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Kai walks me back to the Entrance Obelisk where Alien Sylestra has resumed reading off the Starseed origins of excited first-years. A new teacher is handing out the tablets.
“I have to prepare for the class I’m teaching this year.” Kai’s gaze is warm, and he puts a comforting hand on my shoulder. “Just hang out here until Alien Sylestra finishes. She’ll get you set up in your room and tell you what she expects of you as her aide.”
“Can’t wait,” I mutter.
He laughs. “You’ll be fine. Plus, you’ll get experience working for the Academy. In that regard, you’ll be way ahead of the other first-years.”
“Lucky me.”
“Hey, you’re gonna do great.” Kai walks backward away from me. “See you around campus. And if you slip in another creek, you know where to find me.”
I watch him get smaller as he walks down the causeway toward the Great Pyramid, eventually losing him among the crowds of teachers and students.
“Altairian Starseed, ninth incarnation.” Alien Sylestra’s voice is harsh against the cool afternoon breeze wafting through the courtyard. She hasn’t so much as acknowledged me since I showed up.
“Alien Sylestra, I just wanted to let you know I’m here whenever you want to show me where I’ll be staying.”
“Not now, Synchronicity. I’m working.” She doesn’t even look at me.
“Well, do you know how much longer you’ll be here?”
“I said, not now,” she hisses before calling the next student forward.
I take the hint and retreat to a bench on the side of the courtyard. The portals are opening much less frequently now, and the line for the Entrance Obelisk is dwindling.
I think about Mae and Jasper and wonder where they’re staying. They’re probably enjoying dinner with a bunch of other new students. Meanwhile, I’m waiting for Alien Sinister over there to finish her work so she can come up with ways to torment me.
The shadows grow longer, and at last, the final first-year approaches the obelisk.
“Name?” I hear my new boss call out.
“Bo Kingscott.” He’s short with a shock of red hair.
“Go ahead and place your hand on the obelisk, Bo.” I don’t remember Alien Sylestra being so accommodating with me.
The young man walks up to the towering piece of granite and lays his palm on the singular recess in the rock. After a few moments, two symbols light up on the stone face, and Alien Sylestra reads them off. “Sirian Starseed, fifth incarnation.”
Bo pumps his fist in the air and yells out, “Yes!”
“Congratulations, Mr. Kingscott. If you need any help channeling your spiritual powers, my doors are always open,” Alien Sylestra says loud enough for me to hear. “Although, as a fellow Sirian, I suspect you should have no trouble at all.”
Apparently, these spiritually evolved teachers aren’t above showing favoritism.
“Thank you,” Bo says and moves on to receive his selenite tablet.
Finally. I’m exhausted and can’t wait to decompress in a room of my own. But when Alien Sylestra finishes conferring with another teacher, she simply walks off toward an arched exit in the courtyard.
Without even looking back at me.
I get up and run after her.
“Alien Sylestra, I was told you would show me to my room.”
“Oh yes, dear. I completely forgot you were waiting for me.”
Sure she did.
“Follow me. I’m excited to have an aide this year. There’s simply so much work that needs to be done in the Energy Work School.”
“I’m happy to help,” I say, glad that she’s taken a friendlier attitude towards me.
“The Energy Work School houses the College of Massage, the Reiki Center, the day spa, and the yoga classrooms. You’ll be responsible for wiping down and rolling the mats and washing all the linens from the massage tables, among other things.”
When I heard teacher’s aide, I had imagined myself grading papers and making worksheets, not cleaning and doing laundry. But if this is my ticket into Agartha, then so be it.
“I think I can handle that,” I say.
An elaborate domed complex rises ahead of us, framed by the orange and pink sky. Each building is a curved stone sphere with round windows, intersecting with others to form a temple of interlocking rotundas. It looks like someone carved giant soap bubbles out of stone.
“I certainly hope you can,” Alien Sylestra continues. “Your enrollment here depends on it.”
Her voice is amiable, but I hear the threat.
We step into the nearest building, and the air shifts. It feels like a cross between a monastery and a wellness spa—gleaming white floors, copper inlays catching the light, and shelves brimming with tinctures, salt lamps, and herbal tonics. Crystals pulse softly from recessed alcoves, casting warm amber refractions across cushions and meditation benches. The scent of eucalyptus and tea tree hangs in the air, grounding and bracing.
Sylestra leads me into a yoga studio stacked with multicolored mats. “I’m afraid we’re a little backed up after the break. I’ll need all of these wiped down and restocked in each of the classrooms before class starts tomorrow.”
“Wait, you want me to do all of this… tonight?”
“Oh yes,” she says with a sadistic gleam in her big alien eyes. “And I’ll need all of the linens washed for the massage tables as well.”
I follow her down the hall to a storage room that is absolutely packed with dirty blankets.
“You can’t be serious.”
“Of course. You didn’t actually expect to attend this school for free, did you? You’re going to have to earn your keep.”
“Okay… where are the washing machines?”
Alien Sylestra lets out a condescending laugh. “Oh, we don’t use washing machines, darling. You Earthseeds and your simple ideas.”
We continue down the hall and turn a corner into another passage. Sylestra opens a door and we enter a large recessed room filled with steam and lit by large glowing crystals on the wall.
“The Energy Work School was built over very unique geothermal springs and vents. The hot spring water is piped into the spa for soaking and mineral baths, but here you’ll use it to wash laundry.” She leads me to a stream of steaming water bubbling forth from rocks set right into the floor of the room. The water spirals over smooth river stones into a whirlpool that disappears into a hole below.
“Like this.” Alien Sylestra extracts a wrinkled towel from a pile of laundry and sets it loose in the stream. The whirlpool of hot water carries it over the rocks, jostling it as it goes until the towel disappears into the dark hole.
“But how do I…”
“Just wait.”
A moment later, the towel emerges from another hole in the floor, this one larger and lined with rough boulders, propelled upward by a gust of hot air.
“That’s actually amazing,” I say.
“Let it dry a moment longer, then you can grab it.”
The towel tumbles in midair, suspended by the rush of hot wind pouring from the geothermal vent. I reach out to grab it, and it feels like I’m putting my hand in front of a giant hair dryer. The towel is completely dry. The whole process couldn’t have taken more than a couple minutes.
“Like I said, I need all of the linens washed and restocked in the classrooms and massage studios before classes start tomorrow. Do you have any questions?”
“Not about the laundry, but where exactly am I staying?”
“Oh yes. Come.”
Back in the hall, I follow Alien Sylestra to the next door.
“I’m afraid it’s not much.” She opens the door to a small storage room lit by a single glowing crystal and lined on one side by wooden shelves filled with cleaning supplies. “I don’t know what Isis was thinking, allowing you to stay with no tuition and no student housing. You should really consider yourself lucky you have a place to stay at all.”
A massage table sits folded up in the corner.
“You want me to sleep on that?”
“Why yes, dear. They’re quite comfortable. I myself have fallen asleep on them on more than one occasion while receiving energy work.”
Even though the room is small, I’m grateful for it. Anything is better than sleeping in my car. At least I’ll get to fully extend my legs.
“Is there anywhere I could get some food?” I ask. I haven’t eaten all day.
“Well, let’s see. Your work-study credits won’t get applied to your tablet for two weeks, so you won’t be able to buy anything from the student market until then, but in the meantime, there’s a little cafe further down the hall. They haven’t been open all summer, but I suppose you could help yourself to whatever you find there.”
“Thank you.” My stomach grumbles as if on cue.
“Now, do you need anything else from me? I really must be getting back.”
I set my selenite tablet down on the cluttered shelf and try to imagine spending a whole year in this room. “I think I’m all set.”
“Good. I’ll see you first thing tomorrow. You’re in my 8:00 class, right?”
I hadn’t realized my Energy Work class was with Sylestra.
“I guess so.”
“And remember, the mats and linens. All of them.” With that, she vanishes into the corridor. I hear the double doors shut at the front of the building and find myself eerily alone in this huge complex.
I decide to deal with my room later and walk off down the hall in search of something to eat. The Agarthan sun is falling behind the horizon, sending rays of golden light through the round windows. I pass more yoga studios and classrooms before finding a vacant little cafe at the end of the passage.
The display cases are empty, but inside one of the cabinets, I find some granola and dried fruit, and make myself a light meal.
I tell myself it’s dinner, but really it’s trail mix.
I find a bar of dark chocolate hidden behind some coffee filters and eat a few squares as the light fades from the sky. I’m not full, but it’s enough to keep me going for now.
The halls are lit by crystal light now, and I make my way back to the room filled with yoga mats. In the closet, I find a washcloth and a glass bottle filled with clear liquid that smells like lavender. Dabbing the cloth in the cleaning fluid, I set to work wiping down the mats.
One by one, I clean them and stack them into neat piles and take the piles down the hall to the various classrooms and stack them in the corner. After the first trip, it barely looks like I’ve made a dent in the mountain of dirty mats. The longer I go, the further I have to venture out in the school to find unstocked classrooms. It’s like a giant circular maze that seems to stretch on for miles.
The glowing clocks etched into stone on some of the walls use alien symbols, but they are divided into twelve segments just like on the surface, and when I finally finish with the mats, I deduce that it is close to 11:00 at night.
Shit.
I’m bone tired, but I still have all the linens to do.
I know it’s not wise to drink coffee this late at night, but I need something to keep me awake, so I fix myself a shot of espresso at the cafe. Even though I’m away from all my peers, it’s kind of nice having this whole place to myself at night.
The espresso is bitter and smooth and buttery and I savor every sip before going back to work. I’ll be lucky if I get done by 2:00.
There is no cart, so I have to take the piles of dirty linens by the armload from the closet to the laundry room. Every time I open the door, the hot, humid air blasts me in the face.
It’s oddly meditative, sitting next to the hot spring and dropping blankets into the stream, watching them swirl and jostle among the rocks as the whirlpool pulls them down into the dark abyss below. Moments later, they shoot back up the geothermal vent, and when there’s enough of them dancing in the jet of hot air, I get up and fold them into tidy stacks.
It was one thing finding all the rooms in need of yoga mats, but the massage tables are spread out between classrooms and smaller individual studios. I line the headrests and make the tables up as neatly as possible, given the time constraints.
When I finish drying the final load, I have to venture farther into the Energy Work School than I have before to find the last remaining studios. Somewhere on the third floor, I stumble upon a long hall with a single door at the end lit by a green crystal overhead. Thinking that this is where the last few studios must be, I walk down the hall and try the handle. It’s locked, which is strange, considering every other door in this building has been open. I peer through the small rectangular window into the hall beyond.
Whereas the rest of the school has been lit with soft, warm light, the corridor on the other side of the locked door glares with a harsh fluorescence like something you would see in a modern hospital. I try the handle again out of curiosity, but it remains steadfast.
After one last glance down the mysterious passageway, I find the remaining studios and stock them with freshly cleaned linens. When I’m finally done, the clock reads 4:00 a.m.
I stumble back to my room and unfold the massage table, lining it with an extra set of blankets. After I adjust the legs to the lowest setting, I collapse back onto it and stare up at the ceiling.
Old pipes jitter and groan, carrying the hot spring water to other parts of the school, and the single crystal affixed to my wall with a copper wire wrap emits a soothing otherworldly glow.
I reach into the pocket of my hoodie and pull out my copy of A Starseed’s Guide to Agartha. If it weren’t for this little book, I wouldn’t be here right now.
I flip it open to a random page. “All the spiritual technology that Agartha is built upon, from the artificial sun to the quadrupole magnetic field that holds it in place, was given to us by the Elders, an advanced race of ancient beings whose ruins can be found throughout the galaxy. Although we owe much of our progress to the Elders, very little is known about who they were or why they disappeared.”
As interesting as this section is, I can barely keep my eyes open. I prop the book between two bottles of cleaning solution in a feeble attempt at a bookshelf. It’s not much, but it makes my glorified supply closet feel a little more like home.
I reach up and instinctively tap the crystal. The light clicks off, shrouding me in utter darkness, and I am asleep before my head hits the pillow.
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