#sparrowpointe

Also, now that I'm finally publishing Sparrowpointe, I can finally show off the cover I made for it. I think I'm happier with it than I have been with any other digital painting I've ever done. (No text version is under the keep reading)

I slip through the gates, following behind Miss Paimonia. The old woman moves fast, and she clicks when she walks. I'm not sure if it's stilettos or hooves, I'd say both are equally likely. "I'm sorry I'm late," I say, then clarifying, "I got in a bus crash." Miss Paimonia doesn't turn to look at me when she says: "Oh yes, I can see that quite plainly. You look a mess." How can I describe what Sparrowpointe campus looks like. It's gorgeous, first off, all towering brownstone buildings and ivy. Miss Paimonia leads me through courtyards thick with fountains and flowerbeds and umbrella-covered tables. The place is a brick-paved maze, and most of what I see is empty. I can hear students far off, a cacophony of speech and laughter echoes off every surface, but I can't see anybody. "Where is everyone?" "Orientation. The dean will be giving his speech in a few minutes, and after that you and the rest of your cohort will be given a tour of the place and get told a bunch of things you already know," Miss Paimonia says. "Oh, and that reminds me, you'll be needing this."

https://www.wattpad.com/1635669603-sparrowpointe-rock-stars-give- horrible-orientation

When I come too, I'm lying on the ceiling of the bus. The world is blurry and breathing hurts. Time to run diagnostics. I move my right leg, then my left. They both respond with what seems like the appropriate amount of pain. Both my arms—which were still dutifully guarding my head, thank you ladies—are still working as they should be. I take a deep breath, there's a sharp stab of pain in my chest; I take it that means I have a broken rib. The air tastes awful, and the world has not stopped being blurry. Well, blurry isn't the right word, I think hazy fits better. Yeah, the air in the bus is hazy, and it's getting hazier. There's something wet on my forehead, I think it's blood.

There is something rattling my skull. It's the first thing I notice as I start to wake up. My forehead is pressed against something cold and hard, and it is rattling my skull. It's soothing, in a way. My body is being rocked side to side, something is vibrating my entire skull, and the only thing I can hear is the gentle rumble of an engine. My eyes flitter open; it's bright out so that's a bit of a struggle. I'm immediately rewarded with the pleasant sight of pine trees rushing by. I'm in a bus. A big one, a Greyhound, probably. It's mostly empty—some old people near the front, a woman and a sleeping baby in the seat in front of me, one guy muttering to himself three rows back—but yeah, aside from that it's empty. No interesting conversations to eavesdrop on though—well I bet the guy talking to himself has lots of interesting stuff going on, but I can't make out what he's saying from here—so I guess looking out the window it is. A sign flies past outside the window, apparently this bus is northbound on the I-5 and thirty miles outside Olympia, which is good because that's where I'm going. Twelve days of travel to Olympia from... Hm, now that I think of it, I can't remember where I'm coming from. That's bad, I'm pretty sure that I should remember that. Quick, what's my name? What are my parent's names? What's my favorite pizza topping? I don't know, I don't know, and anchovies.

As I push my way through the crowd, I take the chance to look over my paperwork. The first page has a bunch of fluff on the history of Sparrowpointe and the wonderful educational opportunities offered here, as well as a list of numbers, location, and hours of several on-campus services. There's a dining hall, a twenty-four hour gym, and a laundromat. Separately listed from the laundromat is the 'cleaners' which I have a sneaking suspicion has something to do with the fact that Dean Sativum only specified we get expelled for murdering other students. The next page has my class schedule, and it's mostly gen-eds. Calculus II, Introduction to Kinetics, and Intro Demonology on Monday/Wednesday/Friday, and then English Composition I and Art History 1 on Tuesday/Thursdays. Shame, I'd expect more exciting fare from a magic university. Intro Demonology seems fun at least. A girl with a loudspeaker is standing on a box underneath the Saturn banner. I'm about the last to get to her, so I'm stuck on the outside of the group of students. I can hardly hear her from back here, but that's fine. From what I can hear, she's talking more fluff. Fluff fluff fluff, it's all anyone seems to be saying these days. As I rise to my tiptoes to try and see her, I get bowled over by a massive hellhound.

I wake up to the sound of a loud alarm beeping. The amber morning sun streams through mine and Chloe's shared window and lands right in my eyes. The very early morning sun it seems; it's still mostly dark out. I fall forwards and groan into my hands. The offending sound is coming from Chloe's side of the room. Does this girl get up at six in the morning? I stumble out of bed and grope around half-blind trying to search for the source of the incessant ringing. Unfortunately, it's coming from Chloe's pocket, probably her phone. "Chloe," I say, nudging her shoulder, "Chloe your alarm is going off." She's unresponsive, the only sound is her snoring. "Your phone, Chloe," I say, my brain still too busy booting up to offer a more compelling plea. My words falls on deaf ears. I groan, and in lieu of a third plea, I poke her on the cheek. This is more effective. Chloe bolts awake and nearly flies off her bed. "I'm awake, I'm awake!" she shouts. I'm forced to take a step back, and trip, falling ass-first to the floor. Chloe comes to rest, kneeling on her bed. "What happened, where am I?" she asks. Her eyes flutter open. Even from the ground, I can see she's got some nasty cataracts, I can barely make out horizontal slit pupils and the dirty-golden edges of her irises.

Chloe did, in fact, end the night wasted. In her defence, she put up a good fight. I think her BAC must have been somewhere in the 0.20′s by the end of things. True enough to her prediction, Adrian carried her back to the dorm, and I fished her key out of her pocket. I can't remember most of the rest of the evening to be honest; I failed to toss three basketball hoops in a minute, kicked ass at a pool-noodle fight, and I think may have signed up for the school fencing team, so that's something to look forward to I guess. Hanna didn't show her face for the rest of the evening, but I couldn't stop thinking about her. Adrian was more than happy to tell me about all the unethical shit her parent's company did, but apparently he had never actually seen her before. Chloe, on the other hand, was as tight as a steel trap about the whole situation. Even ass-over-head wasted she just clammed up whenever the topic pointed in Hanna's direction. I lean back in my chair, hovering the front two legs an inch off the ground. What does it all mean? Chloe knew Hanna, Hanna knew me, but Chloe didn't know me. Hanna's family does weird mad science shit, maybe I'm one of her experiments run loose and that's why I have that tattoo. No, that can't be it, I'm pretty sure that escaped science experiments don't get drivers licenses and medical files and college admission letters.

By the time I've made my way back to Saturn dorm, I've worked the lollipop down into a cherry flavor paper nub. My teeth kept on chewing long after any semblance of candy had disappeared, and it's only now that I'm realizing that I probably have some paper bits stuck between my teeth. My teeth are, honestly, probably disgusting. All of me is disgusting. Even discounting the rolling around in mud and the flecks of my own blood, I'm pretty sure I have been sleeping in these clothes for a couple days now. My hair is a greasy mess, and the texture of stubble on my neck and jaw is having the same sort of effect on my mood which the Chernobyl Elephant's Foot has on human DNA. I trudge through the entrance hall and back up to my room and oh god Adrian's still here. What's worse, he's talking to Chloe. Oh god, he's going to tell her about the necrotist shit I one-hundred percent did say and then she's going to hate me and she'll be correct for it and oh god oh god he's noticed me. "Hello, Bella," he says with barely restrained contempt, "did they figure out what your brain damage was?"