I woke up first. There was no particular significance to it, only that I have always slept poorly and generally wake early in the morning. I had no way to tell the time, but I thought that I had slept a while: my limbs were heavy and stiff from a long, motionless sleep. The room was dark and windowless, with only a small skylight directly above my bed, though it didn’t smell of sleep, or musk: it smelled fresh and airy, as if it had recently been cleaned. I thought I could detect the slightest trace of air freshener, citrus-scented, or maybe pine. There were ten beds, though only one aside from my own was occupied. The girl in the bed across from me was slowly emerging from sleep. She sat up and looked at me. She was beautiful, but that was to be expected.

“Hello,” I said after a few seconds. “I’m Lily.”

“I’m Jacintha,” she said. “Nice to meet you.”

I put my feet on the floor, feeling newly born. I stretched, arms high above my head, and heard my joints pop. There was air conditioning whirring, but I could feel the heat that lurked behind it, thick and cloying. When I looked over, Jacintha was standing. She was wearing underwear and a tank top. Looking down, I saw that I was wearing something similar.

It might have been awkward, but she smiled at me. “Will we find the others?”

We made our way through the house, exploring as we went. The house was at once familiar and entirely new to me. On either side of the bedroom were the dressing rooms: the boys’ to the left, ours to the right. The boys’ room held no interest for us, and we went directly to our own. It was enormous, much bigger than the bedroom. It was where we could keep all of our things, once we had them. The room was mostly composed of storage space: built-­in wardrobes, chests of drawers, cupboards, and some glittery boxes, similar to one I had used to store my dress-­up costumes as a young girl. Running through the center of the room was a gray laminate-­covered table, with a bench on each side. Along the table were lighted mirrors and the little screens. I touched one, but the screen remained black.