by Bob Dattolo
“She has no plans at all. None.” Stark honesty.
Samantha shakes her head, “No…no, that can’t be right. Everyone’s talking about it!”
She didn’t move as I walked up to her and held my arm up to her nose, “Other than possibly killing someone in challenge, and possibly going after Levi for being a dick, I have made no plans for attacking, hurting, killing, or attempting to kill Parece, you, Paige, or Riley. As far as I knew, you all were attacking me this past week. Destroying everything I own more than once. Giving me compliments and making comments about the very things that were destroyed that I had to replace. I’ve had comments made from nearly everyone, making it impossible for me to figure out what the fuck is happening. As for the past few days? I vaguely remember Monday. I don’t remember yesterday other than moving blurs. Parece just gave me a shower, that’s the only reason I’m not still fucking lost. I have moments of memories of people dumping food on me. Apparently people pissed on me yesterday? I don’t remember that at all. I don’t remember pissing myself. Shitting myself. Nothing. I was waiting for whoever the fuck has been mentally torturing me to kill me and get it over with.”
She so didn’t know what to say.
She didn’t manage to say anything as I showed her my closet, “This is what has been happening to everything that I own this past week. Laptop destroyed. Replacement destroyed. Then again. Phone destroyed. Everything I own, basically, torn to shreds. I don’t have any clothes left to me at this point.”
She was still staring when a panicked knock got Parece to open the door and Kaylee was left standing there, “I made a huge mistake!” She was crying and looked ragged.
“What the fuck happened?” My lethargy started to lift as I took in her posture. She smells exhausted.
Her mouth fell open as she looked at me, “What…what…you’re…what happened? You were like a zombie! How’d you come out of it? I tried everything!”
“Parece shoved me in the shower. What happened to you? Has someone been fucking with you more?” I nodded back towards my closet, “They got my closet again. I’m down to…toiletries. That’s it.”
Her smell of fear skyrocketed, “I don’t…I…” she left before I could stop her, running away and leaving behind a wall of scents that I can’t pick through all that easily. Fear. Terror. Anxiety. Exhaustion. Then at last another dozen.
“She’s been like that since Monday. It’s been getting worse.” Parece let the door close.
“I’m her only ally, I have to think that she was thinking about bowing out if she could.”
“Maybe.”
Samantha circled me, then looked into my closet from the doorway, “This has happened several times?”
“Yeah. Laptop and phone included.”
She sniffed, “This had to be done by magic. Unless you did it?”
Shrugging, I stopped next to her and stuck my arm under her nose again, “I don’t know if I did it this time or not. I have no recollection of doing it. I did not do it the other times, though.”
My stomach chose that moment to growl like I haven’t eaten in a year, getting us all to look down. “I need to eat. If it’s really Wednesday…?”
Samantha nodded, “It is.”
“Then this might be my last breakfast. I want to eat if I’m gonna be hunted by everyone.”
They followed me out, and I smelled their agitation as they joined me, “You’re not getting dressed?”
“Into what, Samantha? Everything I own is destroyed right now. I’m not bothering. If they want to give me detention, then they can do that. What’re people gonna do to me? Make fun of me? I don’t even remember what was said to me yesterday. I barely remember the day before. As much as I sort of don’t want to die right now, if one of you caved in my skull and sucked me dry right now? I’d be okay with that. I’d prefer it to be after I eat, but…beggars can’t be choosers, right?”
They didn’t respond after that, and we reached the caf with dozens of comments coming my way.
Everyone’s in the caf based on my loose estimate. They all turn to stare at me. As I recall happening before.
Instead of shying away, I walked to the closest table and stepped onto a chair, then to the tabletop. All movement around me stopped, with only Levi’s table starting to make comments about seeing the goods.
“I’m apparently a dragon. If you think I give a shit about my tits being out, you’re wrong. As for why they’re out? Everything I own has been destroyed repeatedly over the past week. I have no clothes left. Nor am I going to bother buying more. Not again.” I looked across everyone again. I inhaled to tell everyone that I had no plans to attack everyone, when the table beneath me seemed to tremble.
Chapter 37
Opening my eyes made me realize that I’m in the grass outside the caf. I feel fucked as I try to roll over, realizing that I’m broken in more than a few ways and have huge chunks of glass rammed into me.
What the fuck?
Healing races through me as I push magic and shift at the same time, then shift back to human and push myself up. The front of the caf is fucked. The table I had been standing on is gone. Kindling. The front doors that tried to stop my flight are shattered and twisted wreckage.
The few kids left there are glaring at me even more than before. Kaylee is on one side of the wrecked doors, with Samantha and Parece on the other side. Headmaster Anderson is a little more to the side with other teachers and some adults that I haven’t seen before. The researchers are there too.
“What the fuck happened?”
Headmaster Anderson shook his head, “It doesn’t matter. We leave for the trial in ten minutes.”
What the fuck?
“I haven’t eaten breakfast!”
“The caf is closed.”
He doesn’t stop me as I walk through the fucked-up doors to find most students gone from the caf. Angelica, Gage, and Kynal are still three, and they look even angrier at me.
The caf is closed up entirely.
No one stops me from walking behind the counter and trying to find food. Nothing. Nothing.
You know what?
The locked fridge door gets yanked off its hinges and tossed to the floor, and I step into the huge thing and rummage through the shelves before coming out with a dozen eggs and a huge slab of bacon.
The headmaster is near the door when I start back across the caf. “You’re not allowed to do that!”
“Headmaster? Take this from me, and I’ll eat your fucking heart. Do you understand me?”
His mouth clamps shut as I pop an egg into my mouth and walk past him. Angelica and the others are gone, with only Parece, Samantha, and Kaylee still there. Kaylee looks like she wants to talk, but then clamps her mouth shut as fear rolls from her when Samantha and Parece start following me.
The adults walk along behind me as I trudge towards the admin building. I can see people in the distance, so I have to assume that’s where we need to go. The trial isn’t held here, it takes up too much space. I’m not sure if it’s held on the grounds of the academy, that’s a possibility. Someone said a bit ago that the trials for each grade aren’t held in the same place, so that just adds to my confusion. Why are they separated? That doesn’t make much sense at all to me.
Except, knowing this ridiculous world, they used to have them in the same place and kids turned it into a warzone on their way in, trying to stock up on power before facing the trial for themselves.
Yeah…yeah, I’m thinking that’s exactly what happened.
No one says anything behind me as I continue walking, cramming another egg in my mouth and chewing. Kids up ahead and some adults catch the little procession and stare in shock as I reach them. It’s like they’ve never seen a naked chick hauling uncooked bacon and eggs with her and her little entourage.
Wes sees me from Levi’s group and wades through the kids, laughing like crazy, “There you are, you fucking useless cumdump!”
“I didn’t know your mom was he
re, Wes! That’s nice. You get to fuck her one more time before you head into the trial. How does your dad like being your cuck?”
He freezes at my response, with Shane, Ryan, and Levi joining him.
“Shut your whore mouth!” Shane looks pissed.
“Kiss my ass, water lizard.” I crunch another egg as other kids start to laugh at the scene.
“You don’t know when to shut it, do you?” Ryan looks me up and down, “How the fuck you can be here like that, showing the world what a useless slut you are, is beyond me.”
“Ryan? If you think I give a single fuck about you seeing me naked, you have another thing coming. Talk to your dragon buddies. They don’t care. I don’t care. They’ve taken part in making fun of me, but I know that they don’t care either. In the slightest. They’re doing it because you guys care. The mages. Not the dragons.”
Levi raises his hand, stopping Ryan’s response, “Stricken. I heard what you said the other day.”
“Wonderful. Fantastic. I don’t know what you’re talking about.” The last egg goes in and gets chewed up.
“You mentioned killing people. El. Annie. I looked into that. I made some calls. No one told me originally. I missed it. Somehow, I missed it.”
Hmm, I’m thinking he knows. “Wonderful. Then you know it’s your parents that I killed when I broke free? I didn’t know that until earlier.”
Stunned silence from the group, “I’ll fucking kill you!” His skin’s roiling like crazy.
“You’ve said that before. Repeatedly. Endlessly. I didn’t know I killed your parents, but let me say this? They showed up at least twice a year over the past four years. They’d rape me. Beat me. Your mother would whip me bloody. Until bones showed. Your father would fuck me with massive dildoes until my hips broke and then fuck me for real. Again and again. Blowing load after load in me as I screamed. All the while, your mother would get more and more violent. You ever get forced to eat pussy when your face has been nearly crushed flat? I have. Multiple times. All because of your parents. If you think I’m sorry for killing them, you seriously need to rethink things. I made them scream as they died, Levi. Scream. Just like they did to me. It would take a month until I could walk in some cases when they were done. When everything healed. So take your anger at me killing them and cram it into a tiny, tiny little ball and suck it down along with your upset. Because your rapist, sadistic parents were the ones in the wrong. That deserved killing.”
He screamed as he fought not to shift.
“Shift if you want to. That’ll allow me to kill you. Right here. Right now. I seriously don’t care.”
“You deserved everything they did to you!” He pointed at me, his entire arm quivering in rage.
“Right. I deserved to be torn apart and raped again and again. Uh-huh. That makes total sense. How about this? How about I go find some mortmagi and pound them into your fucking skull. Would you think you deserved it then?”
“I’m a dragon! You’re a stricken!”
“You’re one set of mortmagi away from joining me, buddy-boy. You go on believing there’s this huge difference between us. Feel free. Yet there isn’t. There’s nothing separately any of you from being me. One set of those fucking things pounded into your skull, and boom, there goes your magic. You get to join me on this side of life. Getting hated for existing. Getting attacked again and again for daring to come here. Take your anger and go fuck yourself. Get off your high-fucking-horse that makes you think you’re so much better than me and choke on the reality of what our world really is. You want to attack me now? Shift, and we’ll throw down. I’ll even let you fully shift before coming for you. Otherwise? Suck it up, goldilocks. Your parents were the ones that deserved to die. Not me. Not even you. You’re a dick to me, but you’re not a psycho rapist. Yet. Stay the fuck away from me and help your allies through the fucking trial. I don’t give a shit about you. You’re the one that keeps coming for me. You’re the one that keeps on coming.”
He fought back shifting, only to spit on the ground, “You’re prey, vermin.”
“Then you’ll find that this prey fights back. Just like I did to your parents when your mother begged your father to make me scream more. Only I made them scream.” I tore into the bacon and started chewing.
Headmaster Anderson waded between us, flaring magic around him, “Everyone! Board the buses. Now. The trial starts, and you need to be there.”
Mutters around me as we were herded towards three buses. Adults and kids were separated in a way that I can’t even start to figure out, and I ended up on a bus sitting in the front seat. Kaylee had fought to be near me, but they pushed us into separate rows. Angelica was one row back and on the other side. Parece and Samantha were behind me. Paige and Riley behind them.
Too many kids on the bus are talking about me. Asking each other questions. Talking about the last few days.
Based on what I can make out, they literally lined up to piss on me. Including the girls. You’d think that kids wouldn’t be okay doing it with people watching, but they did. The dragons would, but the mages? That’s a tough one for them from what I’ve heard.
No wonder I was all crusty.
It doesn’t help that I had stopped using the toilet at some point myself. If the comments can be trusted, that’s what gave them the idea.
We loaded up and were on the road for maybe 20 minutes when Kaylee’s panicked voice reached me, “Maddie!”
She looks worse than before. I’m the only one that I see that has no one sitting next to me. The seat looks broken, so that might be why.
“What?”
She looked around, “I need to speak to you!”
“I’m right here.”
“Not with so many people listening!”
“We’re heading for the trial. I doubt we’re gonna get any privacy. Just…just stay near me. I’ll do everything I can to protect you. I want you to pass this stupid thing.” God, the idea that people haven’t killed her just because she’s so weak and pathetic is enough to make me growl.
Not that I do. As much as I’m feeling better, I’m exhausted from being up for more than two days and I’m running on fumes right now.
“You can’t trust anyone!” She sounds so earnest. The smell of her fear pushes at me.
“Yeah, I’m getting that.” Samantha and Parece were honest earlier. Maybe I can at least somewhat trust them?
We had been driving on a freakishly rural road and pulled into an unmarked road to the side. Nothing changed around us, but I felt magic kick in as soon as we made the turn. I’ll be shocked if anyone has ever used this road to turn around. Or even tried to drive down it. Seriously, what the fuck is here?
The road continued for maybe a mile before turning, getting gasps from the kids at the huge thing in front of us.
It’s the size of a stadium. That’s what it looks like, for lack of a better word. It’s not square, but it’s not round. It’s…I don’t know, a stadium is really what it feels like to me. None of the adults say anything as we pull up front and the doors open.
Soon enough, I feel air across my naughty bits as I follow the adults towards the doors. I expected them to stop and talk to us, but they continued on inside.
So I guess we do as well?
I’m not in the front of the group, yet I’m only a couple kids back as we enter the space. It’s colossal, soaring above at least 100 feet. The space is a solid couple hundred feet across in both directions, making it positively huge.
Our group heads towards another set of doors, then stops near a small, raised platform. It takes a couple minutes for everyone to arrive, then Headmaster Anderson nods to the guy on the platform. There’s near silence from the nervous kids, but he still flares a bright light to call attention to himself.
“First year students! Welcome to your trial!” He sounds happy, as if he’s expecting us to cheer.
He does not get a response, which makes him frown. That has me throwing out a, “Yaaaay, trial!” in a du
ll voice. Kids near me shift away, with a couple hidden giggles reaching me.
The guy on the raised platform stares at me, “I see one of you knows that we expect dragons to need to shift.” That doesn’t warrant a response, so I shut up. “Now! As I said, welcome to your trial! In a moment, you will all enter through the doors behind me. You will all enter. When the doors close, your timer starts. You will have six hours to complete the trial. If you are still alive and have not completed the trial, your power will be stripped.” No response. “For those of you that do not know, the first room you are in is the main room. There will be eight doorways leading from the room, not counting the stairs you will walk down to enter the space. There will be various weapons on the floor and mounted on the wall.” He looked across us, “The eight doorways will remain closed and locked for the first hour. Anyone that breaks through a doorway to leave before that hour is up will be considered in violation, and you will be stricken.” His eyes darted to me. “We have mortmagi waiting for those of you that breach one of the doors. Trying to do so will not result in that. Doing it will result in that taking place.”
Shocked sounds from some of the kids.
“Once the doors open, pick a doorway and continue on. The challenges vary depending on what door you pick, but the idea of them will be the same. Loosely. Choose whichever you want. You can even go in and then back out and pick another. Know this, though, whichever you choose? You will encounter paths from the other doorways at times. Some will happen without warning. Watch everything. Watch everyone. Paths you think have no crossing may develop one without warning.”
He let that sink in for a minute.
“This is your first-year trial. As a result, you will have to demonstrate various skills. Some challenges are simple. Cast a spell to our satisfaction, and you will proceed. Others aren’t as simple. Some require that you think through what is needed. Doing something wrong may result in…penalties.” His smile turned cruel, “That means death. Dodge if you can, just know that more challenges await. Along with your fellow students.”
What the fuck, man, they’re really selling the idea that we’re gonna fuck each other.
