penelope's face. She was aggressively marching over Ethan to give him a punch out of fury when the voice of the receptionist rang through, "It's the end of Noon Break. Students, please get ready for your afternoon schedule. Thank you."
       Penelope turned face–to–face Ethan again, "You're in luck," she angrily said. Then, she moved closer to whisper in his ear smugly, "Master said you are to meet him in the afternoon, at the headmaster's office."

⌈💫⌋

Jake was sitting upright on his comfy bed, eyes widened with cold sweat rolling down on his face. He'd just had a dream; not really a dream, but it hadn't happened to him before. It was like he was transported to a place, then when Jake was jolted awake, he was lying in his bed, sweating profusely.
       He went immediately for his mirror; in case he could see anything again like in the morning. Nothing happened. His original shabby blonde hair was still there, and it was still like that in his dream. But the dream was too real to be one — he could feel it happen to his body too, the sensations still remained almost everywhere, especially his lips. Jake fondled them gently. Slowly, his hands trailed down to hold himself tightly, trying to feel the experience he'd got in his dream. He hissed, and whimpered, and bit his lips. He also remembered moaning in the dream, when his lips were captured. His body drifted away as he tried to feel more, and more, and more. . .

He heard someone sobbing. It was a girl with long, black hair. She was gagged, tied to a chair, shaking violently with tears streaming down from her cat–like eyes, which were extremely familiar to him. The cloth preventing her from speaking looked dry with blood, so Jake reached out to help her. But something had nailed him to the spot, made him unable to move. Suddenly, Jake felt gaudy; his eyes couldn't bear the light that had just been put in the dark room. The girl was still shaking; her eyes gleamed with desperation. Jake gazed at every corner of the room, yet that was useless.
       The door creaked open. There stood a bulky, hairy man with weird-looking tools in his hands; the people behind him, who seemed to be his servants, were together carrying another chair, bigger than the current one that the girl was tied to, inside the room. At the sight of her struggling, the man cackled mordaciously. He untied her, then thrust her immediately to the other chair, which sealed her. Then he glared at her bloodily. Her eyes were now filled with fear as he spoke.
       "Ah yes. . ." the man massaged the chair, "it's time. . ." he howled in his deep raspy voice, "Turn it on!"
       The girl shook way more violently than before, as if electricity had run through her. She screamed, deafeningly, in the middle of another mordaciously manic laugh came from the man.         All of sudden, a stench of a soft but strange scent approached Jake's nose, which snapped him back to reality. He fell down, rolling from side to side; his eyeballs darted wildly around. His remained cold sweat earlier had become hotter. His hands trembling while being raised in the air. It felt like his body was on fire; his insides were burning madly. With his consciousness remaining, he lifted his eyes upward, only to see a pair of familiar eyes of vivid purple slowly moving away from the scene.
       His heat had come to him sooner than expected.