Chapter 11: Catastrophe: Backstabbers Part 1

---Catastrophe---

"Please, have a seat." Leona said politely. I walk toward the red leather love seat and sit there as I cross my legs and lean comfortably on the seat. She smiled at me.

The whole office smells like lavender. The furniture is antique mixed with modern. There are lots of different kinds of plants on the flower pot near the windows. They are beautifully taken care of. I looked at her desk where I thought that it was carved from a very beautiful tree.

"Can I serve you anything to drink or to eat?" she asked me.

"No thank you," I said politely without any emotions.

She nodded and sat on the sofa in front of me. She crossed her legs gracefully and placed her hands over her tight. Her skirt was at least above her knee and or a little shorter. But she was graceful and decent though. She stared at me for a moment and I watched her, staring at me.

"What are we going to talk about?" I asked to break the ear-breaking silence.

She looked down on her hands letting a soft sigh. Then she looked up at me with a kind smile. She looked like a sister-mother on the way she looked at me. She got those worried and very sincere eyes.

"How's your night and day here?" she asked me.

"It was something odd to me. I thought that it would be peaceful here since I had escaped from the people who wanted to kill me. Everything is weird to me on the way that people look at me every time I walk past them. They looked at me as if I was someone they knew who had made a crime."

"I'm sorry about that, Catastrophe. Adhiti Patterson was a freshman here. She was popular and known as a friendly, talented, and bully to those bullies." She let a small chuckled and happy smile as she described who Adhiti is to them. "You looked so much like her but for a different color of eyes and on the way you looked at people. You might be Adhiti's doppelganger or a twin."

"If I was Adhiti's twin why am I adopted and she wasn't?" I asked her. "She got brothers and a real mother and father. There are just so many questions." I said as I looked away as I thought deeper like I was thinking deep.

"You are right." She had a tight smile. "I'm sorry. It is just that I got too worried about Andrew. Since she disappeared on that night, he never goes to school. He should graduate that year but because of what happened he stopped studying and just locked himself in his room. And at the weekend he will go back to their house. He will just come back to the Academy and stay in his sister's room."

"It sounds lonely," I noted the obvious, still it doesn't appear in my voice on how I sympathize with him.

"It was painful and sorrowful." She said. "Andrew loved his baby sister though he loves making pranks on her." She smiled at the thought. "Do you know that night he saw you? It made him go back to school again. His brother Patrick is a Professor in Social Science and he's also a Psychologist of the school. He told me just early in the morning that Andrew wanted to go back to our Academy."

"Hmm," I got no comment about it.

"So, I assume that you don't like our Academy?"

I sigh lazily and look out the window. It seems that it will rain again. The weather these past few days had been so lonely and mad. I wonder why the weather feels that way and why it didn't want to become sunny today. It oddly goes along with my mood.

"The Academy was a freak's school?" I asked her but it sounds more like my comment about the school. She giggled on what I said rather than being mad or annoyed.

"I guess that's how you say that the school is peculiar." She sounds irritating or it is just me that is irritated at her? I looked at her and she is still smiling so kindly to me. "Those kids even the faculties here are supernatural. Some of them have ESP and some are just gifted with such peculiar gifts that a human couldn't have."

"If they are peculiar and supernatural and have ESP and healing power, what are you?" I asked her. She smiled at me.

"I am a person from the Inside World, and this world calls me a nymph. Well, if that's what humans would call from here."

"A nymph? Aren't you supposed to live in the woods and be invisible?" I asked her. She chuckled and sigh.

"Sweetheart, a nymph can be anywhere it wants. I can live like normal people and walk in the city. I am not a nymph from my world but an ordinary one. It's just a human perspective."

I shifted my leg to another and sighed with a curious looked on my face. Humans? The way she called it seemed like she despised them.

"Interesting. However, I still didn't get why Mr. Gregory enrolled me here and made me as his apprentice." I wondered with a sigh and looked at the small flower on the coffee table.

"It is because he thought that you are Adhiti."

"Everyone thought I was her since I got here. Out of curiosity, what has Adhiti that some people don't have?"

"She is a naturalist. Mr. Patterson said that since she was one year old she can talk to animals and plants."

"That's weird," I commented. "How about her brothers?"

"Uhm, well Andrew got a supernatural strength and can hypnotize while Patrick only got a genius mind. Something is peculiar about him that people don't know. I can say that he's a psychic too."

"What about Mr. Gregory?"

"He's a Prince." She blurted. "I—I shouldn't say that," she said guiltily.

A Prince? Prince of darkness? Prince of lightness? Prince of gorgeousness? What kind of Prince is he? He does not belong to any Royal Family here around the world. I know the royal family. However, if he's Prince of darkness or underworld, he doesn't look one.

I walk in the corridor while swimming around my thoughts. But I have to cut it as I enter the Social Science Class which is General Psychology. I walk towards the vacant chair beside Marissa that is probably reserved for me. I pulled out the book from the drawer and scanned it. The author is Patrick Patterson. Hmm, he might be a real genius to have a book on his own.

"Our Professor will be Mr. Patterson," Marissa whispered to me with a giggle like she had been tickled somewhere around her body.

"And the author of this book?" I asked her. She nods with those smiles and shining eyes.