January 20, 2001
Dear Diary,
Lunch at East Ridge is like stepping onto a haunted stage, and everyone's already memorized their lines—except you. It's theatrical, cruel, and rehearsed to perfection. You can feel it the second you push open the warped double doors to the mess hall—once a grand banquet chamber, now dimly lit by a flickering chandelier that buzzes like it's got a death wish.
The walls are stone, cold and cracked in places where moisture has seeped in over centuries. They painted them over with some chalky faux-marble last year to make them look "modern," but the effect is like putting lipstick on a corpse. Plaster is peeling, especially around the old hunting tapestries they never took down—massive, blood-soaked stag scenes that always make me lose my appetite.
Lunch is held in the East Hall, but no one calls it that. Most just call it "the pit." The acoustics are terrible. Every snide remark and whispered betrayal echoes like it was blessed by the ghost of a disgraced drama teacher.
This is East Ridge: where deer go to sharpen their antlers and learn how to perform cruelty with poise.
Nova is queen here. No crown—she doesn't need one. Her throne is the high table near the broken stained-glass window, where the sunlight slants in like judgment. She sits on the edge of the bench like it's a velvet chaise, her expression soft and sharp at the same time. Think Morticia Addams but blonder, with that slow, amused blink that says, I own you.
She wears East Ridge's hideous tartan skirt with thigh-high black velvet stockings and some kind of tailored corset-blazer hybrid that must've cost a fortune. Everyone imitates her. No one ever quite gets it right.
Flanking her today: Elk, the blunt instrument of the elite. She's tall and heavy-hoofed, with a lumberjack look and the permanent scowl of someone who's smelled something awful and decided to punch it. Elk's not smart at least not academically, but she doesn't have to be. She's muscle. The enforcer. She once broke a fire extinguisher because someone insulted her eyeliner.
And across from them—like shadows balancing light—sat Dama. The only one who could look Nova in the eye without blinking. She's Arab, her accent smooth and sandpapered at the edges, like she's trained herself to speak like royalty even when she's roasting you alive. Today, her dark curls were pinned back with antique brass clips shaped like scimitars. She wears her rebellion in rich silks and platform boots.
Dama is everything I want to be—unapologetic, brilliant, terrifying. She's the only one who talks back to Nova without getting socially eviscerated. Not even Sika can do that.
Sika...
Sika tries. I'll give her that. She's Japanese, petite, graceful, like she stepped out of a Miyazaki film and into a goth editorial. Her voice is quiet but clear, the kind that could cut glass if you listened long enough. But no one really does. They nod, smile politely, and move on.
She walks like she doesn't realize the floor's rotten under her hooves. Like she's still hoping things at East Ridge might be fair, which is adorable and tragic all at once.
She and Dama sometimes sit together—foreign deer in a kingdom that barely tolerates them—but they're not close. They're mirrors of each other. Sika's all glass and silk. Dama's brass and fire.
Anyway. I was sitting at my usual exile table, tucked beneath the half-collapsed archway near the old servants' door. We joke that it's the "non-deer" table, but really it's where anyone not blessed by the social gods ends up. Cazpin joined me there today, and I swear, Diary, my heart nearly imploded.
He strolled in late, as always, carrying his usual chipped thermos of black coffee—brought from home, of course, because East Ridge only serves "nutrient broth" during lunch now, due to budget cuts.
He didn't say anything at first. Just dropped into the creaky bench across from me and stared up at the water-stained ceiling like he was hoping it would fall and crush him.
"These guys are exhausting," he finally muttered, rubbing his temple.
I tried not to sound like I was about to combust. "Exhausting? Aren't they, like, your antler bros or whatever?"
"They talk too much," he said, taking a long, bitter sip.
I grinned like an idiot. "You're literally the most antisocial deer in school, and you think they talk too much?"
That got a flicker of a smirk. Rare and beautiful. Like lightning in a cemetery.
And then—of course—came the interruption.
Sika.
She glided in like a ghost with a secret. Her blazer hung perfectly from her shoulders, and her hooves barely made a sound on the warped wood floor. Her black hair was tied with a red silk ribbon today, a detail that made me want to scream for reasons I couldn't articulate.
"Hey, Cazpin," she said, stopping at the edge of our table. "I'm back from my trip."
He didn't look up.
"I brought you something," she added, holding out a small gift wrapped in traditional furoshiki cloth. "From Japan."
Her fingers brushed his shoulder—barely. I mean, it was almost nothing.
But he froze. Like really froze. The kind of stillness that makes your skin crawl.
"Don't touch me."
The words landed like a slap in a cathedral.
Sika blinked. "I—I'm sorry. I just—"
"Don't," he said again, this time quieter, icier. He didn't look at her. Didn't look at anything.
She pulled her hand back like she'd touched a burner. The silence that followed felt ancient and ritualistic. Even Nova glanced over, mildly intrigued, like a lion watching a gazelle trip.
Barashinga—the British-Indian tech deer—appeared at Sika's side a second later, holding a lunchbox that smelled like cumin and roasted peppers. She looked between them, frowning.
"Cazpin, you could've just said no," she muttered under her breath.
Sika forced a smile. "It's fine. I'll just leave it here."
She set the gift down and walked away with all the grace she could muster. Barashinga followed, casting me a look that might've been pity or suspicion—I can never tell with her.
Cazpin didn't move. Just sat there with his coffee clenched in both hands like it was the only thing tethering him to the present.
I wanted to say something. Anything. Ask what the hell that was. Ask why he reacts to touch like it's poison. But I didn't. I just stared at the gift. Small. Neatly wrapped. Sitting on the warped wood like a cursed object.
Sika returned to her table. Dama leaned over and whispered something that made her laugh, though it was bitter and short. Nova didn't say anything, but I could tell she filed the entire thing away in that pretty little brain of hers like a weapon waiting to be unsheathed.
East Ridge has rules, even if they're unspoken. Don't touch the boy with ghosts in his veins. Don't offer kindness unless you're ready to bleed for it. And definitely don't fall in love with someone who disappears every time you get close.
Too late.
Until later,
Silver