After what seemed like the 7th teleport, the classrooms stopped being full of students, instead replaced by a empty shadow of a room. The air smelled different here, a familiar scent that I had smelled recently for sure, but I couldn’t place my finger on it.
Stopping to catch my breath, the effects of wasting half of an Endurance bar began to catch up with me. I failed to notice it before, but the room seemed devastated, with chairs tossed around and desks smashed, it looked like a warzone.
“Hey Flow, are kids at your school generally this destructive…”
Whilst it was more of a statement than a question, I still managed to shake my head, “No, something happened here. Something big.”
Staring more intently at the walls my Perception began to pick up on finer details, scorch marks of two different types, one clearly by fire but the other, was questionable. It seemed to precise to be fire, something was definitely off. But I wasn’t going to stay and find out. “We need to find Reece, stay close and help me search, I don’t want to ever split up again.”
A simple nod by Melody and we began to search the room, finding more scratch marks along the desks, and... Backpacks. But where are the kids. This didn’t feel right.
“Ahhhhhhhh~!” Loud, thundering scrapes ran along the otherside of the wall, like nails on a chalkboard we could hear the student screaming on the other side of the door.
“Let us in, dear god let us in!”
“Please, please!”
As if their cries were falling on deaf ears, myself and Melody remained frozen in place. Our bodies stuck stiff at the plead of help from the outside.
“It’s coming!” Snapping back to reality, my hand raced to the door before I heard another voice on the other side.
“Everyone, stand back!” Soon flames blasted through, snapping off the lock from the door. Out stepped a black-haired boy with embers still lit in his hands, as if he was the sole controller of fire.
“Reece? Is that you?” I shouted in disbelief, since when was Reece a mage! “You can use fire magic!”
“Now’s not the time Flow, help me hold this door shut, this damn creature will try to break it down any second!” Within seconds I rushed towards the door, using my legs and shoulder to forcefully ram the door shut. After looking like an idiot for a while just pushing at the door. I soon felt a strong pound against me. Something was trying to force its way inside!
Damn this thing was strong! I don’t know how much force Reece was taking off for me, but without my Strength stat having been over 20, I doubt there would be any way that I could keep this door shut. “Can you hold this closed for a second?” Nodding once, I straightened my grip. Reece slowly began to let go, seeming to test the waters, a few thumps from the other side were quickly shut down as I used my legs to take most of the force.
After hearing strange chanting I looked over my shoulder only to see Reece in a deep trance, I didn’t know if that was normal, having no experience of casting spells myself I just let Reece handle it. No point trying to focus on two things at once, it was well know that most of our survival chance depended on me keeping this door shut, and that was what I intended to do.
“Radek. Paralog. Vectem. Darago!” As Reece began his chanting, I saw his fingers move in illustrious manners, he began to show dexterity that would put anyone to shame as he nimbly moved his hands to display patterns. “Okay, Flow. Open the door….. Now!”
Stepping violently back, the door swung open with enough force to topple a van. My heart shook as I prepared myself for the violent monstrosity that was sure to appear behind the door. Wait, air? Was the monster made of air? Taking a second look I failed to see any monster, “Farafil!” Flames rushed out from Reece’s hands like a tsunami wave, encompassing the door entirely as it filtered out toward the hallway.
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My heart pained as I watched Reece fire at thin air, surely he wouldn’t hit the monster, but maybe the spell didn’t take too much Mana I thought. This seemed unlucky however as the fire Reece launched was akin to a volcano erupting full force as it toppled anything and everything in its path. *Crash* Violently the flames began to disperse, taking with them what little remained for the oxygen in the air.
“Don’t worry Reece, we’ll get it next time.”
“What do you mean Flow, I hit the thing dead on.” Reece began pointing outwards, looking closer I saw a flickering of light. ‘What is that..’ I thought to myself, ‘a fairy?’
The light slowly began to vanish as a cloak like veil was suddenly ripped from the monster, displaying its true form. ‘The thing can go invisible! What the heck!’ The creature’s mana that once redirected light suddenly collapsed, as the creature began to make a quick dash back to safety, it seemed that it would only stalk us, never to fight head on.
“Should we go after it?” I asked.
“No, it’s a trap, the creature will lead us to a room where the invisible will reactivate, you’d never know when it will attack you. That’s how it got the others.”
My mouth lay agape as I contemplated what he was stating, “It can go invisible? What kinda scam skill is that?”
“My thoughts exactly, but it turns out there is a weakness.” Reece began to explain the details of his elaborate plan out for all students to hear. “Believe it or not it has a weakness to electronics. The reason for our connection breaking up is that the creature has to use an EMP blast due to its invisibility being fried from the waves that phones and other electrical devices produce.”
“How did you even find that out Reece.” I began to ask, it seemed like a far stretch to me, the objects that creatures could disable being a weakness, sounded preposterous.
“That’s easy, the creature never turned invisible until it used its EMP, also, and I may have been delusional here. But when I used my lightning spell, the creature’s body flickered strangely.”
“Wait you have a lightning spell?”
“Yeah but the downside is that it has a really long start up time, that’s why I couldn’t use it when you were holding the door, who knows if you would be able to hold that monstrosity back long enough.”
“Well, surely the cast time isn’t that-”
“30 seconds.”
“....God damnit Reece.”
“Hey, stick with me here Flow, I just need you to distract the creature for 30 seconds, It’s find you will be able to see the thing as well.”
“Wait, how? I thought you said it was weak to electronics, we don’t have anything that could stop his invisibility.”
“Flow, your phone was outside the EMP range, it should still work.”
Grabbing the phone out from my back-pocket, I pressed the power button once, (75% battery life remaining). My face lit up at the prospect, finally something was going my way.
“Alright, we need to do this fast, who knows if the creature will use another EMP, or what kind of cooldown that thing has on it.”
Everyone in the room gave a quick nod, plan sorted out we began to spread out. Moving down the hallways, avoiding creating any unnecessary sound. We made our way to the Auditorium, a place once used for scientific lectures from outside teachers and staff, had now become a battleground.
Desks and tables flipped over, doors wide open but ready to be sealed shut by people who would run out when the monster came in. We were prepared. This would normally all be fine, if it wasn’t for one thing. “Reece are you sure I have to be the bait!”
“Quit your whining Flow, it’s not like you want that monster to come over here-”
“Reece I don’t like it when your thinking! It makes me worried!”
“Hey Flow, your haircut makes you look terrible!”
“What the hell do you mean Reece!”
“Everyone, if you want to survive start insulting Flow and yell really loud!”
After looking at each other, everyone came to the conclusion, this is a win-win scenario…
“Your shirt looks like it belongs in the girl shop!”
“You have a terrible sense of direction!”
Insult after insult rained down like machine gun fire, not having enough time to answer all of them I could only yell out hysterically at the barrage of hurtful words incoming.
“Stop insulting me just cause Reece told you to damnit!”
*Growl* A silvery chill ran down the spine of almost everyone in the room, wait where was everyone? Looking around desperately I couldn’t make anyone out, where did they all go…
**Stomp** **Stomp**
It’s figure couldn’t be seen due to its current invisibility but regardless, I could still feel the pressuring force of the monster’s gaze in front of me. Like predator looking down upon prey, I couldn’t help but mumble out, “Not again…”