The Bedlam Academy

L

Laggy Lagiacrus

Guest
Original poster
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[SPOILI]Dear Sir/Madam,
In response to your/an eligible authority's request, a place has been prepared for your child/children at the Bedlam Academy. We would like to assure that, despite the name, the children and staff here have enough of a grip on their sanity to keep students from harm. Those that do deal in malicious intent are dealt with swiftly and decisively, so there is no need to worry.

Three square meals are available each day, with a wide menu designed to cater to all tastes, beliefs, and allergies. Our chefs are specially trained, and our nutritional experts even more so. Teachers are experienced in handling those of different dispositions, and are forbidden from using force, unless express permission is given by an appropriate authority.

Enclosed in this letter should be a ticket. Please show this, along with identification of your child (such as a birth certificate) to the official, who will arrive to transport your child to the Bedlam Academy.

Thank you for your time.

Harold Anderson
Head Teacher/Owner[/SPOILI]
​

"An overcast day, with quite an annoying amount of drizzle. It's almost poetic. Such grim weather, on the day I am committed to the madhouse."
"It's not for long. They'll let you out, don't worry."
"And I'm sure they will. I'm a perfectly acceptable member of society, I don't belong here. Oh well, such is life, and the machinations of our superiors' world."
"But they are not superior..."
"They are, but in rank only."
It would have been a strange sight for most - a lone child, muttering incoherently to himself, while staring blankly out of a window. He looked truly and utterly bored - as if the teacher was of no great consequence to him. The look in his eyes told those who looked into them, tat even if the Earth opened beneath him, he would likely just raise an eyebrow and continue his musings. Along with Frederick. But nobody ever saw Frederick. Not that he did, either - Frederick was only ever heard. But, that was all he needed to do. Speak. Because, as it seemed, few people seemed to want to cross paths with Alan Thorn. Not least because of his... distinguishable... appearance.

His height was nothing peculiar, nor was his build - yes, he was short, but the difference between him and the average human in his country of origin was only about an inch. Maybe it was his hair - scruffy and rarely fully tamed, it was usually combed into something vaguely resembling a smarter style. Yet, his locks seemed determined to retain whatever shape sleep had left them in, with neither copious amounts of water or gel. Or perhaps it was his eyes - two green, placid, glassy orbs, a dull look in them seemingly perpetual. His dress sense would not have attracted much attention, but it was still not really normal - namely, formal trousers and shirt, complete with tie and waistcoat. Today's ensemble was a pristine white button-up, complete with coal-coloured tie and matching trousers, the outfit rounded off by a pair of freshly-polished black shoes. His waistcoat, thin and snug, matched the tie, to the point where those with slight vision problems may confuse the two as one piece.

The classroom, though it was the standard affair of "rows of desks with the teacher's and a whiteboard at the front," did have a few things different with it. For one, the floor and walls had a small layer of padding, though efforts had been made to cover this up with a large - but evidently cheap - rug, and shelves stacked with subject-related books that no right-minded person would ever read. Or slightly unhinged person, for that matter. And then, there was the fact that the door was also padded slightly, but the door itself was solid steel, and had at least three locks on it. Whether it was to keep people out or in, was not of much concern to Thorn. He simply wanted out, but without causing too much of a fuss.

"Alan Thorn?"
"Yes, yes, what is it?"
"Please introduce yourself to the class, and try to pay attention in future."
"I politely decline."
"I'm sorry?"
"I'm sure you are. You act as if we all want to be social butterflies. I'm afraid I must disappoint, dear. I can't pick my family, but by Jove, I'll have a say in who my friends are. And I refuse to have a future arch-nemesis associate with me before his - or her - time."
 
Summer chuckles in the back in the middle row her red wavey covoring the right side of her face.
 
Theodora Chant was quite busy paying no mind whatsoever to the green-eyed, outspoken boy at the head of the class. In fact, she was so diligently ignoring his presence that she ended up ruining the sentence she was writing on the inside of her left forearm. Letters tangled with each other, and she was certain something had been misspelled. It really didn't help matters that she could only fit such a small passage on her arm. At this rate, it would take her three years and seven-or-so months to finish the story.

She refocused her attention on the soft skin of her arm. Later, if this Alan Thorn didn't drive her to distraction, she would transfer the ink to fresh paper. Writing in mirror fashion had its advantages. In perfect time to prove her point, an orderly snatched the pen from her hand.

"Miss Chant, I believe we have made ourselves clear as to this behavior." Theo looked up at the man, complete and utter confusion on her face. She said nothing. "What have you written this time, Miss Chant?" His voice came through poorly hidden gritted teeth. Theo held out her arm, a picture of innocence. The orderly leaned in, only to throw up his hands in disgust. "You insist on scratching nonsense!" Theo bowed her head, smiling.
 
The male orderly must have issues with his mother, to speak in such a way to a girl. Clementine kept her head bowed over the desk, her back hunched over in a perpetual slump. Her cerulean blue hair mingled with the yellow desk, and it would have been a fine contrast of colors if the yellow did not remind her of baby vomit. She reviewed page number four-hundred and eighty-seven of her medical textbook. It was a diagram on how to perform open-heart surgery. She traced over the lines of the pericardium with her finger, exactly where to slice it open. Her nail grated against the desk. There was no textbook. It was all in her brain. Instantly, the medical diagram was replaced by a blueprint of the school. Clementine had caught a glance in her peripherals one day a few weeks ago. Her parents had been huddled over it, murmuring to each other until they realized she was in the room. And now here she was! Ha ha!

Absently, the tickle of her shirt tag registered against the thin layer of skin covering her clavicle. Her shirt was on backwards. The mental pictures disappeared and she was slightly disoriented, enough to slip over the side of her chair and land in a heap on the floor. Good thing it was padded. Directly above her was the girl who was getting yelled at earlier. Clementine sat cross legged and snatched the girl's arm, holding it up to her nose with her eyes boring into the flesh. She intended to memorize them now, and try try read the words later.
 
Theodora let her arm hang limp in Clementine's grip. It pulled her over in a strange twist, but she didn't complain. Clementine could read what she wanted. What were words if not to be read? With her free hand she began scratching characters into the exposed skin above her socks. The raised red lines contrasted nicely with her indoor-far-too-much pale skin. Her nails didn't allow for much precision, but that could be forgiven. The words must be written.

She might have protested the treatment from the orderlies, requested that she be allowed to keep her pen, were it not for the crude stitches that held her lips together. The rough twine itched sometimes, but she tried her best not to scratch. Infections were frowned upon.
 
"Cretins."
"Don't be rude, Alan. These people are the people you're going to spend quite some time with."
"Poppycock! I'll escape. I always do. Remember when they locked my bedroom door?"
"Breaking the lock with a hammer you concealed in your underwear wasn't exactly subtle."
"Well, I could hardly smuggle a screwdriver in without some great measure of discomfort, could I?"
"Alan, people are watching..."
"Oh, let them watch. These fools can gawk at what they like, it's not my fault this entire establishment is a waste of the taxpayer's money."
Quite a few people were staring at Alan, now. Not surprising, when you take into account the fact he had been snapping at himself, even if he thought he was arguing with a real person. He looked convinced that Frederick was speaking to him - the eyes, the expression, the way his arms were folded. Even the way he tossed his head to one side, evidently in some sort of strop, though not immediately willing to admit it. To anyone else, he was just some crazy boy who was talking to - or rather, arguing with - himself. And that was how it had always been. Not that he particularly cared, in his opinion, those people were just cretins who did not deserve to live.

Flustered, the teacher turned to the rest of the class. It was her first day on the job - this was obvious. Either that, or she was very new. Either way, she had disregarded the first rule of teaching at Bedlam - never teach at Bedlam. The pay may have been attractive, but this was no mere therapeutic session. Which brings us to the second unspoken rule that she broke - despite the training, the children were not normal. At least, most of them. There was a reason why they were in there, and this was to be remembered. Always.
 
Summer laughs out loud. "There's no escape! Trust me. I tried more time than you have."
 
Bombs. A favorite. She had constructed her first about five years ago. There was still a thin line cutting across Clementine's eyebrow where her naturally dark brown hair refused to grow back. It was just a little sparkler, but it was enough to get her locked in her room for a month.

I'm going to make a bomb.

Pages, pages, pages. Her own scribbled notes appeared before her eyes and she dropped the marked up arm of the girl without a second thought. Shifting into a crouch, Clementine hunched over to her desk and sat underneath it, blocking each and every person from her view. A plan was already formulating in her head. And it was completely dependent on the type of toilet bowl cleaner this Academy used. The bastards surely didn't keep their chemicals accessible to the students. What about detention? Do they even do that here? Is there some sort of chore list? Swiping away the notes, only visible to her, she itched at her shirt tag and stood up almost straight, save for her slouched shoulders. If any teacher or handler noticed her she didn't spare them a glance. The hard minty green chips that were her eyes fell upon the well dressed boy. He should be at a gala or something. She made her way over to him with the long, awkward stride of a praying mantis.

"I have more important things to speak to you about than whoever you're speaking with currently." She kept away from him for the sake of her finicky sense of personal space, but she pitched her voice to a quiet yet conversational tone, with the back of her head facing the teacher. It was the least suspicious approach, and she did not have time to take other precautions.
 
Theodora focused more intently on her calf, all the better to hear what Clementine said. The girl was the only one who read her story. It was important that she kept her readers interested. Carving the next line, she hummed to herself. It was almost more than she could do, since her lips had nearly healed together under the stitches. She couldn't recall where the stitches had come from, only that they were to keep her from telling an important secret.

Her finger wavered as her eyes caught the orderly hovering nearby. Quickly she returned to her task. She would not give him the satisfaction of thinking that he frightened her. How could he? She swiped casually at the stitches that only she knew were there, and raised another welt.
 
A girl stands at the door, looking in with a shy glance. She wears "emo" style clothes, skinny jeans, a Suicide Silence t-shirt and a drop dead hoodie. There is a bandage over her right eye and wrist. She bites her lip nervously, "um... am I in the right place?" Her voice is soft and innocent.
She is small, thin and pale with sky blue eyes making her look almost ghostly.
​
 
An amused laugh left her lips as Sinclair turned her gaze to the girl that stood in front of the door, disregarding the instructor's lesson as her hazel green eyes focused on the newcomer; "No, you're in the wrong place. We're ALL in the wrong place. No one wants to be here," she retorted with a playful smile that softened the sharpness of her words, "...but, I will say that you are in an interesting place."

She beamed at the pale girl, those green eyes of hers peering out from an ebony face as her black curls tumbled over her shoulder. She propped her elbow up on the surface of her desk and placed her cheek in the palm of her hand. The lessons for the day were a drag and she had stopped caring within fifteen minutes of them starting. She had every intention of breaking out of at least the classroom, but the orderlies were being rather strict that day and almost physical with the other students and she really didn't want to be on lockdown again for 'defending' herself.
 
Corvo appeared in a chair towards the back middlish part of the classroom. "I'm here! I'm not late! I promise I was here the whole time!" he exclaimed. He immediately noticed that the teacher wasn't there yet. "Oh....well that's convenient." he said with a smile. He then popped out a cigarette then watched it start to burn suddenly. "Black magic ain't half bad." he said. He then stuck the cigarette in his mouth. Black magic was something Corvo didn't have to learn. He was born with it. That's the reason he's here. He had overslept today...well he over sleeps every day, but because of black magic he still gets there....not to long after class starts...he smiled as he leaned back in his chair and took the cigarette out to blow smoke in the shape of his name in letters that spanned across width of the room.
 
Sinclair turned her head to regard the newcomer that had just 'suddenly appeared' in the classroom, an amused grin spreading across her face as her once hazel-green eyes gradually turned to a bright, lime green to show her rise in excitement. She laughed at his antics, at his ability to make letters to spell his name from the cigaret smoke that floated over his head; it all looked like great fun and she shook her head.

"Impressive, my friend," she commented to him, blowing the letters away from her when they began to wander in her direction, "and fun I might add."
 
Corvo smiled when he heard that. "Why thankyou uh...." he stoppet in midsentence. Wow this girl was attractive. Corvo had to get himself together before he finished. "Um. Yeah thanks." he said. "It's just a little talent I have, ya know? Nothing major." he said with a shrug. "What about you hm? Those pretty little eyes of yours change color pretty quickly apparently....tell me what that's all about."
 
Sinclair perked up at his words before she laughed and turned to face him fully while tapping the side of her left eye; "Oh this? My eyes kind of change color according to my mood, I guess. That's the only explanation that we've been able to come up with for them."

She looked away for a second, the bright excitement leveling out and makin he eyes return to the hazel green they once were. She looked back at her classmate and offered him a smile.

"I'm Sinclair, by the way. It's nice to meet you," she introduced herself, "So how did you get roped into this psycho school like us, huh?"
 
"Corvo...call me Corvo." he said with a smile. This attractive chick was talking to him full on. He hadn't even put an irresistible enchantment on him or anything. Chicks usually ignore him, due to the smoking, and the whole 'douchey' look, he was told he had. He sat up also. "Mostly, because of this," he said while he teleported from empty chair to empty chair, "this," he took his cigarette out of his moth and blew small balls of fire that turned into water, before hitting anything, "and maybe because of this." He froze time teleported to the outside of the building, plucked a flower from the ground, then teleported back to the classroom, laid it on Sinclair's desk, returned to his chair then unfroze time. "Look on your desk Sinclair." he said with a sweet smile.
 
Blinking her eyes curiously, she turned to look down at the surface of her desk and gasped in pleasant surprise, her eyes switching immediately from hazel green to a rose pink color. She picked up the flower and studied it closely, turning her gaze to Corvo once again.

"How sweet," she commented with a grateful smile, "That was definitely amazing, Corvo!"

She got up from her desk and made to sit in the empty one next to his, leaning close while slipping the flower into her curly block locks. She then gave an exaggerated pose and laughed.

"How do I look? Flower Power? Hehe."
 
Summer smiles. "You have an amazing talent but how would you feel if you shocked everyone you touched? The boy that I shared my fist kiss with was shocked to death."
 
"...I won't lie, that's pretty intense," Sinclair responded to the girl that appeared before them, grinning a little in amusement.

She looked at Corvo with a warm smile and giggle, "Do you kill people with a single kiss, too? Hehehe."
 
"Hah, beautiful," he said with a wink. He then turned to the other girl and frowned. "I um...I'm sorry...I um....wow...I have leather gloves you can have, I mean if that'll stop it at all." Corvo felt sorry for her, but at the same time, he was growing fond of the girl who was now sitting next to him, which he was very happy about, so he couldn't ponder on the electric girl for too long. Then he heard Sinclair ask him a question and he smiled a little. "I um...I really don't know." he said as his smile faded. "I was always kept away from the rest of the world for a long time, so I never really had a girl to kiss...." he said in complete embarrassment, however he wouldn't lie to Sinclair. Something about her wouldn't let him.
 
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