“Ward, slow down. Hold on,” Tala said. I ignored her and kept walking. “Would you stop for one minute?” Tala put her hand on my shoulder and the memory of Theo turning around and knocking me across the chin made me clench my fists.

“What?” I almost yelled.

“What do you mean what?” Tala asked, her eyebrows furrowed how I thought a disappointed mother would look. “What happened back there? One minute we’re all freaking out about another survivor the next you and Theo are at each others throats? You… You snapped.”

“I don’t know, okay? Can we just keep going?” That was the best answer I could give because I really didn’t know. I wasn’t really that mad at Theo to begin with but something in me turned when he clocked me. It didn’t even hurt that much either. In fact thinking about the whole exchange made my head foggy and the headache grow deeper.

Tala let out an exasperated sigh as she put her hands on her hips. She shook her head and then took my chin in her hand. “Doesn’t look to bad. Hold still a moment. She reached down and started tugging at the bottom of her white shirt. She was trying to rip off a piece of it.

“Here use this,” I retrieved my rusty knife from my inventory and handed it over to her. “You can keep it if you want. I have another knife.”

Tala said thank and used the knife to cut a thin strip from her shirt. She licked the end of it and held it up to my lip. I instinctually moved my head away.

“Hold still,” Tala said. “What? Don’t tell me you’re afraid of a little germs. Boys…”

She pressed the cloth against my lip, which made me wince against the sting, and started to clean it. Once she was satisfied she turned the cloth around and wiped under my nose. At one point our eyes met and I had to look up at the ceiling. I never realized how warm her eyes looked. A dark hazel brown that called to something deep in my mind. Like drawing forth a warm memory.

“What?” Tala asked, this time with a gentle smile.

“I’ve… Well… Never had a girl this close to me before.” I said.

“Am I making you nervous?” Tala asked.

“Not like that,” I stepped away from her. “Never knew my mom is all. It’s always been me and my dad. Didn’t have a mother to… well you know. Take care of me.”

“Oh right,” Tala looked down at the rag in her hand. “Guess I’m a lot like my mother than I want to admit. She did the same thing for me growing up. Not a lot of bandaids in the apocalypse.” She tossed the rag aside.

“Thanks,” I said as I continued down the hall.

“Yep,” Tala fell in step with me.

We came to the bend in the hall which opened up to a new set of swinging doors. They had small slits of glass that let us look through into the other room. On the other side of the doors was a large dining room dotted with circular tables each with five or six chairs around it. The ceiling rose two levels and curved at the top. On the far end of the room was a wide wall of windows that lead to what looked like a patio with more seats and tables.

Directly across from where we stood was a raised platform with long red drapes tied at their centers and pulled to the far ends of the wall. A single podium stood in the middle of the platform with a small set of stairs leading up from the wood paneled flooring. There was something wrong about the podium. From this distance I couldn’t tell but it was almost as if its own shadow rose rather than fell.

“Think its safe?” I asked Tala.

“I don’t know,” Tala turned away from the doors and looked back from where we came. “Maybe we should go back and catch up with Theo. I’m sure he hasn’t gone far.”

“No. Theo doesn’t want our help anymore,” I pressed on the door. It creaked loudly against my hand which made me pause. After a few moments of silence I finally stepped halfway in. I looked at Tala and tried to give her a comforting smile. “Besides, I think we’ll be fine on our own.”

She returned the smile and we both walked in.

As the door closed behind us I felt a sudden rush of hot wind whip past my face. It stung my skin and made me squint my eyes against its burn.

Tala shielded her eyes against the hot air, “What’s happening?”

“I… I’m not sure,” I said. I followed in Tala’s stance and lifted my arm up to protect my eyes. C’mon think Ward. This sensation seemed familiar. Or at least it should.

The wind fell away and down towards our feet until it’s rapid motion disappeared. I felt cool air return to brush my skin.

Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

“Ward?” Tala asked. She was looking at her arms. Her tan skin was covered in goosebumps and the hairs stood up straight. “I think I know what that was.”

“Really?” I asked.

“Now, I’m not entirely sure. But I think that was magic from a ritual.” She flexed her fingers then started rubbing against her arms as if trying to brush away the bumps.

“A ritual?”

“Yeah, my mom taught me about it. Here let’s step out of the room for a moment. If it was magic from a ritual then this room could be more dangerous then it appears,” She turned and pressed her hand against the door. Her arm gave way suddenly and she almost hit her head on the doors. “What the?”

“What?” I asked.

“The doors. They’re stuck,” She pushed again. When it didn’t budge she put her shoulder against them and tried again. It still didn’t open. “Did you lock them?”

“How would I have done that? There’s no lock,” I pointed to the door handles. They were simple metal bars with no keyholes or knobs.

“Here help me with this,” She started pushing again. I got up next to her and rammed my shoulder near the center. I hit with a hard thump and felt a sharp pain rip through my shoulder. Damn it!

We tried putting all our weight into trying to get the doors open. When that didn’t work I started kicking it. I must have tried it a dozen times before the hunger in my stomach gave me a dizzy spell.

“Okay, we’re stuck,” I finally said after my head stopped spinning.

“It’s the ritual,” Tala said.

“The ritual? You think the doors were sealed by magic?” I asked.

“That has to be the reason. Look we’ve experienced a lot of different challenges in the Trials. Were meant to learn and adapt to anything that’s thrown at us. So far we’ve had to fight different creatures all more dangerous then the last. We’ve had to scavenge for our own supplies. Learn how to use different items, mementos, equipment,” Tala’s voice started to rise with excitement. I could tell she was onto something.

“What are you getting at, Tala?” I asked.

“Well so far most of the challenges have been physical obstacles. Fights, survival, things like that,” She said.

“What about the skywalk?”

“That was a mental challenge. You know, to see how we deal with our minds being… well challenged. This has to be a challenge to deal with magic. How we adapt and use it. All of the events of the Trials is to help us prepare for the rest of the Fallen States by giving us directions on picking our Class Pathways,” A spark of light shone in her eyes as she talked. Something had clicked in her head and I could tell she was loving it. I on the other hand started biting my lip in confusion.

“Ward… Seriously? You haven’t been thinking about what Pathway you are going to choose? I swear it’s all I’ve been thinking about since we got to these empty floors.”

“No… I mean yeah. Of course I’ve been thinking about it. Just a lot has happened.” My mind rushed through all the moments that have happened the last couple of days. I started comparing them to what Tala said. She was right. Like a puzzle slowly being put together. It was all there alright. A series of growing challenges all set to help us identify our strongest aspects. It was kind of exciting to think about.

I felt a new rising heat grow inside my chest. Excitement. I was so close to finally picking my Class Pathway. The big question was, what would I pick? Growing up I knew my dad wanted me to follow a similar Pathway as him. To help out the colony. To help other people. But since I made my decision to join the Outriders, my future all but changed now.

So what Class Pathway would I choose? I knew there was a total of seven Class Pathways with each having three unique Specializations. A total of twenty-one distinct skills and abilities to obtain. Twenty-one different ways to gain power. When it came to Specializations, I had no idea what I would choose. I was still having a hard time picking the Class Pathway, but I was starting to lean towards a few.

The Pathways given to the survivors are; Scavenger, Preacher, Soldier, Cultist, Scholar, Thief and Magus. Given the various fights we had been in I’ve been leaning towards Soldier or Thief. Magus always sounded cool to me, but like Tala pointed out, I had no idea what my affinity to magic was. Guess I’m about to find out.

“So,” I folded my arms and looked her dead in the eyes. “What do you suggest we do? My dad never really talked about magic. Mostly skills and abilities dealing with scavenging and farming.

“If it is a ritual that’s keeping us locked in here then we need to find a way to break it. All rituals have glyphs or tomes involved. There must be one somewhere in here,” She looked out at the room.

“Let’s start there,” I said, pointing at the podium. “See that?”

“Yeah. It looks like its emanating dark light,” She started forward. “That must be it.”

I followed behind Tala then grabbed her by the arm.

“What—” I covered her mouth. She let out a grunt and tried to push away from me but I told her in a quiet voice to stay quiet then pointed at the far wall towards the outdoor patio. She followed my finger and finally caught on to the danger of this new challenge.

Outside the glass wall, hidden in the shade of the building, was a horde of Wretched Shamblers. They were all huddled together, rocking back and forth on the balls of their feet. There was a pile of garbage strewn about their legs and piled up near the edge of the patio overlooking the city. I guess that’s were all the food and supplies went. I waved my hand for us to crouch down back behind the wall of the doorway. We fell into the shadows.

“There’s no way we are going to be able to fight all of those Shamblers,” Tala said. “We could try sneaking our way to the podium.”

“We could but…”

“But what?” Tala asked.

“Why haven’t they attacked us already?”

“What do you mean?”

“We’ve been pounding against these doors for like five minutes now. We weren’t being very quiet, yet for some reason they haven’t noticed us yet. Something seems off.” I peaked my head around the corner. The group of Shamblers all had their heads pointed to the ground, or were rummaging through the piles of junk. They weren’t asleep, and from what I could tell they weren’t deaf. At least their interactions with one another didn’t indicate so. Why hadn’t they noticed us yet? Is it the glass walls? No way they’re thick enough to block out the sound of me kicking the door. So why?

“Ward we can’t stay here,” Tala said. “I say we make our way over to the podium and break the ritual. It might be our only way out of here.”

I hesitated for a minute before I answered her. I ran through the endless scenarios in the event they saw us. I felt I was strong enough to kill maybe two or three. More if I decided to use my gun, but definitely not all of them. If they attacked then we’re as good as dead. “Okay. Let’s do it.”