The door finally opened with a click, allowing Eli access to his new room for the next three years. It had taken a while to carry both pieces of luggage up the stairs. With the elevator being out of service and having to climb three flights of stairs, his bad leg was just screaming at him. Of course, his parents just stood back and watched. It's not like he expected them to help. His father was a tall, imposing man with short brown hair and hollow brown eyes. He treated Eli like a disposable tool only needed to bolster his image and self-worth. Though his mother was worse, a woman of average height with long auburn hair and icy blue eyes, she didn’t even acknowledge his existence most days. She hadn’t for a long time.

  Eli took a quick look around the apartment. The paper he had received indicated that room B would be his room during his stay here at college. Although compact, the room was cozy in its demeanour: warm brown paint covered the walls, a desk, a charming old-style wardrobe, a bedside table, and a bed decorated the room. The room was about 12 feet wide by 15 feet deep, a vast improvement over where he lived at home.

  His room at home was a small 8-foot-deep by 8-foot-wide glorified broom closet with just enough room for his bed and a rack he had hung along the opposite wall to hang his clothes. He had also managed to fit a computer desk and a PC inside.

  His parents walked into the apartment, sat in the shared kitchen area, and watched him unpack.

  “Alright boy get to unpacking, your mother and I will stick around for a few minutes before heading out.”

  “...”

  “Diane, are you sure we should send the child here? Even the elevator was broken.”

  “Come on, it can't be that bad of a college. I have heard that they have a well developed science and art department.”

  “Yeah but seriously who names their college Pickle?”

  I.C.K.L.E or the Institute of Creative Knowledge and Learning Excellence, most people just short-handed the acronym to pickle. It wasn’t the worst college to attend: they had a well-developed biology department specialized in exploring and documenting Xenos biology and a highly regarded Art program. The college was different, however, as the first year was comprised of 12 compulsory courses that covered pretty much everything you would have if you graduated grade 12. The school allowed anyone to apply. It was there to establish an academic baseline for all students. The second year was up to the individual students, who could branch out and try whatever they wanted. They still needed eight credits for the year, but as long as they had those by the end of the year, it didn’t really matter. In the third year, students would pick their major and pursue it from there.

  After unpacking the few items he was allowed to bring from home: his clothes, some basic essentials, and a small ptop that he had convinced his parents to allow him to bring. Eli had a decent typing speed compared to his terrible writing. He demonstrated this by writing with his right hand instead of his usual left. He had also managed to smuggle a few of his secret items from home. He didn’t want to risk them being found afterall. While the central air vent in his room was probably the st pce his parents would check, he still didn’t want them to find the small collection of gender-bender doujins, manga and Xenos biology books he had. To them, these things were basically contraband.

  “Alright we will be heading out now, I better hear good things come midterms. You have to catch up with your older brother afterall. He’s a wyer and running his own firm now and he’s only 20.”

  His mother stayed silent as the two of them left the apartment, not even looking at him to acknowledge his existence. Eli let out a sigh of relief just as his father popped his head back in.

  “Also it’s high time you man up and get a girlfriend, you make us look bad by not having even kissed a girl yet. Oh and it better not be one of those queers and especially not one of those Deviants” After that, his father allowed the door to close.

  Eli walked over and made sure the door was closed and locked. His father had always been closed-minded around LGBT individuals, especially around Xenos. While his father referred to them as Deviants, the proper term was Xenos. These people had begun to manifest around the world after what has commonly been referred to as “the Advent,” when a meteor shower rger than any other pelted the Earth, followed by a ripple that passed around the globe almost like a shimmer in the air. After this, multiple peoples began to manifest powers.

  Now referred to as the Xenos gene manifestation, these individuals would go on to both save and destroy parts of the world. That was 50 years ago. Nowadays, around 80-90 percent of the popution has a power of some kind, and they manifest their Xenos gene around the age of 15. There are only two proven methods to manifest a Xenos gene: exposure to other Xenos individuals or external stimuli reted to Xenos powers.

  Eli went back to unpacking his things. It didn’t take long as there wasn’t much to unpack before there was a knock at the door before it opened with a distinct *click*

  “Hello, anyone here?”

  Eli walked into the kitchen and was greeted by the sight of a tall beanpole of a girl with long bck hair and vibrant emerald eyes. She was dressed in a bck crop top and a skirt with studs and chains on it. This was complemented by a lovely purple satchel sitting around her hip with a small pin on it. That was odd. Eli could have sworn that the coed dorms were on the other side of campus. No way his parents would have allowed him to stay in those afterall.

  “Oh… high there, this is the men’s dorm, are you lost?”

  “Nope, this is definitely the room I’m supposed to be in. Let’s just say I pissed off the head of the housing department who is very… old fashioned.”

  “Um… sure”

  Eli was a little intimidated by this tall girl who towered over him. Eli was used to people being taller than him, being all of 5’4”, but this girl was easily over 6 feet tall.

  “Well there stranger, got a name? My name is Amy and it seems that we will be roommates for the foreseeable future.”

  “Elliot, Elliot Rivers, though I prefer to go by Eli.”

  “Oh, any particur reason?”

  “I don’t know. It’s never felt right, you know? It’s just too stuffy and feels like it doesn’t fit.”

  “Oh, I understand alright. Well, I still have to unpack,” Amy said while gesturing to her luggage, which was still sitting in the hallway. She had five rge bck and purple luggage cases, the biggest one featuring the same blue, pink, and white fg pin, as well as a rge stuffed shark.

  “Yeah you definitely have lots of stuff to unpack, would… um… would you like a hand?”

  “Don’t worry, I got this.” Amy said with a smug grin as she managed to lift all five bags of luggage and awkwardly shuffled into her room. She tried to look cool doing so but definitely failed in the process.

  With a smile, Eli turned around and returned to his room to pack his clothes into the wardrobe. After opening the door of the wardrobe, Eli noticed a prominent full-body mirror on the interior of one of the doors. Eli could only grimace while quickly looking away, no one wanted to see that. Thankfully, the mirror wasn’t set into the door but was only hanging on the back of it and with a small bit of fanangulling Eli was able to take the mirror down and prop it against the back wall, mirror side towards the wall. After this, Eli pced his “contraband” in the bottom drawer and covered it in his clothes before closing the wardrobe and booting up his ptop for the evening.