This choice: The dorm building reserved for troublemakers • Go Back...Chapter #5The dorm building reserved for troublemakers by: Gigajules   Melona practically jumped out of her skin as a loud crash sounded next to her, voilently forcing her out of her thoughts. She rubbed her ear, still slightly ringing from the sharp sound, and looked to the source of the noise. Just a few feet away from her lay the shattered remains of a glass bottle, the kind used for beverages normally not allowed on campus. She glanced up in the relative direction of where it most likely came from, and in an instant recognized where she had ended up. House Bracht. The one dorm facility worse than where Melona herself stayed.
The only reason Melona had dodged that particular privilege was because these dorms were reserved for those not trusted to behave in a civilized manner in regular housing. Students who cause enough trouble to be expelled but are considered to still have potential can be offered to stay here instead. This is because the dorms were initially built to host rehabilitative services to help troubled students instead of just kicking them out. But whichever headmaster that had been altruistic enough to establish such a thing had clearly not been thoughtful enough to anticipate human greed, assuming altruism had ever been the motivation in the first place. Over the years the budget dedicated to these dorms was whittled away. Headmasters will either remove facility after facility, with the argument that troublemakers shouldn't be "rewarded" with rehabilitation, or they will be kind enough to not take from the troubled, but spineless enough to not rock the boat by reinstating anything. The features that remain, a monthly group counseling service and a volunteer buddy program, only remain due to the consistent efforts and struggles of the few who actually do care, and are entirely inadequate to address the full scope of the problems the majority of it's residents face.
Melona was well aware of this place and it's struggles, moreso than the usual student or citizens. After all, her father, a major donor to the academy, was incredibly fixated on making sure not a single brass coin of the money he sent out of the kindness of his heart went to those in need of kindness, to the point where, even when Melona was too young to fully understand what he was even talking about, she would listen to lecture after unhinged lecture about making sure no one gets a "free ride through life." Melona would ask her father if he didn't also qualify as receiving a "free-ride," given that his lifestyle is made up of spending generations of money he didn't have to lift a finger for, but by the time she recognized this contradiction she understood the futility of pointing it out.
It's because of this that she emphasized greatly with the Bracht residents, but not enough to want to talk to them or volunteer as a buddy. She simply had too much on her plate, at least that's what she told herself as an excuse to stop thinking about it. As much as she logically knew to be nicer, everyone and everything in her life had instructed her to avoid people like those students, and while on some level she knew this wasn't a good thing, she had nothing to lose by following these instructions and a million more problems to deal with if she defied them more than extending a shred of compassion. One that, at the very least, Melona was self-aware enough to know was essentially worthless.
To the Bract Residents' credit, she could easily deduce the bottle wasn't purposely thrown at her. The only open window showed someone facing away, leaning their elbows on the frame. They had most likely just knocked it over by accident and didn't hear it breaking over the cacophony of whatever party they were a part of. It was still careless and dangerous, Melona had almost been hit by it after all, but she was in no hurry to call them out on it. She was, however, in a hurry to leave this place. While unlikely she feared getting into some kind of trouble. But as she about to leave...
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