Garden of Spiders Volume 1: A Companion Book to The Fallocaust Series Book 3

by Quil Carter

  That’s right. I’m going to get my own locker! I hadn’t even thought of that; I was going to decorate it, perhaps get a plant for it.

  I turned from the hallway, my head in the clouds and was amused to see a middle-aged woman staring at me with a nervous, somewhat intimidated look. I knew this expression well shadowing for King Silas. That was the look the Skyfallers got all the time when they were in his presence, and it made me even more confident of my future plans when I saw the look on her face. There was just no doubting that I was going to rule this school. The teachers and staff all knew who I was, and they were going to treat me to my status.

  But as I walked towards that woman, something passed in my head. It was that derogatory voice that I’d been trying to silence since I first decided to go to school. This voice wasn’t telling me that I was going to fail… it was being condescending since I myself hadn’t earned that fearful respect from the adult Skyfallers, whereas King Silas had. They were only intimidated because I was King Silas’s heir, his chimera, and their prince.

  Another vow was made in that moment – I was going to earn that look myself. I would ride no coattails; this would all be me. When I was king that would mean Silas wouldn’t be around, so I had to establish myself as a man who commanded respect.

  Not a boy… a man.

  I nodded to the woman and stopped in front of the counter. It was in a horseshoe shape and behind it, lower down, was another smaller counter which acted as her desk. “My first class is Fallocaust Survival Studies,” I said to her. “Can you point me in the right direction?”

  The lady smiled. “Yes, Prince Elish,” she said. She rose to her feet and pointed down the hallway I’d just been glancing down. “It’s room 109. At the very end of that hallway you’ll be taking a right. It’s the third door on the right-hand side of that. Would you like me to walk you there?”

  I shook my head. Now that would be humiliating, of course I didn’t want that! My eyes flickered up to the wall clock behind her and I paused when I saw what time it was. It was eight forty-five. I was fifteen minutes late for classes!

  And that brought on the first faint flicker of apprehension. I was late. I didn’t want to be late for class… that meant I was going to have to knock on the door and walk in, the brand-new kid that everyone knew from just… well, being in Skyfall, but none of them had ever met me. Not only was I starting school in the last semester, but this now too?

  I outright refused that emotion and banished it, far away from where I could feel it. “No thanks, I’ll be okay,” I said to the reception lady. Mrs. Coleman, from the looks of the golden engraved plate she had at the top of the counter. “Goodbye then.”

  The reception lady gave me a polite goodbye and I walked towards the hallway. I stuffed both of my hands into my pocket and walked quickly to my destination. I should’ve known that it was this late in the morning, there were no other kids outside of the school or inside either. The hallways were vacant, but I caught glimpses of teachers talking in front of whiteboards, and a few kids behind desks.

  While I walked to my classroom, I had a pep talk with myself. It didn’t matter if I was a little bit late to class, because I was Prince Elish. My master had ended the world and had recreated it. If it was my will, I’d change the start of school to have it start when I arrived. That was just all there was to it.

  There. I nodded to myself and turned right at the end of the hallway. I found the door to my classroom and quickly walked towards it. Even though my speeding heart was pumping apprehension all throughout my bloodstream, I kept my speed brisk, defying my anxious body since apparently I had to remind it that I was boss as well.

  But when I got to that door and reached out a hand for the handle, my physical body continued to anger me with its visceral reactions. Now my damn hand was trembling and my feet felt like they weighed nothing, like I was going to float away. This angered me, and the glaring fact that my brain was almost forcing me to be nervous was enough to tempt me to stab a pen through my eye just to jab it.

  I was a prince dammit! What is there to be afraid of? Nothing! I’m better than every single one of them. They are but pawns in my own personal game, they’re nothing but game pieces that I needed to use to better myself and erase the social anxiety that had calcified itself to my body when I was recovering from my nervous breakdown. They held no importance to me, their entire lives were solely for use of the Crown.

  There!

  With that conclusion forcibly dragged to the front of my mind and put on display as a warning to all other anxious emotions, I put my hand on the door handle, turned it, and walked in.

  Oh fuck me, I forgot to knock…

  I heard only the last several words from the teacher before they were abruptly cut off… then his eyes, and the inquisitive yet glaring eyes of what looked like over thirty students, turned and stared directly at me.

  Directly – at – me.

  “Prince Elish,” the professor said with a smile. He was an interesting-looking man, his rough brown beard and his scarred face looked odd in his suit and tie. Like someone had kidnapped a greywaster and had shoved him into fancy clothes.

  But then I remembered this was Fallocaust Survival Studies, so that musing might not be too far from the truth.

  The professor, who gave off the impression of being nice at least, nodded at me. “I was told you would be starting my class.” He motioned me in and turned to the class as I walked inside the room. “Elish is going to be attending our class from now on.”

  “This has to be like… the fifth time you said that. We know,” a young man with dark hair in greased spikes said with a smirk. He was wearing all black and had a spiked collar on and dark eyeliner. “Prince Elish is attending classes with us peasants.” He glanced back to me and grinned.

  Half of the class laughed at his comment, the other half looked back to me as if expecting some reaction. I fried on the spot as dozens of eyes burned into me, wanting what? A comment? A sly remark? I didn’t know if I should say something back, but even if I should… my mind had blanked.

  “That’s quite enough, Mr. Sacario,” the professor said, in a tone that suggested he’d had to say that to him a lot. “There’s an empty seat to your left, Prince Elish… did you…” His lips pursed to the side. “Do you have someone bringing your school supplies? A binder, pencils…?”

  I stared at him for a second before utter horror hit me like a bucket of ice water had been dumped over my head.

  I’d forgot my fucking backpack in the fucking car!

  Oh… god.

  I could feel my face go red. Oh fuck me, my face was going red. “I… uh…”

  Oh fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  If I turn and run now… I can forget all of this and go back to my bedroom. I can tell Silas it wasn’t for me and I’d find another way to strengthen my social development. If I… fucking ran…

  No. I’d ask Silas to kill every student in this class room and the professor. That way no one will ever know.

  “I… I’ll bring it… tomorrow,” I stammered. I wanted to die. Never more than right this second did I want to die. Just give me a gun right now so I could put a bullet in my brain. I’d never felt so much humiliation in my life.

  Then the snickers came, and whispers that the blood roaring behind my eyes refused me to hear. This was too much for me… I couldn’t handle this. The embarrassment had me feeling dizzy, I needed to sit down now before I passed out.

  As I died where I was stood, the professor smiled and nodded. However, I could see the confusion in his face, mixed in with his own nervousness. “No problem at all…” He turned and handed me a textbook that was resting on his cluttered desk.

  Then he turned to the student who’d made that smartass comment. “Sacario, you can give him a few sheets of paper and a pen to borrow.”

  If I thought I was going to die before, standing in front of this man’s desk as he, quite lazily and unenthusiastically, opened up his binder to give
me the items, had me wanting to drive the pen through my eye. I took the things from Sacario, and found the only empty seat in the class… right fucking beside him.

  I was going home after this class.

  The god damn students were all quiet, all watching me. I could feel their eyes, like little insect bites on my skin. I swore when I got home I would see red patches from their glaring looks burned into flesh.

  I’d say this couldn’t possibly get any worse, but something told me that if I said that… fate would rise to the challenge.

  Finally, after what seemed like an entire year of standing dumbly in front of Sacario’s desk with the professor beside me, I got the paper and the pen and took my seat. The professor, who had his own golden engraved plate on this desk, one that introduced himself as Professor Cavana, looked relieved that this was all over, and with a cleared throat, he stood in front of the white board and continued with today’s lesson.

  And I continued to melt into my seat, staring down at my piece of paper wishing a Falconer would crash through the ceiling and reduce this classroom into smoke and ashes. I wouldn’t be surprised if one day King Silas admitted to me that he ended the world after a bad first day of school – I would’ve believed him.

  Professor Cavana began teaching. He told us to turn our textbooks to page 211 which was the start to Irradiated Animals of the Fallocaust. Underneath the unit was a coloured drawing of a snarling carracat with a radrat in its jaws.

  “Put up your hands if you’ve been to the greywastes before. Not the factory towns, but the actual greywastes…”

  I glanced around as several people raised their hands, but was embarrassed further to see a lot of eyes turn to me. For a second, I thought that it was because they’d assume I’d been to the greywastes since I was Silas’s prince and we had our own planes – then I remembered the mall, and the fact that all of Skyfall knew about my kidnapping. The outlands were technically the greywastes, I guess.

  Slowly, my hand creeped up. I stared down at my paper, fully prepared to tell the professor to shove it if he asked me about my experience.

  “Not many, just what I thought. How many of you have seen an irradiated animal?” Professor Cavana took that moment to itch his cheek, which held a long silver scar that was thick and bumpy. “Radrats and croaches don’t count. Humanoid ones do. But I don’t suspect any of you have ever seen one.”

  I had… and not just any random raver… the beast raver.

  I felt uneasy but said nothing. That was years ago and I no longer had any uncontrolled reaction over what had happened there. The part I refused to remember came after the mall incident…

  “I have…” a woman with a pixie cut said. “My father works with Dek’ko and he deals with caravans. When I was little our factory got attacked by ravers and I saw them from the second-storey.”

  “Most of you will never see a raver in your life, or a centipod, a deacon, an urson, or a radagator. Most of you will grow up to be scientists, or business men…” I jumped when something slid down my arm. I looked to the area and saw a pen retract… and it had left behind a streak of blue.

  I looked up and saw Sacario looking lazily at my arm, his head in his hand and the pen he was holding twirling back and forth between his fingers.

  Without even looking back at me, he reached over and slid the pen a second time down my arm, leaving another blue streak.

  Who the hell did that guy think he was?

  “Stop it,” I hissed at him. I turned back to the teacher and listened to him as he continued to talk about ravers. Now he was telling a story about the first time he’d seen a raver.

  Not five minutes later, I felt another brush of the pen. Furious my attention turned to Sacario, my temperature rising to the top of my patience.

  Sacario gave me a bored look…

  … then he shoved the pen up his nose, plugged one nostril as I gave him a perplexed look, and blew it at me.

  Or he tried to anyway. The pen flew several inches from his nose before falling to the ground with a clink.

  “Sacario,” Professor Cavana said. I looked up and saw the greywaster teacher staring at Sacario with a pained look.

  “It was the new kid,” Sacario said, raising both hands. My eyes widened at his audacity. “He’s just flinging around the pens like they owe him money.”

  “I am not!” I said aghast. I looked past the annoying man and saw that everyone was staring at the two of us. I slunk down in my chair and hated myself and everyone around me. Why did I think this was a good idea? I should’ve never left my room; my life was much simpler in there.

  “Eyes to the front of the class or else I’ll be feeding you to the ravers,” Cavana said with a glaring look to Sacario. “We didn’t have class clowns in the greywastes. You know why, boy?” Cavana came up to Sacario’s desk and lowered his head until he was eye to eye with Sacario. “Because they got eaten.”

  The boy stared right back at him, before saying with a completely straight face: “I bet they tasted pretty funny.”

  The entire class erupted in laughter, and to my horror, I couldn’t hold back the laugh as well. I clasped my hand over my mouth and stared down at my blank piece of paper. He was wasting valuable teaching time; I shouldn’t be laughing!

  “Yeah, yeah, funny man.” Cavana shook his head and walked back to the white board. “We all love Sacario’s antics. His humour will help him when he’s bumming quarters in front of library. Now eyes up front!”

  I directed my eyes to the front of the class like I was supposed to. But to make sure there weren’t any more distractions, I folded my arms over my chest, out of reach of Sacario’s pen. I heard the boy chuckle at this but I ignored him.

  The rest of the class was spent in peace, well as much peace as you can expect when there was an idiot in the front of the class who thought he was funny. Professor Cavana went over the first several pages of Irradiated Animals of the Fallocaust and assigned us to read another five pages at home and then passed out a sheet of questions we had to answer. I was excited about getting my first piece of homework. I couldn’t wait to complete it and get my very first A.

  The bell rang and the class ended. I got up to leave and headed for the door.

  I noticed something strange though. I hadn’t really rushed to leave the class but I was the only one walking towards the exit. I turned around to see if perhaps there was something that happened after the bell rang that I was missing, and saw that everyone was slowly making their way towards the door… there was no doubt they were dawdling.

  Even Sacario was standing by his desk with his arms crossed. When I made eye contact with him he gave me a ‘well?’ look, like they were all expecting something from me.

  Then I realized what it was.

  They were waiting for me to leave first. It never occurred to me that they’d do this, but perhaps it should have since Silas was always the first person to leave a room unless his bodyguards were going ahead to make sure it was safe. I guess… someone must’ve come in here before I arrived to tell them the rules.

  I wasn’t sure how I felt about this, all I knew was that my face was starting to go red from embarrassment. They were all looking at me again, so I turned and quickly left.

  This hadn’t gotten off to a good start… not at all.

  But I was determined. There was no way I was quitting now.

  I’d rule this school… or destroy it in the process.

  CHAPTER 15

  None other than Ellis was waiting for me outside the class. At first I was perplexed to see my little sister standing in front of a row of blue lockers, until she tilted to the side and I saw my backpack on her back.

  When she saw me she smiled and offered me my pack. “Your driver was quite frantic that you forgot it. It looked like you did well though.” She reached over and plucked my piece of paper from my hands and started reading it. “Look how neat your damn writing is.” She raised an eyebrow. “Ravers? Dad has seen a ton of them.” When she han
ded the paper back, I saw a look of concern on her face. “Can you get him to help you with your homework tonight?” she asked and pursed her lips to the side. “He always cheers up when you spend time with him.”

  My cheeks felt hot at this comment. I think I was flattered that she noticed that about Silas, but I wasn’t sure. “Yeah, I will,” I said. “He said he was going out and might not be home when I got back… he said he was going to…” I paused when I saw a shadow beside me. I turned and my anger flared when I realized it was Sacario. He was digging around in a bag of chips, listening to our conversation like he was watching a movie playing.

  “What the hell are you doing!?” I exclaimed. “This is a private conversation.”

  “Yeah, but this is a public school.” Sacario said as he shoved chips into his mouth. “You have my pen. I loved that pen, we’ve been on many adventures together.” He held out a greasy hand towards me. “The paper too. I loved that piece of paper like it was my own child.”

  I raised my hand to give him the pen but paused. This idiot had been harassing me in class and now he was nosing around and bothering me and my sister? I was a god damn prince! I could enslave him if I wanted. He needed to learn his place.

  “This is my pen now and my paper,” I said coolly. “Go to your next class and leave me to talk to my sister.”

  Sacario put another chip in his mouth. “Whatever you say, Princey.” He then turned and left; I was half-expecting his head to explode because of how harsh I was glaring at him. That man was insufferable, absolutely insufferable.

  Ellis cocked an eyebrow. “You made a friend already?”

  A friend? Perish the thought. “No, I don’t know who he is but he’s annoying as hell.” I turned back to my sister. “I need to get back to my next class.” I dug my schedule out of my pocket. “Thanks for bringing my pack… it was humiliating not to have it, everyone stared at me.” And they’d continued to stare at me…