• It took a whole two hours to get to civilization. I looked around, awed. The town we entered was big. It had streets—well, not the grey concrete streets at my home, the ones here are stoned. It’s a pretty kind of stone though, golden, brown, and white too. It was like a coffee or the most beautiful day of autumn. The houses looked so ancient, but not the ruined kind of ancient. Everything was so nice and it felt so warm just being here.
    “Like it?” Lenschi asks.
    “Maybe” I replied. There was a big sign on an arch that we just passed. It read, Lunar. “What’s Lunar for?”
    “What?” he shakes his head. “This town is called Lunar”
    “That’s just weird” I noted. Even though it’s spelled lunar like the moon, over here its pronounced lue-nahr. “How long is it till we get to the dorms?” I whine. The people that were with us had left once we entered Lunar, all except two. That’s Mich and the black spiky haired boy that I learned was named El. He was the one that told everyone my real age, I still don’t understand how he knew though.
    “It’ll only take ‘bout a minute” Mich tells me.
    “That’s such a lie!” I shout. “You’ve said that ten times already and by now I think I’d know that it’s not true”
    “He means it this time, though” El covers up for Mich. I disagreed but then he points up and says, “There”
    I followed his gaze and finally saw the building in front of us. It was humongous, and when I mean humongous, I mean two—maybe three—times bigger than a football stadium! A third of the school ground was just grass. Well, the whole school was in the middle of town so I’d thought there would be no space once so ever, but there was some sort of a glass bowl surrounding the building. It was like a picture I saw back at home. It was about space, and people were making colonies on it, but that was just fiction. This right here, right in front of me, is full on proof real.
    “Rich!” was the first thing I said. What I meant to say was awesome, but rich came out. Maybe it’s because since I’ve always been an orphan, getting all the handy downs, all the poor things, the thought of me living in a place like this was out of this world!
    “Yea, this school is pretty big” Lenschi says.
    “Whatever! Just shut up and go!” I chewed on the tip of his ear. “Huuwwy!” I mumbled. Being able to move my neck was amazing to me. It’s just a small feat, but being paralyzed for almost three hours was not a fun thing at all. You’d be amazed if you could make your fingers twitch.
    “Ouch!” he yelped. “Alright, alright, I’m going” he walked fast.
    “Oh yea, kid” Mich says to me. “When we get inside, be respectful to the teachers, and weirers too”
    “And,” El added, “Shohns too, since you aren’t one”
    “Why should I? Weirers and shohns are nothing special” my statement was absolute.
    “I wouldn’t say that if I where you” it sounded like he was trying to warn me, or scare me. “Some people at this school are murders, assassins”
    “Oh shut up” Lenschi growls. “Save it for later”
    “But she needs to know” Mich butts in. “If she’s going to be here, she needs to know everything”
    Lenschi doesn’t say anything for a bit. “I will tell her” then another pause. “After dinner, when we’re with Daishaw and the Elders”
    “Can’t you just answer some of my questions?” I asked him.
    “Like what?”
    “Like…what are shohns and weirers”
    “Later”
    “Well then, how about when Daishaw said he expected more out of you six when there were ten people there?”
    “Later”
    “Why does it seem like everyone here is in pairs, like partners? Mal was with a guy, Ellisia was with a guy, the other peoples were with someone, and Mich is with El”
    “Later”
    “How old are you?”
    “Later”
    My questions came faster. “How many planets are there?”
    “Later”
    “Can I do magic too?”
    “Later”
    “How come there are two moons?”
    “later”
    “I want to see what the purple side of this world looks like”
    “NO!” Lenschi, Mich, and El all yelled at the same time.
    “But—”
    “You can’t step foot on the other side” Mich says.
    “You can’t ever, ever go there no matter what!” El shouts.
    “Yea” Lenschi agreed. “It’s a law. Being over there means no return—banished. You can never come back over here. If you do, then your only fate is death because you get—”
    “Executed” I finished the sentence for him. The three of them were dead serious, I can tell by the tone of their voices.
    “Right” he says.
    There was silence in the air. It was starting to feel really awkward, but no one complained. Not even me because I was too busy thinking. I wish I knew what was really over on the other side of the sky, the dark purple side—Oh my god. My eyes widened, jaw hanging. Purple sky. There was never a word that meant more to me than this one. It repeated itself in my mind over and over, and over again. Purple sky, purple sky, that’s all I hear. I don’t even notice Lenschi talking because I was in some sort of a trance. Outside noises just came as buzzing static to my ears.
    In my dream, the dream I kept having every night, there was always a purple sky, like in this world. I wonder…is my dream trying to tell me something? I turn my head to face the other side, the forbidden place that I was warned not the enter. It was very far, close to the horizon, but it seemed so close to me. I don’t know why. Maybe it's telling me to go over there...
    And then the door to the school opened. My trance was broken by the loud music that boomed inside.
    “We're here” Lenschi says. “Sorry it’s a bit loud. There’s a party going on. Today is the day we got our shohns, after all” he smiled and we went in.
    "Yay..." I tried to say enthusiasticly but it came out tired and lifeless. My thoughts still hung in the purple sky.

    part 4