Far From Home (Gakuen Alice)

☁︎ Chapter Three ☁︎

☁︎

Soon enough, I was stood outside of one particular door - I had spent most of my time in here when I attended oh so long ago- who am I kidding? It wasn't that long ago... Was it? Or maybe it was, I'm just as bad as Jay when it comes to dates (not the romantic kind) and that's saying something.

The door creaked open and I swiftly walked inside, my eyes scanned the room and eventually settled on a figure that was currently sprawled out on the couch. "Jeez, could she at least nap with a little bit of dignity...?" I grumbled to myself, rolling my eyes at my older friend.

"Is she still sleeping?" Narumi called from behind the door, did he really trust me that much? I could've easily slipped out of the window by now! He must have a backup plan, otherwise he wouldn't be so lenient.

I snickered at his rather simple question, "I don't know, could she possibly be simply resting her eyes for the fun of it? Come and look yourself, moron. I'm not telling you." I grinned cheekily at him as soon as he walked into the room, Narumi ignored me and made a beeline for Jay. Playing favourites now, are we? "Wait a second," I frowned. "Shouldn't I be in class now or something?"

He shrugged, "it's a weekend. Unless you want to attend classes by yourself, then classes don't start until Monday. You know this. Most of the children today have gone off to the town to spend their money, I stayed behind with you two in order to make sure you didn't try anything funny."

"Right, okay. Thanks." I replied. I had felt obliged to thank him for some unknown reason, maybe I was grateful for all of the information he'd just given me - well, reminded me of.

"Well, you wanted to come here, now we should go back to your room. No let me rephrase that, you should return to your room, I have a small errand to run." Narumi stated after a giving me a few minutes, he had taken up a spot on the wall and was leaning against it.

"Ugh whatever," I whined, unhappy about leaving my friend behind again. "Lead the way, blondie." I muttered. I memorised the steps we took to get back to my room, I'd need them for future reference.

A left... Then up a corridor... Then take a right... Now up a flight of red stairs... Another left turn... Then, my room. That's easy enough to remember! Right? All I have to do is reverse the steps I took to get back and swap them so that I'm doing the opposite of what I remember, I think.

Narumi left me at the door, stating he had no time left or something similar. I sighed, I'd been here for about two hours (to my knowledge) and I'm already used to his antics. I'd forgotten how strange this place was.

And now I was stuck here once again, it seemed, a long way from the place I called 'home'.

☁︎ Jay ☁︎

I'd been drifting in and out of consciousness for a while now, I had managed to register many different voices - none of which I knew personally, they were just there. Maybe it was due to some sort of interference in real life that had caused them, I'm not too sure.

A few minutes later, the voices stopped, I was now able to deduce that there were in fact two voices at the moment. One sounded incredibly familiar, but at the same time a complete and utter stranger.

Light flooded into my eyes as they cracked open, I immediately closed them due to the blinding light currently staring me in the face. I groaned, turning away from the light and sitting up. I blinked a few times and rubbed my sleepy eyes, something felt... Rather different.

Everything seemed a lot larger, had I shrunk or something? I turned back around, completely forgetting about the bright ball of heat shining outside, wincing, I immediately turned away. Too bright.

After sitting around for a few minutes, I decided that it might be a good idea to check my surroundings, I mean, that was a pretty crazy dream I had about- oh.

I was at neither my school's nurse's office, or my bedroom. I was surrounded by unfamiliar furniture, it wasn't the kind that you'd find where I live, which was pretty weird to think about.

I was currently situated on a couch that lay in the middle of the room, one identical to it sat opposite me. There was a small coffee table located in the middle of them. The room was fairly large, as far as I could tell. It was unlike any place I'd ever seen before.

"Where the heck..." I mumbled, pulling the blanket I had woken up in away from my lap. It was time to do a bit of adventuring! I mean how else was I supposed to find out where I was? I mean, it's not like there's any chance that I could've possibly seen it somewhere before, right? That thought is just silly. I've definitely never seen anything like this place.

I walked over to the door and tried pushing down on the handle. It was either jammed or it had been locked from the outside, it was probably the latter.

What about the window? I frowned, walking over to the window frame and pushing on it. To my surprise, it opened. Just, not as far as I was hoping it would. I suddenly remembered a trick that Taylor had taught me once and used it to open the window a little further. She'd always been full of mysterious trick and tips when it came to escaping.

I was just about to look out of the window when I suddenly remembered what had happened and why I was here. "Huh..." I mumbled to myself. So this was... Alice Academy...? At least, that's if my memory serves me correctly. Cool! I guess.

So now I have a vague idea as to where I am, it's time to explore! I smirked contentedly as I spotted a ledge just below the window that I would be able to get to without injury. I successfully managed to land on the ledge, and then I had to carefully plan out where I would go next.

Conveniently, there was another small ledge below me. This one was a little further down than the previous one had been though. Just as I was about to jump, a shadow appeared above me. I frowned, looking directly up.

"Who the hell are you?" I asked, frowning at the figure in confusion. Before they answered, they too jumped out of the window, landing on the same ledge-like think that I was currently standing on.

It was a boy, he appeared to be the same age as me. His raven black hair was messy, had he only just woken up too? "I could ask you the same question." He smirked, not bothering to turn around.

"Oh, yeah. Oops. I'm Jay, and you are?" I raised an eyebrow at the boy. He stiffened and remained silent as I heard footsteps echo in the room above us. "Right that's it, introductions can wait. Come on!" I whispered to him, grabbing onto his arm as I leaped off the ledge and onto the one below it. The boy had also landed on his feet and before I could get a word in he jumped down to the left, dragging me with him.

I landed on the grass on my feet, wobbled slightly, then I toppled over. I had not been ready for that at all. The boy remained silent and merely dragged me towards a woods, once inside, he let go of my arm (somehow our positions had switched during the whole thing).

The boy turned to look at me and smirked, "You didn't scream like a baby when jumping off a building like most of the other girls would have done, I'm impressed." He teased, sticking out his hand. "My name is Natsume Hyuuga, and no, it isn't a pleasure to meet you."

It took my mind a second to process just who was standing in front of me. "Uh... Who?"

『End of Chapter Three』