Chapter 4: Room

Some parts of the passage consisted of stairs that lead them farther down the ground.

About 15 minutes after they entered the tunnel, they finally reached the entranceway to the room at the end of the passageway. As the room did not have any door or locks to bar them, the boys could get inside without forcing their way through or picking locks.

All of them except Lanz went inside. They agreed that someone should stay behind. Though the structure may be old, Damian especially urged that they should not risk it further. Who knows what could happen inside? Hence, they needed someone to be able to call for help just in case.

Lanz volunteered to stay outside. He reasoned that he was the most fit among them. His stamina enabled him to run for about ten minutes straight at his maximum speed. No one refuted him.

It was a sensible decision on his part.

The other three then made way inside the room. The room was not that big as they thought it would be. It seemed to be a perfect cube. Each side was about 20 paces long. The biggest surprise was . . . there was nothing in it at all.

Aside from the magic circles inscribed on the floor, the ceiling, and all the side walls — in which only the entrance’s side was incomplete — it did not contain anything.The magic circles were of considerable size, whose diameters were just a bit shorter than the room’s length.

As they just began to study magic, they had no idea what the magic circles were.

“So, what now?” Damian asked.

“I don’t know,” Lanz replied in a disappointed tone. Josef and Damian followed him as he went to the farthest wall from the entrance. He scrutinized the wall. He then began to caress its surface. It was smooth. The same was true for the other sides including the floor and the ceiling.

“Hey,” Josef tapped Damian on the shoulder. Damian turned to look at him.

“What?” Damian asked.

“The door was that way right?” Josef breathed deeply. He had his flashlight raised at the entrance. Or where he thought it was . . .

Damian suddenly felt anxious, his heart beating irregularly. He turned to look at the entrance to find it was also not there. It was just a wall like the other sides. The magic circle othat was incomplete due to the entrance, was now completed. He hurriedly raised his flashlight at the other sides to see if the two of them just got the direction wrong . . .

None. There was no entrance.

Damian ran to the other side to check whether this was merely an illusion. As he ran, his heart began to beat faster. As he reached the side where the entrance used to be, he touched the wall and confirmed it was indeed concrete. He breathed deeply in order to calm himself down as his heart was beating fast. Ba-dump! Ba-dump!

Leo, on the other hand, was engrossed in surveying the wall that he did not notice Josef was calling and tapping him until . . .

“Leo!” Josef shouted.

Leo winced as the sound, which reverberated throughout the room, surprised him. He looked at Josef who was starting to look pale. Unable to comprehend what was happening to the other boy, Leo turned to Damian, who was still at the other side.

Suddenly, without forewarning, he noticed his flashlight began to flicker. That can’t be right, he thought. There’s no way his flashlight could be dying when the mana battery was just recently bought. However, it was also the same for the ones Damian and Lanz were holding — and they were holding recently bought flashlights. Then when their flashlights died for good, the magic circles lighted up almost instantaneously. Are they activated?

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The three of them converged at the center, with their backs toward each other, as the floor started to crumble from the edge. The ceiling and walls were the same.

“Fuck!” Leo could not help but shout a curse. He had no idea what was happening. There was nothing more scary than that for him. “Lanz! Can you hear us!” he shouted in desperation. However, there was no answer.

Slowly and slowly, as the walls and floor crumbled, Damian noticed that the magic circles were unaffected — as if it was inscribed in the air itself. In addition, though the ceiling was collapsing, nothing was falling down — no debris, dust or whatsoever. As the map stored in Leo’s ring also fell, he frowned at it.

In just a few seconds, the walls disintegrated into nothing but darkness. There was nothing but them and the magic circles. It was as if they were in the void, caged inside the circles.

All of sudden, Damian felt pain throughout his body. It felt as if a nail was being hammered to his body, especially on his head. He felt dizzy and nauseated as his vision began to waver. Something . . . he felt something was getting pulled out of him. He wondered if it was the same for the others.

He fell to his knees as the problem was getting worse. He became unconscious as a blinding ray of light enveloped his vision.

* * *

Damian was still half-asleep when he felt his eyes were heavy and difficult to open. He was hearing sounds of shouting, explosions . . .and the sound of hooves? Clip-Clippity-Clop. . . !

He also noticed that where he was sleeping at kept on rocking back-and-forth. But none of these registered in his mind. He felt as if his mind was floating. He could not distinguish whether what he was perceiving was a part of a dream or reality. All he could tell was that every cell in his body was urging him to go back to sleep. And so, he did . . .

When he finally woke up, Damian slowly opened his eyes and scanned the unfamiliar ceiling in his sight. He hastily raised his upper body as the memories of the recent event brushed his mind. He found himself on a wooden bed with Josef and Leo still sleeping just right next to him. Was this the academy’s infirmary? But was the academy such a cheapskate? How could they place them on a bed without a mattress?

It was still daytime. His head was still ringing when he tried to get up from the bed. He wobbled as he attempted to stand straight. He felt weird . . . like so weird. He felt numb. He could not move his body as he wanted. It was as if it wasn’t his body. What the hell did those magic circles do to him?

He sat down and surveyed the room instead. It was spacious. It did not seem like it was the infirmary. The room seemed like a bedroom instead. There was a cabinet and a lamp besides the bed, and a closet on the opposite wall placed against the wall. To the right of the bed was the door.

As he continued to scan, he observed the room had so much dust accumulating in some places. Whoever did the cleaning merely swept the dust to the sides and corners of the room.The window, for example, seemed like it wasn’t taken care of for months.

He also just noticed now that he was not wearing his clothes. He was wearing a white robe . . . and that he didn’t have undergarments?!

The room's door opened without any forewarning and a bespectacled man with a thick and unkempt facial hair, entered the room. Damian frowned at the stranger as he got uneasy. 

“I see you have woken up,” the man said. “I know that you must have your questions, but for now . . . just take your time to rest. Your body must still feel weird, right?”

Damian could not say anything back nor ask. Though his mind remained shaky, he was still able to think properly. However, he was unable to speak properly. He tried to make a sound but could not pronounce anything properly. Hence, he merely nodded in response.

"My name is Asael Primgard,” he said. 

Damian felt a little relieved as the man introduced himself. The man seemed as if he was in his early thirties or early forties to Damian. He had a thin beard and thin mustache. His clothes though were a bit tattered. Damian just hoped this guy wasn’t a kidnapper. After all, kidnapping was becoming more frequent, he remembered.

“Right now, we are in a house at the outskirts of the city,” Asael said.

Oh, shit! Damian exclaimed out inside. His heart was beginning to beat fast. Why the hell were they not in the academy? He felt as if his worst fear was becoming real. From what he knew, there two primary reasons for kidnapping children: money or organs.

From what he could tell though, it did not seem like the man was after his organs . . . if he did, there was no reason to talk to him, right?!

“I’ll explain to you what’s really happening later when you feel better,” Asael continued. “The only thing I can tell you right now is to prepare yourself to handle the truth.”

Damian was praying desperately though his face did not show it.