N I C H O L A S

At the end of the night, Luca bade them goodbye and returned to his private room. Nicholas went downstairs to bring up his trunk with the help of Shawn, taking it to their shared dorm, which was only a few doors down the hall from where Arthur and Isaac's room was.

    Their dorm was small, with two beds on either side of the room and two small wooden desks. But Nicholas's favorite part of their dorm was the little window at the end of the room, which opened up to the many trees on the campus and the shimmering lake in the distance. At nights, he would quietly sit upon the windowsill, borrowing light from the divine moon as he wrote poems and stories into his notebook.

    Nicholas loved staying awake through the night, when the rest of the world was deep in silence and he could finally be alone with his thoughts. It was when he felt at home with his heart.

   He was excited to be back here at Berrington, but little did he know that everything was about to change. That, only in a few short days, none of their lives would be the same ever again.

    Dawn always comes whether we are ready to leave the night's embrace or not.

***

The next morning, the boys got up to a rare golden sky, soaked with sunshine and filled with pink clouds. Last night's rain had awoken the scent of the earth, and the dew glistened upon the fallen red and yellow leaves outside.

    Luca was first to get ready as always, waiting for his friends in the courtyard, so all five of them could go to the Dining Hall for breakfast, in their baggy suits and wingtip oxford shoes. Bacon and eggs were served that day, along with fresh orange juice and tea.

    "By the way," Nicholas started as the five boys left the dining area to get to the Berrington Hall building, where their classrooms were, "I have a few ideas for our newspaper this week, about the convocation ceremony this weekend."

    "We always cover convocations! We need something new!" Shawn argued, but then his face softened automatically at the sight of a group of girls passing by. He winked at them, making the girls giggle. Luca grimaced; he never approved of the way Shawn behaved around girls.

    "We have to. The university expects us to write about the ceremony." Isaac explained.

    "Just hear me out. This could be fun," said Nicholas with a confident flicker in his eyes. "I was thinking that we could announce a dance competition for couples, and we'll be the judges. We'll print the picture of the winners in our paper after the ceremony."

    "But what about prizes?" Luca mused. "Would anyone want to participate in the competition without a specified prize?"

    "Oh, please." Shawn scoffed bitterly. "We live in a world where everyone craves attention. They all want to be known, without having any actual talents. Having their pictures printed will be enough."

    "When did you become so wise?" Luca said with a hint of a grin, looking at him sideways as they were walking down the hallway.

    "I'm more than just a pretty face, Sunshine. I always keep a few surprises up my sleeve." Shawn winked at him.

    "The fact that you're an arrogant dick is no surprise to any of us, Anderson," Isaac told him teasingly.

    "Trust me, my dick surprises everyone," said Shawn, smirking.

    "It's that small?" Arthur said with a mocking gasp, receiving a punch on the arm from Shawn as the rest of them laughed.

    "This is me," said Nicholas after a bit more of walking, finally reaching his class. "Who else has Creative Writing now?"

    "I do. But I'm skipping it today. I've got rugby practice in half-an-hour," said Shawn, rubbing his hands together in joy.

    "Not me. I've got Metaphysics right now. I don't really need to take the Creative Writing class," said Arthur.

    "I don't need it either," said Isaac while he was looking down at his schedule. "I have to be in class 202 for Latin. It's on the other side of the hall, I think."

    "What about you, Luca?" Nicholas asked.

    "I have Creative Writing now, too." Luca nodded lightly.

    "Great!" Nicholas clapped his hands together. "Okay, so about our Scriptores newspaper; what do you say we all meet up after dinner at our usual spot? I've got a few other ideas that I want to —"

    "Excuse me," a voice came from behind them, as soft as a light summer breeze.

    The boys turned around to see who it was, gaping at the girl that stood before them with her books hugged to her chest. She was wearing a tight black turtleneck, tucked into her plaid skirt which came right above her knees.

It was not her blue eyes that had caught their attention, nor her ghost-pale skin; it was her long blonde hair that came down to her back, which was so light that it almost looked silver, like strings made from moonlight. No other girl grew her hair past her shoulders back in the day, unless they deliberately wanted to be considered odd by their peers.

    Nicholas realized the next moment that the girl was looking at him only. There was something about her eyes that spoke to him, piercing through his soul. He had seen her face before, but only in poetry.

    "Er... can I help you?" Nicholas asked her as soon as the words found their way up his throat again.

    "You're blocking the way," the girl said apologetically.

    "Oh — right — sorry." Nicholas shook his head to snap himself back to reality as he stood aside from the class's doorway, so the girl could pass through.

    All through Professor Johnson's lesson on the fundamentals of non-fictional works that day, Nicholas couldn't help but to glance at the girl every now and then, admiring how pure and heavenly she looked as she gazed outside the classroom window dreamily, with the rays of sunlight tangled in her blonde hair.

    But at that moment, Nicholas had no idea what awaited him in the future. He didn't know that he was eventually going to learn the hard way that everyone in this world has secrets buried deep inside them, like a corpse within the earth.

    Everyone. Even her.

    Especially her.