Namu could only pace. He couldn’t think about going to his Symbols One class. He could not think about school, classwork, students, teachers, or anything besides what he had just done. He didn’t want to run into Lily at all. He didn’t want to do anything but turn back time.

He restored his room back to its original state after using that one spell Mr. Vero had taught him to get rid of the dust. He had to have used it five times, which normally would have worn him out, but his adrenaline had kept him going. The last thing that went back to normal was his desk, which had now shifted back to wood and had left the dust that had changed it floating in the air.

He kicked at the desk, his foot going numb from the assault. Then he sat down on his bed and cried, his tears soaking and burning into his bloody, blistered hand that had been burned on the metal as he deserved.

He had locked a student in that world.

What was he supposed to do?

If he went in there, he would be petrified again. He would be trapped there too. More of his soul would be eaten away. Just like it had been before.

But if he didn’t do anything, that student, that person, that soul would perish. They would die. And it would all be on him.

His soul was already tattered and in ruins. He didn’t think he could live knowing he had done that to someone else.

He had to get Mr. Vero now.

He ran down his hall, the doors becoming a blur, then he grabbed the banister to the stairs and swung himself down, taking two stairs at a time. He didn’t care what time or class period it was. He sprinted from the main floor to the grand staircase and ran down the hall until he got to Mr. Vero’s classroom door, which was shut. He barged inside.

“Mr. Vero!”

Mr. Vero must have seen the panic in his eyes from the front of the classroom, for he took Namu in for only a moment before he raised his hand to his students. “Class dismissed. Please find your way out now.”

The students, mumbling questions, started to leave as Namu knocked into a few, trying to get to the front of the class.

“What’s wrong?”

“A student,” Namu breathed. He felt like he was going to faint. His vision flicked to white every few heartbeats as he grabbed at a desk to steady himself. “I trapped one. Behind the door.”

The silence drilled a hole into his heart.

He saw Mr. Vero in a blur walking around him to close his classroom door.

“You did what?” His teacher asked from behind once the door had clicked shut.

Namu spun around. “I went into my room after lunch—that world—the place—it was in my room. Changing things. Lily almost saw. Did see—”

“You trapped Pathon behind the door!?” Mr. Vero was wide-eyed.

Namu shook his head. “I got Lily out. I don’t know who I trapped. I checked the door. It was slightly open. I shut it. Someone must have gone inside.”

“But how?”

Namu didn’t have an answer. He had no idea how anyone could have known about the door. But he did know who may have had someone snooping around. He couldn’t tell Vero that, though. He couldn’t get that person in trouble. It was on Namu anyway for keeping secrets. He was a hypocrite. He had kept secrets just like Mr. Vero had from him last year.

“I… I don’t know what to do,” Namu said, looking to Mr. Vero in desperation.

Mr. Vero studied him. “You know what we have to do. We have to go in there and get that student out. Like I did for you. Like Will did for me.”

“But how? Their soul hasn’t come out yet. And if we go in like you had before…you said that the teacher who saved you died of some strange thing no one could figure out. We can’t stay in there.”

“I think I have a plan. I need to meet with the Transformation Drinks 1 teacher, Mr. Ferrer, and the others quickly, and then I’ll meet you in your room.”

He turned to go out the door but then stopped. “And Namu…”

Namu stared at him, his heart wanting to be torn to pieces, his shuttering breaths threatening to do just that.

“It may take days.”

Then he was gone.

***

An hour later, Mr. Vero met Namu in his room. He had on an odd belt buckled around his waist over his dark shirt as if it had come out of a generic role-playing game. It was tan with holes all around it, holding a bunch of vials containing sloshing purple liquid. He held out a similar belt for Namu.

“What is this?” Namu asked, taking the floppy snake to buckle it around himself.

“We will do an astral-transform spell like I did before to get your body. We will both go in to assess the situation and then make decisions from there depending on whether this student’s soul has made it out of their body or not yet.”

If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Mr. Vero moved the small dresser aside then put a glue spell on it to keep it in place. He knew the room well enough that, after so much time, it made its way back to cover up the enchanted wall.

Mr. Vero then placed his hand on the correct spot on the enchanted wall and muttered the wording that made the wall crumble away around his feet. The sand falling made Namu remember when he had come across the wall and the enchantment for the first time. He had been trying to rearrange his room, but the desk kept sliding back into place. After research and analysis, he had found the spell that Mr. Vero had done.

He still regretted that day.

Mr. Vero stepped over the piles of sand on the floor, and Namu followed him into the room.

They were silent as they waited for the wall to form behind them again. They would have to do the same, only in reverse, to get out. They would have to place their hand on the correct spot, mirroring the other side, then say the incantation backward. There was no other way out unless they were spirits passing through and their bodies were lying in this room or beyond this door. Not even the transformation drinks that would turn them into something like spiritual mists to help them roam more freely like a fog and stay away from those creatures in that world would help them pass through that wall.

Namu swallowed hard as Mr. Vero opened the door, took a vial from his belt, popped off the corked top, and then downed it, making sure to splash a little on himself when it was done. The exact reasoning behind why he did that, Namu didn’t know. But before Namu could think more about it, he watched his teacher disintegrate.

Namu did the same thing, copying the movements exactly as Mr. Vero did them so he wouldn’t mess anything up. He had done this before with Mr. Vero in his private lessons, but Mr. Vero had never talked about it much in depth. It was a lesson he would learn later in Transformation Drinks and Remedies Three.

His brain began to fog and break away from itself, his eyes blurring as he lost all sense of self and started to fall apart piece by piece. It was unsettling for him, whereas other people apparently found it enlightening and addicting. It granted them a chance to fall away from themself after trying to hold themself together for far too long, but for Namu, it only made him feel emptier, more aware, and more desperate for his solid, full form.

“Are you ready?” he heard Mr. Vero’s distorted voice say through his own foggy mist before his vision cleared. He was then able to see Mr. Vero floating in front of him. For a moment, he looked as if someone had taken their hand across a window of raindrops, creating a blurred image of something, maybe human, until Mr. Vero moved through the door, becoming more of a stream.

Namu followed. His own stream lengthened, trying to pull back into itself as he moved until he passed through the opened door. As a mist, Mr. Vero went back through the opening and then back into the world again, creating a slight wind current to close the door with him. It was then that Namu met the memorable twinge of pain, scattering his insides as if needles were falling from the skies down through his misted skin.

“I know it hurts, Namu. We just need to assess the situation, and then we can leave.”

Namu nodded, even though he knew nodding was worthless in this form. A flower erupted in flames from under him, and he dove away from it to escape the green dust. He knew the dust would burn his lungs and go deeper into his veins than it already was.

He kept an eye out for those creatures too. Mr. Vero had told him before that they could not grab onto this form, and Namu could see why now. Being in this form made him feel a bit safer, but he couldn’t be completely sure.

Mr. Vero headed for the trees up ahead. By the trees, lying on the ground, was something that looked like a statue. A black metal statue shaped like a girl.

Namu couldn’t breathe. He stopped moving and let himself sink. He had never seen another person like that. Had never seen someone as he had been.

“Namu, come on!”

The girl had those creatures all over her. They looked angrier than he remembered them being. They were tearing at her body as she lay still, trapped.

He had trapped her here.

“Namu!”

Namu watched as Mr. Vero’s mist shivered, and his whole body appeared next to the statue and the creatures in solid form. Mr. Vero then took his brown shoe and put it against the statue for the first layer of the shoe to be burned away. He pulled back, with his finger to his chin.

But then Mr. Vero’s arm started changing, a metal crust forming from his elbow.

“No!” Namu screamed, streaming for him.

But Mr. Vero unhooked a vial and downed it to turn to mist again, causing the small metal casing on his elbow to drop. One of the small white creatures pounced on it to dig into it with their heads.

Mr. Vero was next to him, coughing now in his mist form.

“I know it’s hard, Namu, but I need you to assess it, too, so you can see if I missed anything.”

Namu couldn’t. He couldn’t go over there. He couldn’t face the nightmare he had seen a hundred times in real life and in his dreams.

But he had to because this was all his fault.

He made himself float over there, even though everything in his body revolted doing so. He made himself stand over the girl’s body. He made himself look at her. He couldn’t help every single emotion crashing down around him, especially when he realized that he recognized the metal face of the girl. It was the girl who had been at the fountain. The one who had asked him questions.

This was even more his fault than he had thought it was.

“Let’s go!” Mr. Vero said.

Namu must have been staring for too long.

They both streamed to the door. Mr. Vero formed back into his physical body first, opened the door, and ducked inside. Namu went next. He grabbed onto the foggy line of transformation magick that glimmered with his misted hand and cut the connection, letting it disintegrate around him. His body was shocked at the impact of being pulled back together. A headache formed at his temples.

When the door closed behind them, Mr. Vero made a circle on the ground with a clear stone and then drew a few symbols, which he stood on. When he stomped his foot down on the circle, a light shined up, encasing Mr. Vero until all the dust from that other world had been eaten away.

Namu did the same.

“I didn’t see her soul wandering around. Did you? Did you recognize her?” Mr. Vero asked.

Namu nodded. “A first year.” He had not seen her soul either. “How are we supposed to get her out?”

“Well, we can’t just wait for the cocoon to fall away like ours did and then have her transform or quickly pull her here. Her soul is in danger. We may have to try to pull the body with the metal casing closer to the door and then wait for it to fall away before we pull her through.”

“But her soul might be dead by then!”

Mr. Vero went to shrug but then stopped. “I don’t know what to tell you, Namu. That’s all we can do. We can’t bring the metal in here, not straight from the source. Not when we don’t know what it would do, especially with those creatures on it.”

“What if she turns into the petrified wood instead?”

A few bodies, including his, had turned into a wooden casing after the world beyond the door had released him for a moment before trapping him again. It had been in that moment that Mr. Vero had been able to turn back into a human and break his soul free.

“If she was the petrified wood, she would be easier to pull since she wouldn’t burn whatever touched her away, but we still cannot risk pulling her inside. You know that. We just have to sit and wait. I’ll go and collect what we need. I’ll also cancel your classes and mine. I’ll call in sick. As for Pathon…”

“I’ll text them some kind of excuse.”