Trinity

Chapter 3- Identity

"Your parents were in this very room three months ago" the dean said, looking at the few papers he shuffled in his hands. "And I must say... You look so much like your mother." He stared at me in subtlety.

"How's she?"

"Who?" I asked, unsure of where our conversation led to.

"Your mother? Mrs. Ari. How is she?"

"She' dead" was my response, and I watched the muscles on his face relax as his tiny smile faded.

"Life" he said, almost with a bitter tone. "Comes with a tragic end, but a joyful beginning. Was she sick? She looked really healthy last time I saw her."

"She jumped off a mountain's cliff, Mr. Hems-worth" I uttered his name as imprinted on the door to his office.

He kept shuffling through the papers before handing them to me, alongside a pamphlet above- seeming to be a map.

"Alright, you're good to go, Miss. Ari. You're already late for your class, my dear, but just a piece of advice. Melissa didn't think this school was perfect for her when she came with your father, and I understood why. She was very different from the rest of her kind. Don't follow the trend here. It will either derail your value or get you killed. Be the difference." I nodded slowly in concordance, although one question kept lingering in my mind.

'Since when was mother's name Melissa?'

Right from my day of birth to this moment, I've always known her to be 'Amber', and now there's 'Melissa?' Is this why I have two names? I thought while I walked out of the old dean's office.

Undoubtedly, I was late for class. I scanned the doors in search of lab A17, and all I saw was B12 as the numbers sequentially increased to the right.

The hallway was almost empty, and I began to panic. But my heart was set at ease as a young lad walked out a door in front.

"Hey" I called out, and he turned. A red-haired boy with a large chain on his neck, alongside a hand full of rings on both fingers, squinted.

"Up-stairs" he uttered loudly, making my brows scrunch in confusion. He didn't even give me a chance to talk to him, yet he said "Up-stairs" like he knew what I wanted.

I watched as he held onto his saggy trouser, running forward like someone chased him. At this point, I had only one thing in mind, 'he was definitely intoxicated'.

Regardless, I adhered to because the stairs were just beside me. On walking up, I scanned the doors, and I was surprised to see them labelled in A's. But how could he possibly know? I asked myself. How could he tell what I had in mind?

Not for long, I found the lab, and I walked in. All I dreaded happened to face me in my eyes, although the young looking teacher who wrote on the board gave less care about my entrance.

"Whenever you're ready, Miss Ari, you can take a seat". I breathed in, trying not to exhale loudly, for I feared they paid attention to my every act.

The students kept looking, like I was some sort of mommy or zombie- lots of squinting faces with creased brows. Not even Mateo looked different from the rest, of which I believed it was all in the act. Nonetheless, they didn't stop looking as I motioned to the vacant seat on the last end of the lab- leftwards.

I opened my bag and took out my notebook, along with the pen dad got me as a birthday present. It was my favourite kind of pen, filled with black ink.

I turned to my left, clashing eyes with this brunette dude whose hazel brown eyes pierced deep into mine in concern.