It was a beautiful and quite busy day, nothing unusual, it was the great day in which the academy's gates would open for the new applicants capable of entering it.
Evelyn was quite nervous; seeing so many people passing around her made her feel anxious, and not just that...
"She's so beautiful."
"I love her hair color."
"She's definitely a noble."
She could hear the little whispers about her appearance that many of the young people around her were making. Wherever she went, she heard people talking about her. This made her feel even more nervous than she already was. She didn't know how to react, but she could feel her stomach turning—it was a truly horrible sensation.
Evelyn took a deep breath, trying to regain control of her emotions. Fortunately for her, the only ones she could hear were their whispers and not hers. It was a totally new experience, but... it felt strangely good...
She remembered small fragments of her mind that disintegrated quickly... something that even to her seemed unreal. She always kept her head down, dulled her mind, and suppressed all the voices around her. She kept away from all kinds of people to avoid... what?
Evelyn frowned as she got lost in her thoughts; for a few moments, she was filled with deep sadness...
Feeling a hand on her shoulder, her red eyes turned and saw a pair of lovely amethyst-colored eyes. A sense of familiarity washed over her, and a smile appeared on her face. Now she felt much more confident in herself.
Leslie looked at Evelyn attentively...
"The aura around her changed... a lot. That was way too drastic," Leslie thought to herself. Evelyn somehow felt very familiar and yet so different at the same time. It was just a vague thought. Before she felt familiarity, she felt strangeness—for reasons she didn't know, the Evelyn standing in front of her was the same as always...
Evelyn smiled and walked toward me with a certain confidence. Her eyes, although still a little nervous, began to shine.
"Leslie, thank God you're here. I was feeling a little lonely." Evelyn blushed a bit and smiled shyly.
Leslie felt a bit dazed but ignored it completely. With a slight smile, she said, "Do people's compliments make you uncomfortable? Come on, everyone looks at you like you're a superstar." Leslie teased a little.
Evelyn sighed and looked around: "I could say the same about you."
"It's really annoying," Leslie crossed her arms as she began to walk. Her violet eyes were scanning everything around, her senses still warning her that something wasn't right. But, as always, she couldn't find anything. Still... seeing Evelyn with a small smile somehow made her feel less worried.
"Have you found Daniela?" Evelyn asked as she walked beside Leslie.
"She said she'd be waiting for us at the entrance of the hall," Leslie replied without paying much attention, her mind even more clouded as she noticed a presence that felt so familiar...
Daniela was standing at the main entrance of the great hall. A wide smile adorned her lips as she hummed a cheerful song in her mind. Looking at the beautiful blue sky, she couldn't help but feel great anticipation about today. Many people were walking everywhere, especially applicants to the academy. The emotions varied depending on each person—some were excited, sad, depressed, anxious, or confident. The great variation of colors made her feel a bit dizzy, but nothing out of the ordinary...
Daniela went silent for a moment. In her mind, she still remembered the illusory layer that resided in her soul...
"None of this feels like a dream..." she murmured for a moment, and in that instant, she felt the illusory layer become more compact. "Could it be a variation?" she asked herself. For now, she was the only one with that type of transparent layer around her soul...
Thinking to herself...
"Daniela," she heard Leslie's voice coming from ahead.
Snapping out of her thoughts, Daniela's golden eyes quickly turned and looked at her two only best friends. She immediately sensed the same anomaly in them...
"It's the same as mine..." Daniela said to herself. The same layer that covered her soul was now present in Leslie and Evelyn... but in Evelyn's case, the transparent layer was almost completely gone...
Just as she was about to say something—
Daniela turned her head and looked at the ground... there was a young man with black hair and blue eyes, showing deep fear and desperation...
Daniela's mind went blank...
Evelyn looked at the young man on the ground. Her heart stopped, and her thoughts nearly exploded. The alarms in her head began blaring like crazy. She felt dizzy, and a deep void formed in the pit of her stomach as she looked at the young man with black hair and blue eyes lying on the ground groaning in pain, covered in blood. Her red eyes dilated as she saw the horrible wound in the young man's chest...
A terrible headache assaulted her mind, preventing her from thinking of anything except fleeing from this place. For a few seconds, she felt like the whole world was collapsing. Another shock abruptly pulled her out of her daze. The young people nearby stepped aside, and a dreadful silence filled the surroundings...
Amid them emerged a young man with wheat-colored hair and pale golden eyes. In his right hand, he carried a sword that shimmered faintly. The young man pointed his sword at the one on the ground. Evelyn froze again... "He's going to kill him," was the only thought that crossed her mind...
Leslie stood still. Looking at the young man on the ground, her senses went wild. Something that had been wrong from the beginning would definitely go wrong at some point. Evelyn's violet eyes sparkled—something inside her, deep within herself, felt that this moment was the perfect trigger to finally trust her instincts. They had never deceived her. Something was wrong with all this, and she knew it, but she had never known what it was...
Fragments flashed through her mind at the speed of light—smiling, clinging, and obsessed—herself alongside a face she couldn't remember, a smile and eyes that seemed distant, a person who had been erased from her memory. Everything related to that young man seemed like just a long dream...