Welcome to Meliora Academy (Part One)

Trust nobody.

With that oh so verbose advice in mind, the agents thrust a new passport, student ID, and fifty dollars cash into Amelia's shaky hands and without another word pivoted and left, the click of the door behind them echoing throughout the empty dorm room.

Alone and unsure of what to do with herself, Amelia looked down at the student ID she held in her shaking hands. There on the card was her bright smiling face looking back at her. The photo taken just three months ago, suddenly seemed like lifetimes ago. Amelia looked away, tears coming to her eyes, overcome with emotion at the girl she once was. Things had flipped in the blink of an eye. How could the girl in this photo know what was to come, Amelia thought to herself. She knew she couldn't torture herself with questions like these, because of course there was no way she could've known.

There was no anticipating the utter madness that was her life now.

Looking down at the ID once more, Amelia looked at the name besides her smiling face. Jane Belmont it read.

Jane.

Bleh. Saying the name aloud Amelia made a face, the idea of answering to it leaving a sour taste in her mouth. But she knew she had no choice but to get used to it. There was quite literally no other option- at least for the foreseeable future. Amelia knew if she really stopped to think about what had happened over the course of the last fourteen days she'd probably have a panic attack, the insanity of the situation seeming more like a movie than real life. But she didn't have time for that now. She had to pull herself together and salvage a life worth living out of the shattered pieces her parent's choices had left her in.

Just two weeks ago she was Amelia Brown- an ordinary girl, living an ordinary life in New Jersey with her two very ordinary parents.

Or at least that's the illusion she had been under.

Now she knew better.

The house, the "aunts and uncles", the fancy lifestyle. It was all a facade for what what going on behind closed doors, and Amelia felt like a complete idiot for not noticing it sooner. She was seventeen years old- not a little kid for god's sake! But when all was said and done the illusion that was her life had been violently shattered, and now she had to deal with the dumpster fire of a mess that her parents had left her to deal with.

That was how Amelia found herself in a dorm room at Meliora Academy in Yorkshire, England. Yes, ENGLAND.

Two weeks ago Amelia hadn't ever been off the East Coast and now here she was- in another freakin' country! In any other circumstance it would've been an absolute dream to get away to Europe. But now standing in the middle of a dorm room in a school that looked like it walked right out of a Harry Potter movie, Amelia could feel nothing but a hollow emptiness inside.

Amelia made her way over to the bed by the window, the bed across the room clearly occupied by a roommate she had yet to meet. The girl was probably in class, it was 11:30 in the morning on a week day after all. Plopping down on the bed Amelia reached into her trunk and pulled out the folder the Witness Protection Program agents had provided her. A green folder labeled Mathematics across the top, it looked like any old unassuming school folder.

Opening the folder, Amelia was met with a white piece of paper with a short message written across its middle in sharpie:

Burn these contents upon memorization. Godspeed kid. -Joe

Setting the paper aside, Amelia began to trifle through the folder. It was filled with pages and pages of the life of Jane Belmont. Her new life.

A new name.

A new birthday.

A new hometown.

A new family pet.

Any detail that could possibly be questioned? This folder clearly had an answer. While Amelia knew the necessity of this, it all just seemed a bit absurd. Memorizing the name of an imaginary family dog? It was absolutely crazy. But she knew the agents were right, they did this for a living after all.

If she was going to become Jane Belmont. Really become Jane, then she was going to have to get rid of any trace of Amelia Brown. Burn her past to the ground and start anew. It was the only shot she had at a remotely normal future.

She silently thanked herself for her nerdy studying tendencies. Halfway through the folder already, she knew the sooner she could get rid of the contents in her folder the better.

Laying the folder atop her bed, she stood up and began to start unpacking and organizing her side of the room.

She pulled out the photo hidden in between a couple of sweaters in her suitcase and paused a moment. The only item she was allowed to keep was this photo- her and her parents hugging and smiling ear to ear. It was taken a little over a year ago on her 16th birthday. While the anger she held for what her parents had done, what they were making her go through seemed to constantly simmer right beneath the surface, she just couldn't completely let them go.

She shoved the photo in her bottom draw of her desk, stacked a couple books on top of it, and quickly shut the draw. The mess of her family was too much to deal with right now.

She then went back to her bags and pulled out the "designated" desk photo. It was a completely staged photo of her and Agent Joe Mendez. Or as her roommate would come to know him as: Mr. Belmont.

Apparently from lots of trial and error- a chill wracked through Amelia at the thought of what that meant, the agents had realized that the whole "fake parents" situation was much easier if an agent or two took on the role for a client.

So that was how Amelia found herself placing a super corny photo of her and Agent Mendez at the beach on the corner of her desk. They decided this photo would have been taken on "Joe's fiftieth birthday". A weekend getaway for the family.

"Weekend getaway, weekend getaway weekend getaway,...you can remember this." Amelia whispered to herself, turning to grab some clothes to start hanging up in the closet.

"You can do this, you can do th-"

Amelia jumped and turned at the sound of the door creaking open.

"Hiiii," said the girl as she peered her head in the door and slowly opened it up and walked in.

"I'm you're roommate Jameela" she said while closing the door behind her, "I heard you talking from outside the door and didn't want to walk in if you were on the telly or something".

"Oh, sorry no I was just talking to myself- something you may have to get used to," Amelia jokingly replied. She tossed the sweater she held in her hands on the bed and walked over to Jameela.

"It's so nice to meet you, I'm, uh...Jane." Amelia said, sticking out her hand to shake- hoping to appear more confident than she actually felt.

"Ah Jane, what an absolutely smashing name!" Jameela said, ignoring Jane's hand and engulfing her in a hug instead. She pulled back a bit, holding Jane by her shoulders. "I absolutely ADORE your accent! I heard through the rumor mill that an actual American was coming here, but I said I'll believe it when I see it. And well- here you are!!"

"Here I am." Amelia replied.

An awkward silence overtook the room for a moment.

"Soooo...not many Americans at this school?" Amelia asked with a nervous laugh.

"Oh not at all!!" cried Jameela enthusiastically, dragging Amelia over to sit on her bed with her. "Lots of students from all over the place, but on the whole we're mostly from throughout parts of Asia, Europe, and a bit of North Africa I suppose. But nobody has joined the academy from America in quite some time. Especially in the middle of the term!"

"Oh well, you know how it is..." Jane trailed off, hoping to sound casual in what she was saying. "My dad got a new job traveling all over, so he thought it'd be better if I wasn't alone all the time..."

"Yes, yes, of course!" Jameela said, clearly uninterested in Amelia's personal life for the time being- thank god. "But the real thing we all want to know Jane, is what is Hollywood like?!"

Jameela leaned forward conspiratorially. "Have you met Leo? Snogged Brad Pitt perhaps? Tell. Me. Everything."

Amelia felt the tension in her shoulders release and let out a hearty laugh. Now this is something she could talk about.

"Um of course..." Amelia leaned forward with a smirk of her own.

"REALLY?!" Jameela shouted, her jaw completely dropped.

"...NOT!" Amelia finished at the same time.

Jameela frowned a bit.

"Sorry, I couldn't help myself" laughed Amelia, "I'm actually from Vermont. I don't know if you'll even know where that is! But if we're talking about a world that is the COMPLETE opposite of Hollywood, you've come to the right gal. It's literally clear across the country from Hollywood."

"Oh. Well that sounds...interesting I suppose", said Jameela as the two girls hopped off the bed.

"Yeah sorry to disappoint," Amelia said with a shoulder shrug as she made her way back to the side of her room. She picked up her sweater and walked over to the closet to hang it up.

"Well, I have another class to get to- just had to pop in for a book I forgot. But Jane, if you're up for it I'd love for you to come and have lunch in the hall with my friends and I. We can't wait to learn everything about you!"

Amelia's shoulders tensed for a moment, but with a deep exhale forced the tension away and turned away from the closet to face Jameela with a wide smile.

"I'd absolutely love that" she said.

"Great!" replied Jameela as she shuffled around her bed, exchanging books and changing cardigans before grabbing her bag and running towards the door. She froze for a brief moment before leaving.

"Oh and Jane?" she called.

It took Amelia a moment to realize she was talking to her. Damn that was gonna take some getting used to.

"Yeah?" she asked, looking over at Jameela.

"Welcome to Meliora." with a wink and a swish Jameela slid out the door, leaving Amelia alone once more.

Well, this was gonna unlike she had EVER imagined.