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[COLOR=B22222][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]T H E  B O Y L E  R E S I D E N C E :[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR]A familiar dull ache warmed Peneople’s body from the core as her alarm clock [i]buzz-buzz[/i] pierced through her skull in the usual way, an irritating aide to reluctantly opening her eyes to the soft red LED glow of the digital display. [b]05:45[/b]. The same as the last two months. There was nothing new in the air; no original tone in the blaring alarm; no difference in Penelope herself. She hadn’t particularly expected difference, but the common insistence was that a new academic year held the potential for marvelous and radical change each and every day - though none supposedly more vital than the first, was the ever-present caveat - and it seemed that the more people who held this conviction, the more people readily believed that it was true, as if a grand enough collective mind could convince the fabric of the world itself to change according to belief. [i]Buzz-buzz[/i]. Same old alarm. Same old bedroom. Same old Crestwood. Same old Penny Dreadful. She silenced the alarm and got up, swinging her legs over the edge of her bed and feeling the carpet with her toes, before standing and walking two short steps across to the bedroom window.

Curtains opened to newly-rising sun filtering through grey clouds. Crow-caws and pigeon-coos provided the morning ambiance through an open window. Penelope leaned on the windowsill with both hands, letting the chill of a morning breeze push past her and give way to goosebumps on her skin, the long t-shirt she’d slept in picked deliberately for its thin fabric that offered little for warmth. She’d been plenty warm these past few weeks, an uncomfortable slow-burn that made her lethargic and irritable. More irritable than usual, at least. This morning the heat was already returning, accompanied by a low, offset ache that moved and radiated around her body hour upon hour. Occasionally eating would soothe it; sometimes sugary drinks; sometimes, most rarely, simply ignoring it for an hour or so. Right now, she tried a new method she had been practicing over the last long weekend, a method she had read about in a book loaned out from Crestwood’s library, her preferred haunt outside of school hours. Penelope stood incredibly still and closed her eyes, focusing on the ache, pushing all mental faculties towards it and blocking out everything else. She chased it, wrestled it, pinned it down. It was in her left arm. Concentrate on it, compact it, squeeze and squeeze and peel away its layers. Her arm tingled, as if she were laying on it and pins-and-needles were setting in. She squeezed it more and the tingle grew to numbness, and the numbness spread, and Penelope felt as if her hand were melting over the windowsill and- 
Penelope opened her eyes, suddenly fearful. Her hand was fine. She turned around and looked at the time. [b]06:20[/b]. 
Time to start the day.

Clothes. Makeup. Cereal. Tea. Bookbag, with necessary contents. Tense '[i]good morning/[i]' to Father. Silence from Mother. Leave the house, wince against the sun that had broken the cloud-line now and streamed down upon her. Ignore the bus; she wouldn't get a seat, and Penelope preferred to start her days without the jeers, jostles, and sheer stark staring of her apparent 'peers'. The walk wasn't long enough to make her late, and the weather was fine enough to make it a pleasant one - she would have to savor it, try and ride the mildly okay mood throughout the day to avoid sinking into the miasmic, loathing hole that the stares and whispers often spiraled her into. She pushed her hands into her coat pockets and put one foot in front of the other, treading onward towards another day at Mather Memorial, her only consolation that it was another day closer to graduation. 

The bus rolled past, its low rumble gently shaking Penelope out of her own head for a merciful minute - and just in time to watch Aiden Roth cycle furiously past, hot on the exhaust of the bus he'd obviously missed. King of the Ravens, and general Mather Memorial Jock Superstar. So far on the other end of the social spectrum that Penelope could see the wraparound; even his passing by her felt like a warp in the delicate pseudo-politics of High School social standing. Christ, you could already see the tear in the space-time continuum from here. Penny hope it would swallow the school whole. Or her. She wasn't picky.

She arrived on campus in good time, the bus that had passed her parked and empty just inside the main gates. The building seemed quiet from an outside perspective, but she could feel the hive-like buzzing of the students within from here, cloying and haunting. She had no good memories of walking through these doors - neutral at best was what Penelope dared to hope for. She pushed through the entrance, ignoring the few closed clusters of students that gestured towards her and then erupted in smirks before just as quickly quelling them, ignoring the anger and injustice that burned inside her. Her neutral expression turned to the scowl she was most recognized by as she shoved her way through towards the assignment boards, rapidly scanning down from the top before finding her name and departing. Shut them out, prepare some scathing retorts, and just survive until the last bell. Same as any other day.

[COLOR=B22222][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]M A T H E R  M E M O R I A L  H I G H S C H O O L :[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR]Homeroom was as awful as expected, social circles forming around her like venn diagrams that she was significantly not a part of; she sat back, arms crossed and brow furrowed until the class filtered out to the welcoming assembly, which, while not necessarily awful, was certainly embarassing and routine. Introductions of new faculty, poorly constructed lessons, and one sinkhole-inducing attempt at relatability of analogue media in an increasingly digital age. And yet the librarian still probably held more clout than Penelope did. She sunk low in her seat towards the back of the hall, throwing glares to silence the scattered jibes about her 'best friend' on stage. Taunts and teasing was less frequent than it used to be - a lot of people knew that bothering Penny Dreadful was more trouble than it was worth for the minor entertainment - but that didn't mean there weren't stupid, new, or cruel students.
[b]"Psst. Psst! Dreadful! You'll have to give Macleod an extra fondle to cheer her up after this trainwreck."[/b] Snickers from behind her ceased very quickly as she turned to look at the pale freshman who thought he'd pick on bigger fish to earn some standing. He'd heard Dreadful's reputation; obviously he hadn't heard enough.
[color=B22222]"[i]Fuck[/i] the [i]fuck[/i] off you pasty, pie-faced, freshman [i]fuck[/i]. You're as funny as a blind [i]fucking[/i] toddler bumbling towards a [i]god[/i]damn minefield."[/color] She hissed back, her eyes feral and full of fury. The freshman locked stares with her for a micro-second before getting significantly paler and turning his head to look straight forwards, muffled chortles and shared glances rippling out from Penelope like shockwaves after a bomb had gone off.

The rest of the assembly passed without incident, and the student body was dismissed to their first proper classes of the day to begin the new academic year in earnest. Penelope herself had Literature - possibly the highlight of the coming day - and then several sciences, mathematics, and philosophical classes, and the most mysterious 'Social Conscience' slated for the end of the day, led by the newly-inducted Mr. Lehrer who had introduced himself so politely at the Welcoming Assembly. Now that was different. With fortune's favor, she may be able to blur through the day and into this new scholarly pursuit. 

[COLOR=B22222][INDENT][B][SUP][SUB][H3]M A T H E R  M E M O R I A L , ' T H E  L O F T ' :[/H3][/SUB][/SUP][/B][/INDENT][hr][/COLOR]It would appear that fortune had indeed been smiling on Penelope this day; or perhaps her peers had been too busy catching up on old friendships and forging new ones to pay her much mind. Her classes passed harmlessly, Penelope able to scribble notes on entirely un-vandalized paper and listen to her teachers freely, absent of projectiles, passed notes, and snide remarks. Literature did indeed prove to be the highlight she had expected, the first piece of the semester to be the delightful [i]Dr. Faust[/i]; everything else was a blur of the usual post-summer warm-ups, designed to gently nudge the student back into academic routine. Lunch passed by, Penelope quickly consuming her meal - she'd developed a significant appetite over the summer - and then retreating to a hidden bench for some reading before departing early for her next class. The latter half of the day passed in similar manner, and before she could really register where the classes had gone, she was sat in the back row in the oft-forgotten 'loft' classroom, the only room of the top 'floor' of the Mather Memorial main building, a room long left in disuse and disrepair; Penelope wondered which one had come first.

Jonas certainly began the class with fervor, a passion not seen in many other members of faculty; and he inspired interesting discussion immediately, moving towards the philosophical, rather than Penelope's suspected psychological leanings for the class. While Penelope tried to avoid the attentions of her classmates - this was a far smaller group than any of her other classes, and she stuck out all the more for it - she did listen to each of them in turn, and to their credit, a few of them gave interesting answers: Self-justification; Instincts; Ethics; Self-awareness. All suitable answers, if slightly navel-gazing in their nature for Penelope's cynical perspective. For her, the difference between man and animal was simple and immediate; Man was cruel. Animals had no understanding of the concept.

She had no time, nor inclination, to share this opinion however. Jonas guided the discussion, fielding each answer with various degrees of patience, and then directed them down a more active path. Language and scripture, and actual work to do on both - and then that most dreaded of assignments. Group work. Penelope felt herself go flush with anxiety, and again she found herself sinking in her seat, trying to fall below the eye-line of her classmates. She wouldn't be picked, she already knew - she never was - all she had was to wait until Jonas assigned her. And then survive the group itself.