Drop Off

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar sauntered into the publications room as if he belonged there. He wasn't on the yearbook staff, and he wasn't part of the school newspaper, and so he rarely had reason to go into their shared office, but today he was on a mission: The previous issue of the school newspaper had run an ad asking for drawing submissions, stating that they would be running an art contest. 

He had never been shy about showing his work to other people, and so he had immediately begun riffling through his portfolio for something to submit. It was unfortunate, he thought, that they had specifically instructed for art to be dropped off in person, in a physical format; so many of his illustrations were done digitally and without concern for things such as how they would look printed. They were made for the screen, not for print. And anyway, emailing would have been easier. 

But if he wanted a shot at entering the contest then he needed to follow the instructions, and so he had located a drawing of a woman in a cowboy hat riding a dinosaur that he had drawn and colored in his drawing pad. 

It was signed with his name, and tucked into a manila folder so it wouldn't get damaged. He hoped they would return the original copy to him once the contest was over; he rather liked how this had turned out. But if not, he would at least buy a copy of the newspaper, and he would be able to look at it in print in whatever issue the contest ran in. 

He shut the door behind him and scanned the room for the drop off box. His face fell when he noticed that there was someone else in the room already. Normally this would be cause for joy, because he loved people! But Amber Ignis was...

well, he had wanted to be her friend, back when he had first arrived at Hammel, but she had made it clear she wanted nothing to do with him. 


He offered her an awkward smile and shifted nervously. "D'you know where we're supposed to drop off art contest submissions?" He asked, his question covering the soft click behind him as some well-meaning person locked the door, thinking that the room was empty. 

[Amber Ignis]

Amber was not usually the type of girl to get involved in any sort of school contest, but new year, new Amber. This was a motto she kept telling herself to live by, but continuously failed. Every act of productive behavior seemed to be closely followed by bad actions. She decided to read more – she ended up almost lighting a guy on fire outside the bookstore. She decided to decorate her new home – she ended up…well…she was sure the mall wouldn’t be so happy with what transpired in one of their dressing rooms.

It seemed that no matter how good Amber tried to be, the bad habits always caught up. But she figured if she kept telling herself she was going to be different, one day it would come true. For example, what harm could come from Amber entering an art contest? She didn’t really care if she won. She was just happy it gave her an excuse to draw something. Amber’s medium was charcoal pencils. For the contest she decided to draw a close-up of a 1920’s woman sipping a glass of wine. It was simple, but artistic.

Amber entered the publications room with her drawing pad tucked under her arm. She didn’t have anywhere safe to store the drawing so she just kept it in the notebook until she made it to the drop off slot. She saw a brightly colored sign that read “ART SUBMISSION DROPOFFS!” over a locked box at the back of the room. At the top of the box was a slot to drop in the artwork. Amber walked over, rolled her eyes a little at the overly flamboyant sign, carefully tore her piece out of her drawing pad, and dropped it in the slot.

That’s when curiosity got the best of her. She had turned away from the submission box, but almost immediately turned back around. She needed to see the other drawings. She started pulling and jiggling the lock with as much force as she could when she heard the door behind her open.

Her heart lurched as she spun around hoping her new companion didn’t catch her. To her dismay, Sunar Chugani stood before her. Great. He was that little annoying kid who irritated the crap out of Amber. She had no idea why he wanted to be her friend so badly, but she shut him down pretty hard. She hadn’t seen him much since her first year, but now here they were stuck in the same room. Just then she heard she same click as Sunar had. Now they actually were stuck.

Amber ran over to the door and ferociously jiggled the handle. “No, no, no, no,” she whimpered. She pulled the handle, but to no avail. She even banged on the door a little crying, “Help!” But her efforts were left unanswered. She turned back to look at Sunar with a shrug and a forced smile. Here she was again – good behavior turned bad.

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar had heard the click, but hadn't immediately registered what it meant. As a result he felt a flash of disappointment when Amber literally ran to the door. She hadn't wanted to be his friend for whatever mystifying reason, but he didn't think his company was so bad as to warrant abandoning even the pretense of civility. 

But when the door failed to open it dawned on him. The click had been the door locking. Oh.

"It's locked?" He looked between Amber and the door, mentally calculating whether or not it would be worth crossing the space between them in order to try the door himself. But no; she wouldn't have yelled for help if the door were unlocked. 

"You don't have teleportation I guess, He sighed, squinting up at the ceiling as if it might contain some help. He had left his cellphone in his dorm room, so he couldn't even text one of his friends. 

"Maybe there's a trapdoor?" He suggested without much hope. Hammel wasn't exactly Hogwarts, he doubted there were random secret passages around the school. But then again, maybe there were. It wasn't like he had ever looked before.

[Amber Ignis]

Amber slid to the floor in front of the door in defeat. The one person she would rather not be stuck in a room with, but yet here they were. It wasn't even like she had much to hate about the guy. He had just annoyed her once, she got testy, and now any chance of friendship would require Amber admitting she was wrong - she didn't know how to do that.

She didn't respond to Sunar's comment about teleportation. She figured he meant it to be rhetorical. At least that was what she told herself in order to avoid much conversation. But then the spastic little nerd started looking for a trapdoor. Sometimes Amber couldn't control the expressions on her face. Right now she knew her countenance held a bit of a judgmental grimace. "What do you think this is Hogwarts or something?" Little did the redhead know that Sunar has literally been thinking the same thought. It went to show that sometimes even sworn enemies could find a common ground.

While still on the floor, Amber took her phone out of her pocket to try and call someone, but to her dismay the phone's battery gave out just as she illuminated the screen. She ran through options of how they would get out, and somehow she found herself landing on Sunar's trapdoor theory. She quickly shook the thought off and decided to try and make nice. "Well...while we're stuck...there is the submission box." She nodded to the obnoxiously bright sign at the back of the room. She bet someone like Sunar would love that.

[Sunar Chugani]

"It's kind of like Hogwarts. Only less...castle-y," Sunar waved his manila folder vaguely to indicate the very non-castle room they were in at that very moment. "And you can't learn all the powers, only the one you have. Or ones, I guess." 

He only had one, but some people were lucky enough to have two. He wasn't sure if Amber was one of them or not; he hadn't tried to find out what her power was, since she had made it clear she didn't even want to talk to him. 

At least she was generous enough to point him in the direction of the submission box. "Wow! Thank you!" He very nearly ran to the box, carefully placing his submission on top of the others. "Nice sign. I can't believe I didn't notice it when I came in." 

Perhaps if he hadn't been distracted by the fact that Amber was there he would have seen it; but she was just a little bit intimidating. 

"I guess we're stuck here until someone finds us," He mused, flopping down onto the ground (although keeping well away from Amber) now that he'd submitted his entry, "Unless there really is a secret passageway. Or one of the telepaths overhears us thinking about being locked in. Do you think they listen for that sort of thing?" 

[Amber Ignis]

Amber heard the jealousy in his voice as he mentioned other metas having more than one power. She realized she wasn't even sure what his power was. All she knew is that she certainly didn't need more than her one power. It was interesting how she found herself in a pit of self-loathing for being a meta while someone like Sunar reveled in the idea of having more[i/].

And just as she assumed, the overactive young boy complimented the brightly colored sign. Amber had never met someone so unlike herself. But no matter how much Amber tried to point out their differences and give Sunar the cold shoulder, he seemed to always bounce back just as perky as ever.

Make nice, Amber commanded herself. "I think I would if I was a telepath. Like that psychiatrist, Dr. Neville? You think he listens to his patients thoughts? I mean if he does I think it kind of defeats the purpose don't you?" Okay, maybe now she was playing a little too[i/] nice, but sometimes Amber impulsively speaks about things that are on her mind. Like the fact that she was told by her parents she needed to go see the school shrink.

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar considered the question about Doctor Neville. "I dunno, do you think he can help whether he listens or not? Maybe telepathy is...is...." He gestured vaguely as he tried to recall what his trainer had said about how some powers could be controlled and others couldn't. He had said that Sunar's power was voluntary, but others were....were...."Involuntary. You can't help hearing with your ears, maybe you can't help hearing with your mind, either." 

None of his friends had telepathy, so he couldn't ask any of them. And it had never occurred to him to ask Doctor Neville about his powers, or anything else about himself. The psychiatrist was the sort of person you asked help from, not someone you asked personal questions of. 

"But maybe that would be helpful, if he does listen. You know, what if there's something you can't talk about? You just can't form the words, but you want help, then you can just think about it and he'll know and be able to help you. That would be pretty useful." 

For other people. For Sunar's part, it was rare for there to be something he wasn't willing to talk about. And if there was something? He would just talk about everything else and hope everyone was suitably distracted so they didn't notice. 

And that largely worked out for him. 

[Amber Ignis]

Amber was stunned that she had allowed herself to start such a personal dialogue with Sunar of all people. What was she thinking? The last person she wanted to know her fear of being mentally probed and prodded by the school psychiatrist was the annoying little boy who sat before her.

But sitting here now - one on one - it wasn't so bad. He didn't seem to be looking for her approval like he had in the past. They were just talking and it was alright. "I don't think telepathy could be involuntary." She made sure to still keep a hard and distant tone to her voice. "Don't you think their heads would explode? Hearing so many thoughts?"

She also thought about how Sunar said Dr. Neville might listen to hear what someone isn't able to talk about. "But what about stuff they don't want[i/] to talk about?" she rebutted. "Why should he choose when and how someone opens up? We should get to on our terms not his." Amber immediately realized that by saying 'we' she grouped herself into the people who go and see Neville. Suddenly this wasn't hypothetical and Sunar could very well realized that she brought ip this topic out of fear for herself. To break up the tension she felt, she gave one loud bang to the door behind her while yelling "Help!" once more before falling silent again.

[Sunar Chugani]

Sunar's eyes widened in surprise at Amber's vehemence. "Do you think he listens without asking first?"

He had difficulty imagining someone as nice as Dr. Neville seemed to be would do something like that. There was some expectation of privacy even among high school students, and he was sure that the school psychiatrist would be one of the front line defenders.

"That's probably unethical, isn't it?"

Maybe not. The behaviors adults considered ethical or unethical didn't always make sense to him.

[Amber Ignis]

Amber gave Sunar an annoyed look. “Yeah…that’s what I was getting at.” As soon as the words left her mouth she coughed and looked away from him. Be nice. After a short pause she kept talking. “But yeah…I guess it would be unethical or whatever.”


She was trying hard to be nice, but his big wide eyes and ‘eager to please’ personality kept rubbing her the wrong way. She didn’t understand why genuinely nice people annoyed her, but she didn’t push the issue.

“Sorry, I’m being snippy or whatever. I guess if we’re going to be stuck here for god knows how long I should…be nice.” Maybe if she said what she was thinking, she would succeed.

[Sunar Chugani]

"It's all right!" Sunar assured her hurriedly, "Who wouldn't be snippy stuck in an office? Who knows when we'll even get out! Maybe we'll miss curfew.


He said that last part in hushed tones, as if missing curfew were the absolute worst scenario he could think of.

"But someone'll come get us tomorrow for sure! Even if they don't know we're in here, it's not that likely nobody will need this space. So even if we have to sleep here, it's not like we'll starve or anything."