Beta Wing

5 years ago:

Nora stumbled at that very instant, momentarily struggling to keep her balance. Meanwhile, Louis immediately rushed out of the car, behind her.

"Hello pretty lady, we met again!"  Adrin spoke, smiling.

"Hello Adrin!" Louis greeted him from behind, catching up to them.

"Hi Louis! You are also here! How's the school going?"

"Pretty good, thanks." Louis replied with a nod.

Nora was still standing there without lifting her eyes from the ground or uttering any words. She was indeed happy after seeing Adrin, but was also slightly embarrassed after colliding with him for the second time in exactly as many meetings. 

'He must think that she was a total gone case, who couldn't even walk properly.'

She thought to herself, letting out a deep sigh and unconsciously drawing their attention towards her.

"You haven't replied to me yet, young lady!" Adrin grinned again.

"Hi Sir-"

"Oh! I already told you to call me Adrin; see, Louis also called me the same just now."

"But- "

"No buts!"

"Okay then! Hello, Adrin." She spoke, after drawing a long breath, and suffusing her cheeks with a warm smile. 

"So tell me, have you decided on the Houses yet? Or are you going to take a tour of the hostels first, to see the hierarchy and acquaint yourself with the students?" Adrin asked.

"Deciding the house- are you going to stay in a hostel?" Louis turned towards her and asked with a mixture of surprise,shock and curiosity.

"Oh hello, Nora! You are early today. Great! I will take you to one of the hostels in this spare time, and rest two after the classes. This way, by tomorrow you will be able to make a better decision."

Professor Romera suddenly appeared on the scene, before Nora had given any reply.

"Okay professor!"  She spoke quickly and followed her.

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She stood in the courtyard, waiting patiently for the first five minutes. But the bud of curiosity suddenly started to bloom inside her heart, and the thought of exploring the building further and saving both the Professor's and her time emerged in her mind. She started to look around, and walked past the main door, without knowing where the door led to.

After walking for almost three minutes, she found herself in a long lobby, which was decorated like a common room of sorts, where people- students, might gather to talk or organise meetings.

The room was quite huge and neat, and her gaze wandered along its walls, where four doors opened in four different directions. Out of them, three doors were unlocked, but one door was closed very protectively with several locks and chains.

She wondered what lay behind that door and unknowingly, her feet started to take her in that direction.

Before joining the school, she could never have imagined that there was a rebel residing inside her, because she had never felt the need to revolt before. Rather, it would be more accurate to frame it as her being extremely hopeless and entirely sure that there was no ray of light stored in any hidden pockets of her destiny, so there was no point of a revolution without any hope of it sustaining, either.

But the truth is, that the revolution only occurs at a point where we have two things going parallel to each other, in front of our eyes- first, are the things that we know are not right, and the second, the hope of changing them for the better.

And in such conditions, that hope becomes the only weapon to start the revolt with. This justified her current state- this was why she had never revolted against anything, because she had never had any hope of being accepted by anyone when was not even accepted by her family.

But meeting Myron had taught her in a single day, that family can be found; and the most important thing in life, is life itself. And hence, a little revolt and revolution was quite necessary.

She looked at the door once and extended her arm; she was just about to touch the lock when she heard someone singing.

She quickly turned around, a little scared as she had been told that almost the entire wing was empty at the moment, because no female betas had enrolled in TCC yet.

But the moment she turned, a loud scream escaped her mouth as well as that of the person standing in front of her.

"Aaaaaaaaaa-" 

"Aaaaaaaaaaa! What the hell...Nora, why the hell are you here?!"

Robin asked, shouting out of shock as soon as he had stopped screaming out of fear.

"What do you mean, Robin, by asking why I am here?! I should ask you the same question! Why the hell are you here, in the female beta wing!?" She shouted back, still clenching her eyes shut, and adding, "I haven't seen anything!"

The disclaimer reminded the boy, who was standing in front of her with just a towel wrapped around his waist, about his current state. He realised that he had been shouting just because he had seen a female in the male wing of TCC, forgetting the fact that he was almost naked.

"Oh-shit!" He screamed once again.

"No-Nora, you better not open your eyes! In fact, it will be better if you turn your head the other way round."

"Okay, okay!" She said, raising her hands in a gesture of surrender. "But can you please tell me, what the hell are you doing in the female wing of beta TCC?" She asked again, as she turned around.

"I am not in the female wing, but you are in the male wing of TCC! And-"

He stopped when he heard voices coming from the background, knowing that the betas must be returning after their morning practice session. This was the perfect addition to this mixture of confusion and awkwardness that had resulted in the ongoing scenario. To Robin, the hoard of betas heading towards the common room was resembling the last nail on his coffin; it was enough to trigger his panic response to a level where he was not able to think straight. He quickly rushed to where she was standing, and whispered in her ears, "Listen, we need to hide, otherwise there will be a very big problem!"

She felt the warm breaths of Robin against her cheek and his whispering voice close to her ear, all of a sudden. Not knowing how to react properly, she responded with a reflex action. Or perhaps, that reflex constituted the entirety of her reply, knocking him down with a sideways slam on his neck; making the timid Nora inside her panic after seeing him wince in pain.

"I-I am sorry! I am so sorry Robin, I didn't mean to hurt you...it just...it just-"

"It's just a response, I get it." He spoke as he stood up, holding his jaw with one hand and grabbing her hand in another.

He whispered urgently as he ushered her towards one of the doors, "We will talk about this later, but we need to get out of here first."

As they both turned around and were about to execute their plan for escape, they heard a voice that made them freeze in place.

"Nora! What are you doing here?" 

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