THREE WEEKS AGO
"Serena! Serena, come downstairs right now, you need see this!"
Missy's voice rang through the house, filled with excitement as she gripped the banister at the foot of the stairs.
"Serena, hurry up!" she called again, waving frantically toward the dining table where her laptop sat open, its screen glowing .
Serena groaned softly from the top of the stairs.
"Aunt Missy, whatever it is, can it wait a few minutes?" she asked, folding her arms tightly across her chest. "I just need to finish something first." Her latest paint work hanging crooked on the wall.
"I don't think you'd be saying that if you knew what I'm calling you to see," Missy replied, a knowing smile tugging at her lips as she planted her hands firmly on her hips.
Something in her tone made Serena pause. Curiosity won out over resistance.
She descended the stairs slowly, her bare feet brushing against the cool wood. When she reached the dining area, Missy stepped aside dramatically, gesturing toward the screen.
"Read." Missy said clapping her hands together,her face beaming, Serena had never seen her this happy before.
Serena frowned but obeyed, pulling out the chair and leaning closer to the laptop. Her eyes skimmed the header first, then dropped to the body of the message. She cleared her throat and began to read aloud, her voice steady at first.
"Ms. Serena, this is to inform... Oh my God!"
Her breath hitched as tears welled suddenly in her eyes. This unusual feeling filled her chest, not the cold,emptiness she had become acustomed to,This was warm, pleasant even.
She blinked rapidly and continued.
"Ms. Serena, this is to inform you that you are one of the selected candidates to be awarded the four-year scholarship program at Eldermere University, where you will study History and Modern Literature. You are required to make yourself available on school grounds within the next three weeks. Failure to do so will result in a fine.
Kindly click 'Accept' and review the instructions below for registration requirements.
Congratulations. We hope you enjoy your stay at Eldermere University."
"Oh my goodness," she sobbed, rising so quickly the chair scraped loudly against the floor. "Aunt Missy, I got in. I really got in."
She collapsed into Missy's arms, clutching her like she might vanish if Serena let go. Missy laughed through her own tears, hugging her tightly.
"You did it," she murmured. "I knew you would."
It had been a long time since either of them had heard good news, far too long.
Ever since Serena's parents were declared dead following a car crash years ago, or so she had been told, their lives had existed in a suspended state of unpleasant events. Serena had been in the car that night too, a fact everyone reminded her of whenever she asked questions.
But she remembered nothing about even her past memories, down to her parents voices.
Her memories before waking up in a hospital bed were fragmented, blurred at the edges like an old photograph left too long in the sun. The fragments of she could remember always felt unclear, sometimes like they didn't even belong to her. The strangest things were the lucid dreams,more of nightmares that began tormenting her sleep.
Most times she finds herself in a deserted forest running away from a creature she can never properly see, her heart beating with fear that isn't really hers but to real not to be. Then there came the hallucinations, this started a year ago on her 19th birthday.
Missy insisted it was the head injury. Even the Doctors couldn't explain it. Serena always harboured the thought that her parents were alive, scratch that, she never believed her parents were dead in the first place.
After all, no bodies had ever been recovered.
Their personal belongings vanished research papers, journals, photographs, everything erased as if they had never existed. Their finances and properties were sealed away, inaccessible to Serena until her twenty-third birthday. Three more years.
The only thing left to her was her mother's ruby necklace which she wore everyday.
At night, when the house was quiet and sleep refused to come, she clutched the pendant, it gave her relief.
That belief drove her obsession in search of her parents..
It was what led her, months ago, to a hidden letter tucked inside an old book her father had loved tucked away in a drawer in Missy's room. The paper was yellowed, the handwriting unmistakably his.
Everything she needs to know is in eldermere. She never questioned Missy about it though her unsual questions about it might have given it away..
The problem was that Eldermere was unreachable.
The town was isolated, governed by ancestral families who had founded it centuries ago. Outsiders were not welcome. Their wealth, power, and histories were fiercely guarded, their lives conducted behind closed gates.
No one simply wandered into Eldermere.
Desperation drove Serena to research bloodlines, searching for any connection, any ancestor that might tie her to the town. When that failed, she searched for loopholes.
That was when she found the scholarship.
A program offered once every ten years,
A controlled invitation for outsiders.
Only four hundred and fifty candidates were selected, almost always from wealthy, influential backgrounds. People who would not ask questions. People who knew when to keep quiet.
Serena knew her chances were slim.
She was not wealthy, and her race alone made her an unlikely choice.
Still, she applied.
She had just completed her program at Oxford. She had the grades, The credentials, but was that going to be enough.
"You have to be there on time, love," Missy said gently, rubbing Serena's shoulders. "I don't even want to imagine how much that fine costs."
Serena laughed softly, hugging her aunt once more before retreating upstairs with the laptop clutched tightly to her chest.
In her room, she sat on the edge of her bed and cried again, this time openly. Happiness felt unfamiliar, fragile, like something that might shatter if she breathed too hard.
She wiped her cheeks, inhaled deeply, and clicked Accept.
The admission portal loaded instantly.
Welcome to Eldermere University.
Her heart pounded as images filled the screen.
Ancient stone structures, Massive castle-like buildings, their windows dark, and an uncanny errie feeling of the whole campus. The students in the picture looked weirdly happy, like they were forced to smile, though the amount of pictures of students were small for such a prestigious school. She sighed scrolling further. There were portraits, formal and rigid, of the leaders of the seven founding families who governed both the university and the town.
They all looked… wrong.
Familiar, yet distant.
Her gaze stopped abruptly on the man at the center. He had jet black hair which was a vivid contrast to his extremely pale skin. But his most glaring feature was his,ruby-red eyes.
Something about him intrigued her a lot. Her eyes traced his image carefully, resting on the mark on his wrist.
A butterfly, with two contrasting wings.
Slowly, her hand rose to the spot just behind her ear, where her own birthmark lay hidden beneath her hair. It was the exact same design.
"This surely can't be a coincidence," she whispered.
Her eyes darted to the others, scanning for the same mark but She found none.
"Maybe it's hidden," she murmured, wiping back and forth looking for anything out of place.