“Err, what?” Mr. Garry fumbled.

Despite their earlier assertions both Seth and Cham had all but left and it was only a very bored looking Liah left over. She was balancing a pencil between her nose and upper lip and was kind of crooked up between two of the lower windows.

“Well, I think you have the wrong guy.” Ed nervously gave him a sort of half hearted smile as he pushed the books away. “I mean, I probably wouldn’t mind larping with you guys sometime but I really gotta get to my english class. I don’t think I have any tardies left.”

Mr. Garry seemed to glance over at Liah, as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was hearing. He snapped his fingers and as if he was lighting a match a little flame appeared between them.

“Oh wow!” Ed gushed and he stumbled out of his desk so he could get a better look. “That’s pretty awesome!” He knelt down at the table so he could pretend to look at it from another angle. “How’s that work. Wait, no! Look, I’m really sorry Mr. Garry but unless you got a note for me I really gotta get going.”

There was a large snort from where Liah’d been sitting and Ed all but jumped at the small window it made.

He dashed to the door, but right before he got to the handle he stopped, then knocked. Honestly, this was probably the biggest gamble out of the entire little plan he’d thought up. “Hey! I’m not about to walk into some steamy makeout session between you guys right?”

“Wait!” Mr. Garry shouted. “Cham no!”

“The fuck!” And when the door all but exploded inwards with a loud bang Ed almost slumped to the floor in relief. It’s been barely a couple moments since they’d left but if they hadn’t bothered to wait for even just a few more seconds there, there would have been absolutely zero chance of that working.

Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

“Sorry!” Ed squeaked and he ducked his head under Cham’s arm as he squeezed through. He spun a little as he passed a now very confused looking Seth. “I’ll make it up to you guys later. I know of some sick larp gear up in my attic.”

He caught a small “What’s a larp?” Out of Seth as he passed him by.

There was a loud curse followed by a small crash from within the classroom. “Wait! Stop!” Mr. Garry heaved, hands on his knees as he stumbled out of the classroom. “You’ll be hunted!”

Hunted! What! Well, if he hadn’t been so before he was definitely sure now, Ed thought to himself as he hurdled over the stair railing. He’d be getting as far as humanly possible away from these people as he could manage.

While they’d been green before, the little dots on his minimap had turned red. As he clambered down the stairwell, sort of dropping between the rails for maximum speed, Ed tried to think of the reason he hadn’t noticed this before. His own dot was blue and while surprisingly accurate; no matter how he had poked at it before the map had only ever shown a few dozen meters flat. Now, as the blinking Garrydot seemed to rapidly approach his own, the map had sort of split into two. A small circle focused on what he assumed was the upper floor, and then a much longer and now very three dimensional one with his little blue dot, dropping jerkily through it.

He hit the ground, then punched the fire escape. Unfortunately, this was apparently much easier in the movies because he spent the next couple seconds desperately cradling his fist and hissing loudly through his teeth. The glass having gone very much unbroken. In hindsight, he probably should have used the tiny hammer that was right there next to it.

Since the red blinking dot seemed to have stopped directly beside his on the smaller map, Ed hastily schooled his features. He straightened out like he’d been just simply doing some sort of stretch and gave Mr. Garry a casual wave. He was bent out over the railing. Looking strangely worried for some reason.

“Ed!” He bellowed out. “You’ll be hunted!”

Uh, yeah. No shit.

“What was that Mr. Garry?” Ed hollered back. “Look, I really got to get to class!” He made a show of glancing up at the nearby clock. “Actually, I think it’s almost over!”

There was a brief pause as Mr. Garry seemed to get distracted by something over his shoulder for a second.

“Wait, uh!” He started up again. But Ed had already turned away, with another casual wave of course as he started jogging back down the hall. Though, he did manage to catch the tail end of what he was fairly certain had been a, “Not by us!”