I was ushered out of the room immediately by the principal, and I noticed how he was sweating buckets. This place might be air-conditioned, but that didn’t mean he had to wear a full, formal suit around here. No wonder he’s perspiring so much. But of course, there was an exception that it might not be the heat causing the excessive secretion of liquid on his skin.

After I passed by the horrified expressions of the students and made my way out of the gym, Mr. Shin continued leading me through the hallways. Not once had he uttered a single word, nor acknowledge the stunned person that was walking beside him. There were so many questions running through my mind right now, and the image of the flying student and levitating objects kept popping up in my mind. Every question that I came up with to ask Mr. Shin was just as important as the last, making it practically impossible for me to settle on one to question the principal with. Though judging by how flustered and edgy he was, I doubt he would hear me when I do, let alone answer my questions.

I turned to look over my shoulders to see a group of boys trailed after us, trying to match the pace of the principal’s. I recognized some of them; there was that guy called Chanyeol, and if I remembered correctly a guy named Baekhyun. Then there was the student who had been surrounded by floating basketballs, and then my eyes landed on the one who had been levitating in the air. They all seemed to have a confused expression on their face, their eyes constantly flittering from the principal to me, as if doing that would help them figure out just what this situation meant. I would help them by telling them I had no idea what was going on either, but that was if I could find my voice. It seem to have faded off along with my sanity.

A jerk to the right caused me to look back towards the front, and I noticed that I have been lead into a room. The first thing I noticed was the long desk nestled right in the centre with the principal’s name plate at the front. A plush, velvet chair stood proudly behind it, the colour matching well with the carpeted floor and the curtains that drape the huge floor-to-ceiling windows. The walls were painted black, with white intricate designs decorating it and picture frames of flowers and other things a student who had failed in art would not be able to decipher.

“Please, seat,” Mr. Shin said for the first time. He motioned to the chair in front of the desk, and I sat down on it. He then moved to his own chair behind the table and took his place there. Behind me, the group of boys slowly filed into the room, each of them moving to a designated place as if they have been here before. They treated the office as if it were their own home, seating on the couches placed at the corner while others leaned against the wall close to the windows. One boy who had pale skin walked towards us and bowed politely.

“Mr. Shin,” He addressed. “Why did you call us here? What’s going on?”

At this, Mr. Shin sighed and rubbed his dry and wrinkly hands together. I noticed how weathered his hands were, filled with calluses and dried skin. A principal hardly had to do anything but manage the school and order people around. So why were his hands so withered?

“I wanted to tell you guys about the new students, but I guess I was too late,” He said, though this piece of news that was supposed to be neutrally good sounded bad coming out of his mouth.”Suho, meet Jung Danbi.”

Suho turned to look at me at the same time as I did, and he frowned before giving me a curt nod. “Welcome to Tokwan Academy.”

I nodded in reply, not knowing how to reply to that. Before I could though, Suho turned away to look at Mr. Shin.

“That can’t be the reason why you called all of us here right? Just because of a new transferee?” Suho said, his frown still intact.

Mr. Shin opened his mouth to answer when a yelp can be heard from behind me. I turned around to find a horrifying sight. A boy with blonde hair was on fire, and by that I meant literally. His school pants was burning a terrifying orange, and smoke emitted from it. My mouth dropped open as I stared wide eyed at the sight in front of me.

“Hyung!” The blonde haired boy cried out, and beside me I see Suho raising his hands. The next moment, a burst of water shot towards the blonde haired boy, extinguishing the fire almost immediately and drenching him from head to toe in the process.

My eyes moved from him to Suho, and then Suho back to him again.

“Where the hell did that come from?” I found myself saying, louder than I intended to. The twelve boys, I have counted, trained their eyes on me. I looked at all of them, and then inspected the room. There was no evidence of anything that could have caused that burst of water, no fire extinguisher or hose. That definitely can’t be the work of the fire sprinkler either.

“Danbi,” Mr. Shin started but was cut off by Suho.

“It came from me,” Suho said matter-of-factly.”I can control water.”

I stared at the pale-faced boy standing right next to me, and I swear I didn’t blink for the one minute I had spent looking up at him.

“About that…” Mr. Shin said, cutting through the silence, but I didn’t allow him to go any further.

“Did you just say you control water?” I asked him before turning to the principal. “Did he just say he controls water?”

“Yes, I did,” Suho replied.

“Is this a joke?” I said, glaring at him before looking at the principal. “Is this some kind of welcoming ritual you do for new students like me?”

If that was really it, then they sure put lots of effort into it. Getting the student to fly, letting those objects float in the air, and then there’s the fire and the water coming out of nowhere. That must have been the works of some high technological machinery or something.

“Why is she acting like this?” Suho asked, addressing this question to Mr. Shin.

“If you guys would let me explain,” The elderly man said, almost exasperatedly. Suho and I exchanged a glance before turning our attention back to him, nodding to assure him we would.

“Boys, this is Danbi,” He said, addressing the boys. They all had their eyes trained on him.”And like I said, she’s the new student. She also does not know about this school, and our kind.”

This school? Our kind? I opened my mouth to ask him about it when he gave me a look, and I closed my mouth, sealing my lips shut. I need more context, and he was definitely not giving them to me.

“So she doesn’t know anything?” Someone from behind me asked. I didn’t bother turning to look.

Mr. Shin nodded.”Yes. She also has a brother, whom I have called to be brought here. He will be arriving anytime soon.”

As if on cue, the door to the princiapl’s office and in came a confused looking Daehyun. The first thing his eyes landed on was mine, and his face went rigid. As he walked into the room with his eyes fixed on mine, he seem to be asking me what I had done wrong. Why he would think that way I would never know. I was never a bad student.

“Ah, Daehyun, good. Please take a seat next to your sister,” Mr. Shin said, and Daehyun did as he was told.

“What did my sister do, Mr. Shin?” He asked, and I rolled my eyes.

Mr. Shin chuckled. “Your sister did nothing wrong. I just have something to tell you both. As I was telling my boys before.”

He motioned to the boys standing around the room. Daehyun did a quick glimpse at all of them before returning his eyes to the principal.

 “Both of you do not know anything,” He said.

“We do not know anything?” Daehyun repeated.

“What I will tell you guys might come off as a huge shock, and you might not be able to believe me, but I really hope you do,” Mr. Shin said.

Daehyun nodded, a calm expression on his face. He was taking this all pretty well, unlike me.

Mr. Shin took in a deep breath before continuing. “This school is catered for students who are different than others.”

Daehyun didn’t answer to this, and so the principal went on. “In other words, the students here have special powers, and some are not entirely human.”

Again, Daehyun didn’t say anything. I took a peep at him and found him frowning at what the principal had said.

“The reason why both of you are here is because you are special, and might I say, even more important and powerful than the rest of the students here,” Mr. Shin explained.

“More important and powerful?” A voice behind me said, and I assumed it was one of the boys. Mr. Shin raised his hands, a sign that he didn’t not appreciate any interruptions right now. He looked at the two of us with wary and cautious eyes.

“Are you guys handling it alright?” He asked.

Daehyun blinked twice before talking. “So what you’re saying is, this is a supernatural school?”

Mr. Shin nodded. “Something like that, yes.”

“And all the students here have special powers. Some of them might not even be entirely human,” Daehyun said, repeating what had been told to us.

“So if they’re not human, what are they?” I asked.

“Werewolves, vampires, fairies, shape shifters,” He said. “The list goes on.”

“Those are legends,” I said, looking at him incredulously. “Myths.”

“Not anymore, they aren’t. In fact, you’d be surprised to know that our school is full of them,” Mr. Shin said with an upbeat tone. This was not supposed to be the time to use an upbeat tone.

“And you expect us to believe that?” Daehyun questioned, looking just as apprehensive as I was feeling.

“I think you’ll believe us after-“The boy was cut off yet again by Mr. Shin’s raised hand and glare.

However, the boy’s voice triggered of the scene that had happened previously in the gym. The basketballs there were on fire, the objects in the air, the student who had somehow lifted himself twenty feet off the ground. Special powers. The water appearing out of nowhere finally made sense, and Suho’s simple answer that it was from him. I turned towards Suho, who was inspecting the two of us carefully.

“You said you control water,” I said, and he nodded. “Show me.”

Suho searched my eyes before turning to look at Mr. Shin for approval to do so. The principal nodded, and Suho simply raised his hands and before him, right in the middle of the room, appeared two streams of water. The moved around in the air almost as if they were alive, a dragon in the form of liquid dancing gracefully around one another, their long bodies intertwining with each other and not once coming into contact.

“Oh my god,” I whispered, staring at the amazing phenomenon in front of me. After several more seconds, Suho lowered his hands and the liquid flowed towards the ground, pulled along by gravity. However, before they could touch the carpeted ground, they simply disappeared, as if some kind of invisible force was there to drain them off.

“Do you believe me now?” Mr. Shin asked.

I turned to stare at Daheyun who was just as appalled at the scene that had unfold before him.

“All of them have powers like that?” He asked, his eyes glazed and fuzzy. Mr. Shin nodded.”And we do too?”

“No, you don’t,” He said.

“What?” Daehyun said. His reply shook him out of his daze, and I stared on at him, puzzled by his answer.

“But you said this was a school for special people,” I said.

“And you are. But you have no power, and are very much human,” He explained calmly.

“Then how does that make us special?” I asked, getting frustrated at the principal’s vague answers. I wanted straight to the point answers, but he’s beating around the bush, saying things that meant something but something we don’t know and he won’t tell.

“You’re the descendants of the Sibyl,” He said. A collection of gasps can be heard from the boys scattered all around us, and Suho looked on at the two of us with wide eyes. For once, his calm demeanour had been broken by the news the principal had delivered, and replacing that was one of disbelief.

“What?!” Suho exclaimed. “That can’t be! If she was the one, we would have known. We would have sensed her!”

“That is something I don’t understand either,” Mr. Shin replied to Suho’s queries.

“Descendants of the Sibyl? What’s a Sibyl?” Daehyun asked.

“A Sibyl is a woman who can foretell the future, a prophet, in simpler terms. Centuries ago, a Sibyl once saved the home planet where our ancestors lived in. However, with many lives saved, her life was lost in return. She had been granted a wish by the Elysians, a divine group of celestials, and she could have well used it to save herself. But instead, she chose to use that wish on her daughter, wishing that she would carry on the duties and responsibilities of the Sibyl of Sirius, and to save her home planet from danger and destruction.

Not every descendant of the Sibyl would give birth to someone who could tell the prophecies of the future, and only some would be granted with such a gift. It has been two centuries since the last. The both of you are the first in the past two hundred years,” Mr. Shin explained.

I sat rigidly in my seat, trying to process what he had told us. All I got was Sibyl and sacrifice and how we were the first descendants of the Sibyl who had the ‘gift’.

“A Sibyl fortells the future,” Daehyun started, looking at Mr. Shin carefully. “So we can tell the future? That’s our power?”

“Danbi would be able to fortell the future,” Mr. Shin said.”As for you Daehyun, the male descendants of the Sibyl would have to do his duties to protect the female. However, there is a high possibility that you might possess special powers. Some have tried their whole life trying to activate them but to no avail. Let’s just hope you belong to the luckier feel.”

“That’s nice to know,” Daehyun mumbled.

“How are you guys taking this so far?” The principal asked. Considering how we had not started screaming out lungs out or tried to call the police, I guess that is a pretty good reaction for the elder.

“It’s pretty crazy,” Daehyun said.

“Very crazy,” I added.

“But do you believe what I say?” Mr. Shin ask.

“After I just saw him-” I pointed to Suho.”-do that water trick, I guess not.”

“It’s a power, not a trick,” Suho corrected.

“Then what about being the descendants of the Sibyl?” Mr. Shin probed.

“Are you sure we’re the one?” Daehyun questioned back.

Mr. Shin nodded.

“And you said we were important?” Daehyun asked.

Mr. Shin cringed slightly at that. “Yes.”

“How important?” He continued with his questioning.

“Sibyls are known to be the cause of our destruction,” Mr. Shin said. “But they can also be the sole factor to our survival.”

“Our,” I emphasized. “You mean our kind?”

“Our kind, and also the earthlings. The world we live in might be of a different dimension, but it still correlates to Earth. If we are destroyed by the Dark Forces, so will Earth.”

“Dark Forces? Mr. Shin, you don’t mean-.” This time, I turned around to see who had spoken, only to realize that the boys who were once scattered all around the room is now crowded behind me. The boy who spoke had wide and round eyes, his short and petite stature making him look like a little kid.

However, Mr. Shin seemed to have ignored his question. “The Dark Forces is an organization that does, well, bad things. Your parents must have sent you here because of them. You are in safe hands now though, and that is all that matters. The security in this school is tight, and on intruders will be able to come in.”

My heart came to a standstill. “They want to kill us?”

“I won’t use the word kill, but you would be a really useful tool for them,” Mr. Shin tried reassuring me, though I was not in the least bit comforted. “Furthermore, that’s where these twelve boys come into the picture.”

Throughout their whole stay here, the thoughts of why they were here constantly popped up in my mind. At first, I thought they were some kind of student council committee assigned to show me around school, but with all that had been told to me, my thoughts were not the least bit close to the truth.

“They are official and well-trained Paladins, and also your Guardians,” Mr. Shin introduced.

“Guardians?” I mumbled, looking closely at all of them.

“Something like your own bodyguards. They will watch over you and your brother, and will protect you at all cost.”

“At all cost,” I repeated to myself.

“They have been doing this job for four centuries now, while six of them have been doing this for six centuries.”

I nodded, and then suddenly came into conclusion to what Mr. Shin had just said. I swivelled around to look at him. “Four centuries?!”

“And some six centuries, yes,” Mr. Shin said.

My jaw dropped as I looked at the twelve boys in front of me. They all looked around my age, some older, but only by a good five years. “How old are you guys?”

The guy with slightly squarish jaws scowled at me, not in the least bit happy at how I phrased it. ”Can’t you do your math?”

“Jongdae,” Mr. Shin said in a warning tone before turning to look at me apologetically. “Guardians have been protecting the descendants of the Sibyl since the beginning of time. They have pledged themselves to it, and will see that everything goes smoothly. Your life is theirs to protect, even if it mean risking theirs. The both of you need to trust them from now on.”

“Mr. Shin, are you sure this is not a mistake?” The Baekhyun guy asked.

Mr. Shin frowned.”What do you mean, Baekhyun?”

Baekhyun glanced at me, and I swore I saw a slightly disapproving gaze. “The gifted descendants of the Sibyl have a different aura, and we usually are able to sense them even if they are thirty feet away. She’s a huge contrast to the previous ones.”

The other boys nodded in agreement. I wonder what they meant by that and how the other descendants look. Judging by how they were so uncertain and slightly displease, I’m guessing they were much alluring and stunning than I am.

“I have to agree with Baekhyun on this. She’s very different from the others,” Suho said.

I looked at Mr. Shin in confusion. “Different or not, she is still the descendent of Sibyl. She has a very powerful gift, and the Dark Forces are out looking for her. Your job is to protect her.”

“But what if she’s not the one?” A slightly tanned looking boy asked.

I swore the ground rumbled a little. “Are you doubting me?”

I’m not sure who Mr. Shin is, and what his powers are, but seeing how he was the principal of Tokwan Academy, and also how the boys seem to cower slightly by his words, I’m guessing he must be pretty powerful.

“No, sir,” The tanned boy said, ducking his head to avoid eye contact.

“I think this is enough for the two of them. They have a lot of things to take in in one day,” Mr. Shin said, addressing Daehyun and I. “Both of you are free to do whatever you want. You might have to attend different lesson than the other student’s front tomorrow onwards though, to prepare you in case something were to happen.”

I didn’t like how he said that, as if that ‘in case’ Mr. Shin talks about indirectly translates to ‘when’.

“Boys, meet me when class ends at six. I have to discuss some things with you,” He said, and then nodded to dismiss us.

I stood up and trailed after the boys out the door with Daehyun beside me. Once we were outside and the door to Mr. Shin’s room was closed, Suho and another tall looking guy, the one I recognized as the one who could fly, turned to address us.

“The school is a pretty safe place,” Suho said. “So before we start training and lessons tomorrow, try to stay out of trouble.”

Before I can reply, he his heels, following the boys who had already left.

“If that’s their way of protecting us, I don’t think I can trust them,” Daehyun said.

“Why did he look at me when he asked us to stay out of trouble?” I questioned.

“You do kind of look like someone who would cause unnecessary trouble,” Daehyun grinned, looking down at me with bemused eyes.

I scoffed. “You seem to be taking this pretty lightly, as always.”

Daehyun rolled his eyes, taking a few steps forwards and I followed along. “And you seem to be taking this pretty hard, as always.”

I didn’t answer him. And to think I was so upset over moving and changing schools. Compared to what that had just been delivered to me, boarding school seems like something completely ordinary.