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   Over the course of two months, Syrica had settled into life at Bostatin. It was less stressful as her life primarily shifted into oppressive monotony, however it only served to highlight the core of it to her; an unrelenting and hollow existence. She slept on a cot in the nurse's office, and trained her body to wake up before dawn so that she would never be caught while asleep. Initially, she slept in the storage room, but Syrica quickly abandoned that after discovering that she could bypass the nurse's office’s lock by popping the latch through the door gap. She usually used the back of her knife, which was something she’d grabbed from her kitchen before she ran away.
   Syrica loved the early hours when the world around her lay still, with the silence and serenity that accompanied them. Those moments, however fleeting, were hers alone. But even within those hours, she couldn’t escape the necessities of survival. She needed food, and she could only steal when the school was empty like this. After brushing her teeth with some supplies stolen from the nurse’s office, she’d head to the cafeteria and take just enough that nobody would notice anything. She didn't want to steal too much anyway, just as much as her body needed. She had stashed away some non-perishable food as well in the storage room though, for when she really couldn’t take the hunger. She’d also learned that drinking a lot of water helped to push back the hunger pangs.

She'd occasionally seen some of the students at Bostatin emptying plates with morsels of food still on them into the trash disposal and it always left her feeling bitter, but she knew that it was their food, not hers. She could eat the food in the trash, but... she was not going to stoop to that. Why should she eat out of the trash when she could just eat the food before that? But it wasn't hers. She... she didn't know what was right.
   Usually she'd mainly pick fruits because it was less conspicuous. They were left out in a basket for the week, whereas the other food was taken out of an icebox every day, so the specific amount left would be seen more often, she reasoned. Plus, the room to the icebox was locked. While she'd taught herself to pick a lock, something that she was fairly proud of— especially since the library didn’t have any lock-picking books— she wasn't very good at it, so it took her a while.
   Today she got two apples, a banana, a mango and a small loaf of bread. She'd save the apples for later in her pockets, but she ate everything else then. She had trouble eating all of it, but she forced it down because her body needed it. By the time she was done, she’d usually have a margin of a few hours before people started to arrive, which was how she liked it. She’d memorized most of the teachers, when they’d arrive and with roughly how much variance, since teachers were almost always the first. When classes started, she’d usually sit in on them, since there wasn’t that much to do. Until then, she’d usually go to the library. Early on, she used to go there to avoid thinking about what she was doing with her life. She still went out of habit, but she couldn’t avoid that anymore. Because this was her life, and, well… it was nothing.
   She felt so hollow at that thought. What was she even doing here? As of late she’d realized it was futile to keep pushing the thought down, so she’d just been sitting with it. And it killed her that it was so apparent to her, but even still she caught herself trying to justify avoiding it. It was pitiful, and there were no more excuses. She couldn’t anymore tell herself that thinking about such things as meaning or purpose got in the way of her survival. Her existence was just indefinite and drawn out.
   And it wasn’t even an easy life either. It was miserable. She had to hide and live in constant fear, and she was always so hungry. Even worse, she was a leech, stealing and thieving for her food. No one else had to deal with being a witch, and everyone else around was getting an education, living a proper life in society. Even if some of them were a little wasteful, she was the real waste if the food in her body was going to a person that had no purpose. Worse, a person who was a witch. So now when she went to the library, she read to dull that reality. Because even after confronting it, there was nothing she could do about it. At least reading was a little bit better. And at least she could at least tell herself she wasn’t avoiding it anymore.
   The book she was reading now was titled The Rise of Witchhunters; Tales From the First Era. The history class she sat in on was teaching about the First Era and Second Era currently, and to her, it was a really fascinating time period. Though life was painful, she could still appreciate that. Things that seemed so set in stone in the present day, like the World Government and its rule, may have never even come about had events gone slightly differently back then. She would stay in the library and read until, eventually, the time for classes would roll around.
   The first class she’d go to was history. In class, they had been learning about the mother of all witches, whose name all knew and feared. She was the epitome of wickedness, with her downfall one of the most critical turning points in all of history. In reality, Syrica’s true name was not Syrica. She had forsaken her birth name. She didn’t deserve it, and truthfully, she didn’t want it either. No, Syrica was a name that belonged to the mother of all witches.
   However, with every time the professor said it with such vitriolic force, Syrica had begun to think of herself by that name when she heard it, her attention being forced towards her lack of belonging in that classroom and the ironic perversion that was her existence. She even accidentally pushed attention to herself sometimes when the professor uttered the name, which she was worried might become a problem.
   The original Syrica’s 30 years that she carved out of history, that was the Second Era, sometimes called the Dark Era. In the first Era, the world was split into three world powers rather than one allied World government. Hilin, in the north-east of the primary continent, Turusk, in the south-west of the primary continent, and Evrisid on the secondary continent. The First Era was characterized by war between Turusk and Evrisid, spurred by a mass exodus of witches from Evrisid to Turusk. Evrisid’s government intentionally forced witches out of their country— and into Turusk, the nearest neighboring one— by sweeping town to town across the land with platoons of soldiers. Direct conflict with witches was dangerous and costly, which was why they opted for such a strategy.
   In turn, the Turusian monarch declared war, though it was quickly shown to be a horrible decision, because with the new witch population emigrating from Evrisid, Turusk was fighting a war on two fronts, and its military didn’t nearly have the capacity for that. Then, after the assassination of the Turusian royal family led to a power vacuum, the chaotic and violent struggle for succession allowed for the emergence of The Witches’ Order, led by Syrica.
   Though she never attained full control over the entirety of the then lawless land of Turusk, it was clear that that was where things were headed, had Evrisid and Hilin not formed a temporary alliance to stop her. However, after years of Syrica’s growth as a power on the world scale, something peculiar happened. Jointly, Evrisid and Hilin put out a proposition, that if Syrica turned herself in, they would allow witches to live openly without prosecution as long as they didn’t practice witchcraft.
   It was believed that she knew well that the agreement would not, and could not be honored. But regardless, she still accepted it. And in her final moments, she gave a legendary speech. However, with accounts of it wildly varying, only her final sentence remained unmarred by time. “I believe the answer lies within the people.” And so, as the tale went, she accepted her fate because the people willed it, and she clearly then saw that there was no place for witches in this world.
   After history class, she packed up her things and walked out of the room. There were ten minutes before the next class she went to started. As she was leaving though, in the corner of her eye, something caught her attention. Someone was walking towards her. She felt dread seeping into her body.
   “Hey!” Syrica turned to look at her.
   “Um, I've seen you around but I never really caught your name; I'm Melanie, what's your name?"
   Why was this girl talking to her? Was there something making her stand out? She was freaking out.
   "Syrica," she blurted out without thinking.
   "Woah, like the witch?"
   "I..." she sighed to buy her a second. "My parents have a weird sense of humor."
   "I hate the name," she added after a second. Syrica was frazzled. Everything was going wrong. Not only was someone talking to her, but she'd already just said her name was Syrica. Syrica. What was that excuse too? Stupid.
   "That's..." Melanie paused. "Some sense of humor. Is there a joke I'm missing?"
   She almost said her life was the joke, but she held herself back. She didn't want to be in this interaction. She didn't want to be here, and she didn't ask to be a witch. Dammnit, she needed to answer.
   “Umm… not really. My parents are just, kind of, eccentric.”
   “Oh, ok.” She shifted awkwardly.
   “Alright, um, I’m gonna go to my study period now.”
   “Wait, before you go, I have to ask you, that book you were reading in class, was that… a history book? I was just really curious about it, that you’d rather read a history book than pay attention to history class— no judgement, of course, it just seemed odd to me and I thought there’d be no harm in asking.”
   That answered Syrica’s question as to why at least. She felt a little more calm, like she had regained some control small amount of control over the situation.
   “Uh, yeah. It’s Witchhunters of the First Era.” She showed the book to Melanie. “I’ve already learned about the stuff we’re learning in class now, so…”
   “Ohh, that makes sense. You must really like history then, huh?”
   “Uh, yeah. It’s awesome to me learning about all of these significant people and how they changed the world around them, and how uncertain the future was back then, despite being very clearly how it is now.” She paused. “That’s obvious of course, but, I don’t know, I still find it interesting.”
   “No, I totally understand; I never thought of it like that. I always just thought of history as like sort of abstract, but they were real people I guess, and when I think of it like that you’re totally right. It’s awe-inspiring.”
   “Yeah, exactly.” Syrica smiled a little. “Hey, did you know, in Evrisid they used leave out incense to burn at night in these massive pillars because they thought it’d ward off witches? I saw an illustration in a book, it was really incredible.”
   “Woah, that’s really awesome; I just realized I have to get to my next class, but you’ll definitely have to show me sometime; I really enjoyed talking to you, you seem like a really cool person Syrica- Catch you around?”
   “Y- Yeah, absolutely.”
   In her next class, Syrica couldn’t concentrate at all. She spent the whole time poring over the conversation she’d had with Melanie, basking in how happy it made her feel and how… how awkward she was.