by Andy Nadir
Chapter Fifteen
“I’m really tired for some reason. Let’s go to bed” I said.
I then waddled over to my bed, and promptly collapsed.
Weeks passed, and every day, I had my special training with Abbadon. Soon, it was time for winter break. None of us had family to go to; I was a delinquent, I couldn’t leave the school, Bakar’s parents didn’t like him, and Cynthia wouldn’t tell us why she couldn’t leave. So we decided to have a nice camping trip. So we packed up our stuff. Suddenly, I remembered that I had kept the mind gate closed for a while. So just for fun, I decided to open it.
Immediately, thoughts rushed to my head, but I ignored them. Leaving the gate open, but keeping my thoughts quiet, I continued packing. As I was putting in the same tent we used for our tests, one thought was louder than the others. “Bang boom, Shaka laka! Take that ya noob! Hah! I win!” I burst out laughing. “Bakar, put your counsel away.”
“What! How did you know?” He asked.
“Mind gate.” I said.
We burst out laughing again. I closed the gate again, and finished packing. Soon, we were heading out to our camping ground. When we got there, it was already dark, so we set up a fire. We decided to tell stories of our childhood and how we ended up at the Magi school. I went first. “Well, back when I was 9, a kid in school told me that if I taped paper to my hands and legs, and jumped off the school roof, I would be able to fly. Now, he was joking, or at least I think he was, but I took it seriously.”
“I remember I went around, and thinking that if paper made me fly, I could glide with something about as heavy, but stronger than paper. I found a massive piece of cardboard; It had belonged to a refrigerator box. I cut it to size, and the next day, I climbed to the top of the school building with the cardboard duct-taped to my back. I jumped off, and I remember, for about 5 seconds I was flying. In fact, I think it probably would have worked, since I was very light back then, and the winds were strong. But, as I flew through the air, I slammed into a large metal pole, and went home with a concussion.” I finished.
Bakar and Cynthia were laughing so hard, they couldn’t even breathe.
Next, Bakar went. “When I was 8, both of my parents were mages, so I grew up in a mage house hold. I remember I had this magic alarm clock that would talk, just like the ones in school. Well, one of my brothers changed its words to “Smacker munchies!” and every time I heard it, I cracked up. So what happened was, my mom was chewing me out because I didn’t do the laundry, and the clock went off. Suddenly I started cracking up, during my mom’s lecture. She flipped out, and came to spank me. Then my clock rang again, and I started laughing again. She got even madder. I could hear my brother wheezing with laughter from across the house!” Bakar finished laughing.
We all cracked a smile at that one.
Next, Cynthia went. “Well, when I was in middle school, there was one football player who had a crush on me. But, he would beat up anybody who he thought liked me, even if they didn’t. I remember this went on for a while, and soon, all my friends left me, and nobody would talk with me in fear of getting beat up. The football player thought this would force me to like him, because I would be desperate for social contact.”
“It might have worked, but there was one quiet boy who would talk to me. He was constantly beat up, but he continued to sit and talk with me. Then one day, I remember the football player decided to get rid of his competition permanently. He was so stupid; he intended to choke the small boy. He got an apple, and had his goons hold the boy down. At the time, I knew no magic, so there was nothing I could do to help him. Then, I remember the boy smiled. He said “Do you intend to hurt me?”
The football player laughed and said “Of course!”
Then came seven words that will be forever engraved into my mind. “Then I have permission to fight back.”
The boy twisted around and elbowed the jock who was holding him in the stomach, and kicked him in the face. The jock toppled backwards, out cold. The boy proceeded to knock out the rest of the kids with ease, and when he finally got to the one who had a crush on me, he said “You stay away from Cynthia. If you ever hurt her again, I will find you. And I will not be so nice.”
Then the boy’s fist crashed into the jocks face. I could hear the sound from five feet away. The buff jock flew a few feet, and crashed into a wall. The small boy walked over to me and smiled. Then, he finally told me his name, and walked home. I never saw him again; the rumor was that he was expelled for beating up students. But ever since that day, I have looked for the boy, because the instant I saw him for the first time, I was in love. But now, the story is changed. I said I never saw him again. I did. In fact, just a few months ago. His name…his name was Lance; Lance Starfinder.” Cynthia finished, tears streaming down her face.
Suddenly, I remembered. The lonely girl that had nobody to talk to, the one who just needed a friend, the only one who I had ever grown close to in my elementary/middle school days. And I smiled and walked over to Cynthia. “I remember now”
Then I hugged her. We spent the next hour reminiscing about middle school and asking each other what happened after I left. Soon it was time for bed, so I summoned the tent, and we all went to sleep.
The next morning, we decided to thin out the circle 1monster population. We went out, and killed every monster we could find. After a while, we came upon one who when it saw us, instead of running, it jumped right at us. I whipped vines at it, but it dodged them. I paled. This was no circle 1 monster. I dodged its jump and cracked it on the head with my staff. While it was dazed, I summoned my armor, and shadow. I launched spells at it. “Lightning Rod”
The spell blasted against the demon and sent it flying. Shadow shot out bursts of fire, Lightning Vortex!”
I finished it off with a swirling whirlwind of lightning. I looked to my friends to check if they were all right. They were both fine. We noticed there was a hole behind it, so we went to check it out. The second we had all entered, the hole slammed shut.
Bakar panicked. “What is it Bakar?” I asked
“My light spell won’t work!” he muttered under his breath.
I tried summoning Shadow, but it didn’t work, as if something was blocking me. We decided we had no choice but to move forward. Soon, it became apparent that it was a maze, and we were now hopelessly lost. One day later, we were completely out of food. We were stumbling along the maze when we saw light. We all rushed towards it. But to our horror, the light was not the sun, but rather, it was Abel, the ninth circle demon. He saw us, and immediately called his minions to attack us. In the state we were in, we barely managed to defeat them. Abel cackled. “It looks like you weaklings are trapped.”
“You will be worthy sacrifices for the master. Be glad! You shall be the first of many!” Abel said.
His massive clawed paws slammed into each of us and we collapsed. I woke up in a cell next to Cynthia and Bakar. I groaned, but found I could not move, much less talk. So I used all my might, and put my arms around Cynthia. With that task done, I went back to sleep.
I woke up to the dark colored, clay ceiling. I woke up Cynthia and Bakar. “We have to get out of here and warn the school!” I said to them quietly.
Bakar nodded. “But how will we get out?”
“We should start looking for ways out” Cynthia answered.
So we all split up to the different corners of the cell. We scratched and tapped along the walls all day, but nothing was there that we could find. At the end of the day, or what seemed like it, we went back to bed. When we woke up in the morning, it was the same routine. The next day, a monster shoved a plate of worms through a cell bars. “Eat” it said.
I gagged. Cynthia grabbed the plate and threw it against the wall. “We will never get out of here! We’ll be trapped here forever!” she screamed.
I patted her on
the back. “Not quite Cynthia. Look at the wall”
She glanced at the wall. Where she had thrown the plate, there was a dent. We smiled. I glanced at the plate. It was made from some type of metal. I broke the plate into three pieces, and gave Cynthia and Bakar one. Then, we started digging out of the prison. After what seemed like days, we finally dug out of the huge cell. We were free!
Immediately, Bakar put one hand on each of our shoulders, and we were standing in front of the Headmasters room. I summoned my staff back from my Locker, and rapped on the door with it. The door opened, and Wyat peeked out. “Lance! And Bakar and Cynthia! I thought you guys had ditched school!”
“You barely have time to study for the finals! What were you guys thinking!” He opened his mouth to continue.
I cut him off. “Wyat, Abel is here, he has a base a few hundred feet from the school.”
He paled. “Abel? So close? The headmaster started scribbling down something on a piece of paper.
“What happened?” he asked.
We told him the entire story, and he dismissed us saying, “Go study for your finals. And rest a bit as well. School must go on, and do not tell anybody about this.
So we headed back to our dorm, And the second we got there, ate and drank everything we had stored in it. We half-heartedly studied for our finals, even though we knew none of us were up to it. The next day, I was called to the headmaster’s office.
When I got in, Wyat tossed me a book. “Read up on that, Lance. It has some useful spells. I have a feeling you will really need them in the coming months”