New students find their room

Alexei would never admit it out loud, but maybe three years in the care of a very rich guardian did make him a little bit spoiled. Making his way to his designated dormitory room, his mind was mostly occupied with thoughts about how he'd have to adjust to living there. If he had the choice, he'd bring his whole house and just plop it in some empty lot on Manta Carlos, but he couldn't. That's why he was lugging a suitcase, a backpack and a laptop bag, full of what little of his home he could bring.

Bare essentials, he remembered telling himself, Just bring the bare essentials. Clothes, toiletries, communication devices, books - Yes, books. He couldn't live without books. Books uwere better than people for two reasons: One, books are often better conversationalists and two, when you're done with a book, it's legal to set it on fire.

Fire. He dropped his suitcase in front of his dorm room's door and checked his front pocket. The lighter was still there. Fire was also essential to his life. Fire was beautiful, dangerous, reliable, unpredictable, and few things ever got in her way. Just don't let your roommates know what you think of her, or they'll think you're totally psycho.

He opened the door. I'm not psycho. I'm 100% mentally healthy, ask a doctor. Everyone has habits, and likewise, I have mine. His eyes fall to the older boy standing in the room. Oh, right. Roommates. After an awkward second or two of silence, he dropped his bags to greet his roommate.

"Alexei," he said, reaching out one hand.

He couldn't help but notice a vase with flowers in it, roses, to be precise. Roses were his favorite flowers. But they looked prettiest when on fire.

Generally, Alexei didn't like physical contact with other people. There was just a strange sense of cognitive dissonance when you're physically connected to another living, breathing thing while not having any other form of connection. But he liked shaking hands. Shaking hands made him feel powerful. Hands are full of nerve endings and are very sensitive parts of the body. I could just grab tightly onto his hand and raise the temperature past boiling—

"Wonderful meeting you, Viktor." Viktor? Victor? The English language was ridiculous, with all the idiosyncrasies in spelling and pronunciation and naming. Alexei was quite fluent in English, after studying it for three years, but he lived all his life in countries that didn't primarily use the language.

He realized he was still holding onto Victor's hand, and quickly let go. Social interaction and friendships were new to Alexei, and had expected he'd never have to understand them or go through them. But that was when he was in a world that failed to accept those like him. Unless he wanted to be alone forever, it was the perfect opportunity to break out of the mold the outside world confined him to.

But what was there to say? Was it appropriate to inquire about his powers? Was that how introductions worked in an environment like this? He casually dropped his baggage near one of the beds and sat down, "I, uh, transferred here from Germany, but I grew up in Russia. 9th Grade," he started piling the books from his backpack beside him on the bed, "I'm, uh, pyrokine— well, thermokinetic technically..." his voice trailed off to a mumble before regaining its previous volume, "I burn things. Basically. You?"

His eyes fell back to the vase with roses. They could be fake. But that's entirely fine, fabric roses burn well too. Plastic ones burn okay, but they release toxic gases into the atmosphere, which is not a nice way to impress roommates. Unable to resist himself, he pointed at the flowers, "Are those yours?"

A control over time? Time. Now that was power. Alexei paused for a moment to think on it. If he had control over time, he wouldn't need to pause for a moment to think. He'd make the world pause around him, and think for as long as he needed. If he started a fire inappropriately, he could stop time and quickly snuff it before any significant damage. What power. Since the dawn of time, mankind has been obsessed with time, how each one of us has so little of it.

This boy, though, he had all the time in the world. That explained to some extent the air of wisdom he was getting from him. Tenth Grade? So physically, he was 16 or 17, but counting extended time or shortened time, how old was he really?

When Victor answered him on the topic of the flowers, a corner of Alexei's brain lit up in glee. He wouldn't mind me burning it then. Well, he didn't have to know at all that I'll burn it. He just wouldn't mind it disappearing sometime later, I expect. Oh, such a shame that the flowers would just sit there, no one truly appreciating their beauty.

"You said you grew up in Russia, what was it like?" he heard Victor ask.

"Oh, Russia," Alexei started, eyes still fixated on the flowers, "If there's anything I remember vividly about Russia, it's the cold." Of course, the cold. How could he ever forget the unbearable winter nights in the city? Those nights of crouching in an alley, lighting matches as if they warded off the cold, staring into them hoping the last thing he saw before he died was fire.

Fire. He remembered the little tongues of fire, crawling up the matchsticks and scorching is fingers, but he loved how they glowed and danced and burned. He could feel the heat building up at his fingertips, but he quickly waved away the thoughts.

"And the architecture. Bright, colorful, the city's always a feast for the eyes," he continued, keeping away from the topic of fire or cold, "Nothing in Germany ever quite matched the beauty of Saint Petersburg."

"I'm curious about your power, though," Alexei quickly changed the topic, remembering all the inquiries he'd conjured upon hearing about Victor's control over time, "By changing the speed... Does that count making time stop? Or go backwards even?"

Jake shuffled his way down the corridor for his dormitory, his small backpack on his back and guitar in it's casing in his hand. He was always bad at geography but he had never even heard of Manta Carlos before. He wasn't worried about being in a new place, however, he moved around frequently, from foster home to foster home. What he was more concerned about was the people. He expected he would have to share a room but he had no idea with who. What, even. The whole idea of the supernatural seemed stupid before his first shift, and he hadn't met anyone else that was beyond what was deemed normal for a human.

Kids from his care home would always poke fun at him for "knowing things" which made them see him as a freak. The psychiatrist had told Jake that he had no psychic ability, only that he read the body language of others to understand their emotions. Jake knew he was wrong. He didn't just know what people were feeling, he could feel their emotion, feel the pain or excitement that they were going through. And the dreams, apparently they were just lies, coincidences. He kept these things to himself nowadays.

Finding his dormitory, he knocked on the door and stumbled in. Inside, the room was much bigger than the shabby little bedsit with bunk beds that he had imagined. There was two people (16 and 17, maybe) mid-conversation. "Erm ... hi! Am I in the right room, I'm so lost."