It is a quiet afternoon. The sun is just starting to set. Officer Langdon looks at me through the rear view mirror and gives me a smile. I smile back at him tightly and look away. I sigh and look outside. The sky is a mix of pink, orange, and yellow, with a slight hint of evening blue. I wonder if I will be able to see the sky like this in the place where they’re taking me.

I look at the brochure that Nurse Lana has given to me last week. I didn’t know what to feel when I’ve read the stupid piece of paper. I don’t want to go this rehabilitation school. But I also don’t wanna stay at that mental ward.

I don’t belong there. I don’t deserve to be isolated. I didn’t burn our house. I didn’t kill my Dad. But my aunt thinks otherwise. That’s why she left me in the hands of the nurses of the basement ward.

I remember the dank atmosphere of my prison cell in the hospital, with its grey walls and chipped, white tiles. Some people are admitted there to have their depression treated, not make it worse. In a way, I am glad to be out of that hell hole.

What worries me is our destination. What if it’s worse? I only agreed because my dad’s lawyer said it’s what Dad would want me to do. At least, I can still continue studying. For a few hours, I can be normal. Well, as normal as a supposedly mentally-ill, pyromaniac murderer can be.

“You’ll love it there, hon,” Nurse Emma tells me from the passenger seat of the police car.

“I miss my room, Nurse Em,” I sigh.

“I thought you said it’s a prison cell?” She faces me, raising her eyebrow.

My nose wrinkles. “Oh, God, no! Not that room.” I roll my eyes. There is no chance in hell that I’ll miss that stuffy prison cell.

“Aren’t your photo cards enough?” she asks me with mock hurt.

I giggle. I was crying, day in and day out, on my first three days in the mental ward. I was treated as a criminal. Ugh. I shake my head to rid it of the memories of my good-for-nothing, thieving aunt.

Anyways, Nurse Emma came into my room on the fourth day. She handed me a box of chocolate bars. What the freaking hell, right?

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“Maybe this might stop your tears for a while,”she told me before she left.

I didn’t even wanna eat the food they bring me. I guessed that chocolate would do instead of suffering as I eat another bowl of oily soup. That night, I ate half of my soggy bread. Maybe the staff thought it was progress, compared to my untouched food for the past three days, that’s why they didn’t bother making me eat some more.

I opened my first chocolate bar. I gasped, staring at the photo card wide-eyed and grinning. Park freaking Chanyeol is staring back at me, his curved mouth mischievous. It’s as if his eyes are telling me, ‘I’ve got a secret.’

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I rummage my camouflage backpack for the precious photo cards of my babies. I grin, seeing the hint of a smile on Suho’s lips. I grab my cards, the only possessions I have during my three-month stay at the nutcase ward.

“Thank you so much for these, Nurse Em,” I thank her. I am so grateful for these photo cards. They manage to make me smile when I was staying in, perhaps, the most depressing place in the world.

“Thank you for making her shut up,” Officer Langdon butts in sarcastically. I roll my eyes at him. “Wait. She didn’t really shut up, did she?”

“Yep,” Nurse Emma agrees with him. “Basically, she turned from a wailing ball of tears to a squealing ball of fangirling.”

“What’s that song you always sing again? Mega Wolf?” Officer Langdon wags his eyebrows at me through the rear view mirror, grinning.

“It’s just Wolf!” I correct him for the 890273th time.

“They all sound like chingchong to me,” Nurse Emma says.

“Racist,” I mutter, pouting. Both of them chuckle.

“I’m gonna miss that pout. And questions like, ‘Hey, Officer Langdon. Isn’t Bacon so hot in this photo card?’” Officer Langdon tells me.

“It’s Baekhyun! Baek. Hyun. And he is hot! Look at him!” I show them my Baekhyun photo card.

“I know he’s hot. Well, you told me that he is. You asked me seventeen times,” he says.

“You’re exaggerating. I did no such things.” I roll my eyes.

“Oh, wait. No. You said that Wu Yi something guy is cute seventeen times, and Kris, twenty-two times.”

“Kris and Wu Yi Fan is the same person!” I huff. Officer Langdon and Nurse Emma laugh. Their pastime is aggravating my fangirl within.

“Langdon,” Nurse Em chastises Officer Langdon. “It’s pronounced as ‘Ku-ri-su’.” They laugh again.

“Oh, sorry. I forgot. And Shi-yu-min, right?”

“I hate both of you,” I grumble, looking out of the window. I don’t stay mad for long because Officer Langdon turns on the CD player, and my EXO starts to sing ‘Baby, Don’t Cry’.

The sun is sinking slowly at the horizon, the sky’s pink and orange hue disappearing with it. The song lulls me to sleep. My eyelids start to feel heavy. I see the first star of the night, wishing that I’ll be in a much better place than the mental ward.

“Boy is she in for a big surprise.” I hear Officer Langdon say before I closed my eyes. Though I don’t know if I’m dreaming or not, because I see Nurse Emma fill Officer Langdon’s tumbler with water coming out of her right hand.

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“I’ll miss both of you so much,” I tell my two chaperones as I hug them.

We have safely arrived in front of Nixoncrest University. I really wanna ask Nurse Emma about that water-from-her-hand thing but I decide against it. Maybe I was just dreaming. Besides, they might take me back to the madhouse, thinking that I’m insane after all.

“Here.” Officer Langdon hands me a paper bag. I look at what’s inside the bag. There are unmistakable rolls of posters.

“No freaking way! Thank you!” I hug him once again.

“You don’t even know what kind of posters they are. There’s a chance that they’re , you know.” He smirks at me.

“Or the posters at the ward,” Nurse Em says mischievously.

“I know you guys love me enough to not do that,” I say, raising my eyebrow. I squeal, unable to keep my y façade.

“Even if you love EXO more than us.” Officer Langdon grins.

“Robin Young?” The office secretary interrupts us. “The dean will see you now.”

“I guess this is goodbye, then,” I sigh. “I’ll see you soon,” I promise them.

“Oh, you will,” Officer Langdon tells me, his eyes glinting.

I roll my eyes at him and chuckle. I take my paper bag of posters and walk towards the dean’s office.

“Een,” I hear Nurse Emma say. I turn around to face her. “You weren’t dreaming.” A ball of water emerges from her hand and it pops, splashing her white uniform. But it didn’t get wet. It’s as dry as the bread in the mental ward.

“Show off,” I hear the secretary mumble.

Nurse Emma and Officer Langdon exit the room, leaving me with my mouth agape.

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I knock at the door of the dean’s office, wary. I seriously did not just imagine what happened. A freaking bubble of water just popped and splashed on Nurse Em but she wasn’t even wet. What’s even weirder is that the freaking bubble came from her hand! What the hell is going on?!

“Come in,” a male voice says from inside the room.

I enter the room, still a bit shaken from the events that just transpired. There is something wrong with this school.

“On the contrary, there’s nothing wrong. Something is just different,” the man, which presume is the dean, says.

It takes me a moment to realize that he just answered my unspoken question. Blood drains out of my face. What the actual .

“I’d prefer you not to use that word in my presence, Miss Young.” The dean smiles at me. Major creep. Who are you?

“As you can see,” he says, gesturing at the name plate on his table. “I’m Dr. Horace McLaren, dean of the College of Transcendent Capabilities.”

What. The. Actual. F— Freak. There is no such college. I’ve read it on the brochure. I know that this is a school for weirdoes like me but there is no freaking way that there is such a college.

“There is, Miss Young, and can you please talk to me properly?” Dr. McLaren says, gesturing for me to sit down on one of the chairs in front of his table.

“Okay, fine.” It’s not like I was speaking to him in another language. Konichiwa, baka.

“I believe it’s ‘Konbanwa’ since it’s now evening.” He smiles kindly at me.

I gasp, covering my mouth with my hands. “Sorry.” I forgot that he can read my mind. What the freaking — “Sorry.”

“You already apologized, Miss Young,” he says to me, pushing his eyeglasses to the bridge of his nose.

“Didn’t you hear what I just said—er, I mean, thought?” I ask him nervously.

“I can only read minds when I want to, Miss Young, unlike my kin who can hear every thought,” he explains to me.

“Excuse me, Mister—”

“Doctor,” he interrupts me and smiles kindly at me. Jeez. Creepy. Oops.

“—Dr. McLaren,” I correct myself. “I don’t really give a f— I don’t really care about your kin and their freaky psychic powers. I wanna know why the hell I’m here. How the freak did Nurse Emma make that water ball?! Am I going crazy? Are you even real?”

“I am very much real, Miss Young. The College of Transcendent Capabilities exists, too. And so does your fire capabilities.”

I look at him, my eyes wide. “Excuse me?” Fire? Fire?!

“Your fire capabilities, Miss Young. What do people call it these days?” he asks, thinking.

Pyromania. No. No. No.

“Yes. Pyromania,” Dr. McLaren tells me. “But it has such a bad reputation. If it wasn’t for fire, we’d still be eating raw food until now. Without fire, or heat perhaps, there won’t be a sun—”

“My dad wouldn’t have died,” I say, unable to filter my thoughts. What’s the use? Dr. Psychic here might have been listening anyways.

“You didn’t kill him, Miss Young,” he assures me, squeezing my hand.

“I did,” I mutter. Sharp stabs of pain lances through me as I remember the ashes that were my father. I charred his smiling face that never failed to cheer me up.

“Ah, yes.” Dr. McLaren lets go of my hand. He rubs his hand and blows it. “It wasn’t your fault that you were having a particularly horrible nightmare, Miss Young.”

“But I still killed him.”

“You most certainly did not,” he tells me reassuringly. “Can you please raise your hands for a while?”

I raise my hands and I see two clear burn marks on Dr. McLaren’s table.

“I’m sorry, Dr. McLaren,” I apologize to him. I feel the blood rush to my face. I’m officially a freaking weirdo.

“You’re not, Miss Young,” Dr. McLaren sighs. He removes the piles of books and papers on his office desk, gradually revealing burn marks from probably years before.

He points to a burn mark on the lower left corner of his desk. It’s more of a drawing. A drawing of an eye. My notebooks are filled with doodles like this one. My dad said that my mom used to draw them often, too.

“Is this..” My voice trails away as I trace my mother’s drawing with my index finger. We even make the same flicks for the eyelashes.

“I asked her to draw the other one but—”

“She couldn’t draw it with the same proportions as the first one,” I finish his sentence absent-mindedly.

“She was a great student.” I look at Dr. McLaren. He’s smiling ruefully. I bet he knows how my mom died. I bet he knows that the ocean swallowed her up. Swallowed her up during my 2^nd birthday.

“She died on my birthday,” I mumble. I don’t really remember my mom but her face still haunts me in my dreams, the water crushing her lungs. I don’t remember her but I never forget her either. “They both did.”