“Proctor, did you by any chance read the book you found in Jonas' room? The book you based your accusation on?" Keon Zek asked. And while he sat shoulders slouched, skin pale and sickly, his words were unnaturally sharp and piercing.

"Mr. Zek we know what is written in the book," said Philemon Petridies.

“Do you really? Word for word? Have you read it lately? Or did you ask for a summary?" Keon Zek smirked but his eyes did not move an inch. They were wide open, unblinking, alert. Dangerous.

“I asked for a detailed summary.”

“Of course, proctor. And did you even bother to flip through a few pages, just in case?"

Proctor Philemon Petridies did not answer and merely sat staring at Keon Zek who seemed to have the entire room at the palm of his hand. Neither of them talked for some time, and neither blinked. Heavy voices echoed in my mind, but I didn't catch any of the telepathic communication.

"Mr. Zek, I have the feeling you have ben leading us on for this entire time..." said the proctor.

“Oh, have I? Did you come up with that all by yourself?” Keon Zek laughed, but it was without humor. Or joy. Or life. It was the laughter of the dead. Then the sickly man coughed hard, like his lungs were filled with fluid from decades of smoking. “Let me correct you, proctor, It was my master who misled you. I was merely the tool, the willing instrument who did what I was told."

“Cassan Sarzanno? Why would he ask you to do all of this?”

"Sarzanno? Hah!” Keon spat on the table a yellow, foamy slime and leaned against the backrest. He almost looked like a head draped in loose skin.

"What was so humorous, Mr. Zek?" asked the proctor. "He is your appointed master at Cappesand. I’m afraid that you don’t understand just in how serious trouble you and Weare are in!”

“Oh no!” mocked Keon Zek. "I’m in trouble! What ever will I do?”

Suddenly the skeletal man jumped up and leaned forward to meet the face of the your proctor. They were mere inches from each other. I saw sweat bead the forehead of the proctor.

"My master needs me to do only one more thing, then I will be rewarded. You cannot even imagine what he promised, my master. You cannot even imagine all of the things he told me. What he showed me. The truths he revealed... How could you even fathom who he is? How could you even understand? All of you are arrogant fools! You are not ready for what is to come. But I will show you. I will make you see."

“Mr. Zek, what are you--" the proctor stuttered, now leaning away from the maddened Keon Zek. “Mr. Zek, it is you who must understand the serious trouble you are in! False accusations against fellow students, and even planting false evidence, is a grave violation. I’m afraid that merely expelling you from Cappesand is the least of your worries. We are talking about how long you will serve in the penal battalion!”

Keon Zek retreated into his chair again and met the eyes of the proctor.

I sought Florencia's arm. She had been silent for all this time, and I sensed her unease. To my right Lilly Weare shifted her seat ever closer to me, and held a handkerchief to her nose to battle some of the stench of the unwashed Keon.

But the proctor Philemon was unbothered by Keon’s smell, or his rambling, and stared at him with steeled eyes. The air grew ever thicker and a deep rumble emerged from the deep. Then, in a puff, all the surrounding candlesticks were snuffed out and thin smoke filled the tall chamber. Frost on the windows rose and my breath grew chilled. Florencia grabbed my arm and leaned in to keep warm. Even this did not deter the proctor, but Keon spoke first.

"Do not threaten me with empty words, you cretin. A mere blind accuser. Do you think it was mere luck that you were assigned to this case, instead of head proctor Galmans? He would have done his homework and proper preparation before this trial. Perhaps he would have seen through my lies, but not you, Philemon. You are the self-righteous young proctor who cares above all else for his career. How can such a man even begin to understand the forces he is toying with? You have nothing to threaten me with."

Philemon Petridies was stunned in silence, as were the three masters. Next to me was Florencia, who held onto my arm and shivered, burying her face in my shoulder.

“You’re cold,” she whispered as she massaged my hands. “Your hands are frozen."

“I feel strange,” I said as through a fog.

Florencia recoiled, looked at me and said: “Jonas! What's wrong? Your eyes, where are you going?"

“I feel tired,” I said, to which Florencia shot me a concerned expression. Meanwhile, the proctor and Keon exchanged more bitter words, while the three masters sat and looked on. Masters Vanda Canno and Karim Mas looked worried and leaned back, while master Almon did not seem to care much and was picking on a loose thread on his sleeve.

“Mr. Zek, I can send you to a penal battalion with a single letter!” proctor Petridies said and gathered his papers into a single stack again. “Do not mock me again, or it will be for a long time!”

“You can write hundreds of letters, proctor, but can’t send me anywhere,” Keon said. “You don’t hold any command over my fate, for I have given that right to my master.”

“Keon! Master Sarzanno will have to back up my judgment.”

“Cassan is an old fool!” Keon spat. “I’ve not talked to him in months. He is of no consequence to me, and his time is near. You should say your goodbyes soon.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

“Then what are we even doing here?” Philemon shouted. “Your little game has failed, Mr. Zek, whatever it was. My job now is to figure out what that game was.”

To that, Keon Zek laughed again, a foamy and wet laugh, deep from his throat, and poor Lilly shifted ever farther from him. “You have no idea what has begun… What I have unleashed! And I will be rewarded in ways you cannot even imagine! Nobody else saw it, nobody else understood, do you see? But He! He found me. He made me understand. He showed me the truth…”

A thick and white foam formed in the corners of Keon’s mouth again as he talked, ever more to himself than to the proctor or to the masters. Then, in a moment of strength that came from deep within me, I turned to face Keon and seek to understand what he was ranting about. But the moment I saw his eyes, there was something there that I remembered from long ago. Something which Florencia allowed me to forget but had returned some time ago. I saw in Keon’s eyes the same shadow, the same malicious presence. I felt it as strongly as I felt the cold overtaking my body.

“Jonas!” Florencia said as she massaged my hands. “Jonas!”

“I’m fine, Flo,” I said as if I was drunk. “I’m fine. But Keon, Keon’s wrong. It’s not him. It’s not Keon.”

“Jonas, what’s wrong? Where are you?” Florencia now had tears welling up and a panicked expression on her face. “I can’t sense you, Jonas! Where are you going?”

“Flo, you have to leave. Keon’s wrong. It’s the shadow people. I see them,” I said and looked up, regardless of my frozen body. I could hardly feel my hands anymore, and the body I was in felt like only a shell for someone else. It was almost like I saw the world through layers of glass. It was muted, quieter, dimmer. And through that glass, I saw a great shadow looming over Keon, with its long claws dug deep into his back and its legs melted into his. Two long shadows were circling Lilly, making an almost gleeful dance above her. But Lilly was oblivious, like that murderer before he was hung all those years ago in Darnel.

“Flo. You have to run now,” I said, but Florencia cried and tried to shake me out of apathy. It was a fool’s errand now. The hand was dealt. All that was left now was to play the game out and see who the winners were and who were the losers.

Keon was still sitting next to Lilly and said: “There’s only one thing I have to do, then I will be immortally rewarded.” Then, moving quick as lightning, he jumped up, grabbed Lilly Weare’s sleeve, and pulled her close. And before anyone could even utter a shout, he was holding Lilly by her throat.

“Keon!” a pale Philemon shouted and jumped up. With a quick wave of his hand, the two heavy tables splintered apart with a thunderous crack and crashed into the walls, others crashing into the windows, shattering them. “Let her go, Keon!”

The proctor Philemon Petridies moved fast, too fast for my eyes, towards Keon with an outstretched arm. But Keon was faster and it was too late for the poor girl. From somewhere underneath his robes Keon took a dagger, sleek black and smoky, and held it to Lilly’s neck.

“The virgin sacrifice! Rufasmos, I demand my reward!” Keon screamed with a wet and slimy gurgle. With a single, determined thrust, he drove the dagger into Lilly’s neck and slit her throat with a swift motion.

Lilly Weare wailed but for a second. It was a pathetic and frightened cry that died down as Keon sliced through her neck. Within a moment, a bright red jet of blood burst out from the wound onto Keon’s face. Suddenly he dropped the dagger onto the floor, where it broke like glass into countless smoking scraps of iron upon the checkered tiles.

Somewhere in the distance, I heard Florencia cry out. She had jumped up and tried to pull me to my feet, but I sat unmoving like a sack of sand, unable to care. Cold had overtaken me and I looked at her panicked face with simple indifference. “Jonas!” she screamed and grabbed my sleeve, trying to pull me up from the chair.

“Jonas!” Florencia called out again.

“Keon!” Philemon Petridies roared further away. “By the Gods, what have you done, Keon?”

Not a meter away to my right, Keon Zek held the body of Lilly Weare.

Life had left the poor girl and a frightened expression was frozen in those soulless eyes, for her final moments had been those of terror. But the body, held up by Keon’s bony arm, was leaking blood and a dark mist arose from it. The mist then started consuming the body, slowly at first, then faster and faster, until what had been Lilly Weare only moments before was now merely an empty vessel dressed in a bright orange and pink dress.

Keon dropped her body on the floor like a wet towel and a pile of cloth and sludge containing the remains of what had been Lilly. It was surrounded by the black mist which grew ever darker and ever greater. A terrified Philemon Petridies stood some paces away, frozen and with hands held up in defense. It seemed that he did not account for this happening.

Regardless of the stunned proctor, a hunched-over Keon stood before them, with hunger in his eyes. The murderer stumbled backward and grabbed his chest. He started heaving and coughing, and foam came up from his lungs and onto the floor, white and red intermixed, then a dark red vomit followed, along with a chunk of his yellow-grey skin.

I looked up, and right there was Keon falling apart before my eyes; I heard his bones break and saw his muscles cramp. He broke his teeth by biting down on them. Skin fell off his jaw and his arms in large lumps, revealing muscles and sinew and crimson veins.

Keon looked at the horrified proctor and smiled while falling apart in front of their eyes. There was no skin covering his broken teeth, only a lipless smile of bloody flesh. He took a step forward. Philemon jumped back, next to the three masters, who had looked on to the terrifying display in stunned silence, unable or unwilling to do anything to stop it. The corpse then turned around, facing me.

“It was nothing personal, Jonas,” the decaying Keon Zek seemed to say to me but without the lips to articulate his words. “Hah! We might even meet on the other side. But time’s up, your friends are waiting.”

Then, as a final mockery, the skinless Keon waved goodbye to me and laughed one more time. It was nothing like a real laugh, though, and more like a bloody gurgle and raspy passing of air through his broken windpipe. But he laughed. That damned living corpse laughed. Keon Zek laughed as his flesh dropped off his bones and rotted where it fell. Then, in an instant, the hateful flame left his eyes, and a lifeless body crumbled into a pile of flesh, bone, and skin amongst dark robes.

Immediately, the hungry dark mist descended upon those remains, and grew even taller. It then changed into the shape of a creature, tall and wide, with thin limbs and long claws, and it seemed to turn towards me. Quickly it lengthened its body and drifted all around me, enveloping me. Florencia had her hands around my shoulders, but the Shadow burned them off and shoved her into the wall.

“Jonas!” she cried in the distance.

“Jonas!” I heard more voices and steps running. “Get- Get away from him! Jonas!”

“Jonas…” someone screamed somewhere. But it was already too far away. I barely could make out what they said next. Nor could I have understood those words.

It became quiet. Distant.

I felt tired and heavy. So very tired and so very heavy.

There were no thoughts in my mind, and a stillness was settling upon me. I had no body to move and there was nothing but a blackness, a cold void, perhaps it was endless, or perhaps without size. But whatever it was, it was still and unmoving and cold.

Time uncounted passed where I lost all thought and reason. I was not Jonas then, for all that time, and more like an observer of the black. Then, I felt a pull, great and hurried. A very great pull that dragged my unwilling self somewhere I did not want to go, down, deep down.

I felt myself compress into nothingness and dragged thin to where the pull came from. I passed through and came out the other side as myself.

And then there was pain.

And then laughter.