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     Carlton House was exclusive, and it strove for excellence. Within its walls, the quest for enlightenment and the results produced as the freshly gleaned knowledge was applied to the frequent examinations were of utmost importance. Few young men with average scholastic skills survived the four years of rigorous intellectual exploitation the masters of Carlton House bestowed upon their hapless charges.

     Plinkton Pratt was one of the gifted youths whose parents had sought the best education that money could afford. Without the necessity of exerting great effort in his studies, Plinkton had been able to breeze through his primary years. High school had been no exception — the boy graduated maxima cum laude, the top of his class. Thus, it was of seemingly small importance that Carlton House had granted the young Mr. Pratt the right to commence his college years at that exclusive institution.

     Plinkton, who because of his exceptional brilliance had always been regarded as ‘rather an odd fish’ at the schools he had occupied in his former years, found himself surrounded by a multitude of young men with similar abilities. Carlton House was a magnet for those of a Mensa mentality and openly acclaimed to have fine-tuned the best minds of the country over the generations of its existence. The school’s hallowed halls radiated with pride, and the super intelligent, perceived as misfits in general society, often found a warmth of brotherhood that bonded the boys to each other and to the college. Here, young lads such as Plinkton Pratt had the opportunity of ending their years of lonely existence by bonding with students of their own skill levels.

     To be able to converse without having to explain; to have the opportunity to reason at one’s own level; to ponder a theory and to expand that hypothesis in the idle chatter of an afternoon was a blessing which Carlton House afforded. The intelligent child could rid himself of the stigma that branded them as a freak through open dialogue wherein a student found comfort in the fact that others had been subjected to similar torments.

     Yet, Carlton House had a sinister side which lurked within its domain. It was a powerful force that lay dormant, unobserved by the freshmen who eagerly pursued their studies in the initial months at the college.