03 REAWAKENING

She got there but it was too late. Leon was shredded in half, his blood sprayed on the wall of the room. Judging from the book beside his top half, he had been reading when he got attacked but there seemed to be no signs of struggle or a fight. It could only mean one thing...whatever had killed Alicia and now Leon was so strong and fast it never gave them any chance to fight back or even notice they were being attacked. Considering the fact that in Alicia’s room there were no signs of fire been used, this hypothesis seemed to be accurate.

What also puzzled Orea was the fact that the blood in both rooms was fresh. They had to have been killed few minutes prior to her arrival otherwise she could have helped.

What or who could have done this? Why were they still in their rooms during class? Orea thought, tears welling up in her eyes. Quickly wiping her eyes, she focused; now was not the time.

Whatever had killed them must have just left a moment before she arrived. And according to Toucka, the killer was still at large.

Oh no, Jrad.

Together they made a beeline for Jrad’s dorm room which wasn’t too far from Leon’s. What they saw was completely different... Not so different... Jrad had been hanged...upside down. His feet tied to the ceiling while blood gushed out from where his head was supposed to be.

“The blood is still dripping and the body warm, the killer must be nearby,” Toucka pointed out as she inspected Jrad's remains.

Orea remained silent and sped right through the window out of the two storey building unto the ground below. She knew what she had to do; Get to Kurt as soon as possible, because for some reason, the killer was after all her friends.

Why?

Why would anyone target her friends?Were they part of any shady business? Yeah Jrad would most likely be capable of that, but not Leon or Alicia. Orea tried her best to come up with a motive but she couldn’t. It didn’t make any sense.

They got to Kurt’s room and met it locked.

“It’s locked,” Toucka said. Gesturing towards the door, “I think we should...”

She was about suggesting the door be broken when Orea took a few steps back and blasted the door with a fire bolt. Getting inside, they became alert. They couldn’t see properly because the smoke which was as a result of Orea blasting the door open had blurred their vision.

Despite the problems of vision Orea could feel it. Whatever had killed her friends was still here.

Toucka being a mind mage was more affected by this... She fell down, groping her head, her eyes widening as her face turned sour with pain. Orea on the other hand was doing pretty badly too. While she wasn’t having a pounding headache like Toucka, for some reason she couldn’t move her hands.

“It’s here...,” Toucka managed to whisper.

Soon enough the smoke disappeared. There was no other person in the room apart from Kurt who was sitting quietly at his study table.

“Kurt...” Orea gasped.

The chair turned almost immediately in response. What she saw wasn’t Kurt anymore. His eyes were glowing green and his teeth were long, pointy and black, with blood all over his lips and neck. There were claw marks on his neck which Orea could only believe to be as a result of his unnaturally long black fingernails similarly half covered in blood.

“You called?” He said looking at Orea while smiling, a playful look in his eyes.

Orea was lost for words. She refused to let the thought cross her mind but it kept screaming at her.

Kurt had killed all three of her friends and lured her here to kill her too.

The puzzling part of it was that there was no way Kurt could’ve been a monster while being a student of the academy. The senior mages were all over and he had been attending classes prior to now. This meant if he was hiding anything they would’ve found him out before he even crossed the gates of the academy.

“You...” Orea muttered breathlessly.

“You’re a fucking monster...” she said as she tried to move but couldn’t. For some reason she was paralyzed.

Kurt’s face turned from a smile to a mocking grin.

“Oh my gosh, am I?” He said feeling around his face. “Guess I am,” he added, the maniacal smile returning to his face.

“Why? Why did you do this?” Orea asked, tears beginning to well up in her eyes again.

“Oh... for fun?” He replied walking over to where Toucka lay, his dark green eyes peering, trying to figure out who she was.

“Hmm... a mind mage huh?... interesting...” He said with a giggle. Toucka wriggled in response, unable to speak, even though her mouth was wide open.

“Okay... enough playing around,” He said, a serious look replacing his grin and rose from his previous squatting position. Moving back, the green in his eyes began to shine brighter, his fingernails grew longer and with them, he slowly scraped his own eyeballs out of their sockets, drawing them further down his face, while making a noise that was a mix of screams of pain and laughter.

“What the fuck?” Orea gasped.

Kurt slowly fell on his knees before dropping facedown to the ground, blood seeping out from from his head. Orea could feel the paralysis wear out. Toucka was also coughing violently.

“What the hell just happened?” She coughed, her voice slowly becoming audible.

“I don’t know...,” Orea replied and tried to move towards the body.

A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.

“Time for things to get interesting,” a disembodied voice echoed in the room. It sounded like the one coming from Kurt but he just died seconds ago.

A thought crossed Orea's mind but was quickly interrupted by a mental attack that could be described as needles against her brain, and she staggered and fell, holding on to her ears which were bleeding. Her vision was blurry but she could see Toucka’s vague figure approaching her.

She had the same green glowing eyes Kurt had and the same unnaturally long fingernails. The evil grin creeping unto her face, followed by a loud cackling.

It was then Orea understood what she was facing. A cursed spirit. It had the power to possess its victims, taking full control of thier bodies and minds, wielding them like puppets. It explained why although three... now four of her friends had been gruesomely murdered, there were no signs of fighting because they had killed themselves while being under the control of the cursed spirit.

Toucka was currently under the control of the cursed spirit and was using her mental powers to attack Orea. Orea however noticed something was different. Unlike when they entered the room and during their brief conversation with Kurt she wasn’t experiencing the paralysis anymore.

She noticed this too late however, as Toucka lunged in her direction and kicked, sending her flying all the way to the other side of the room.

“What’s wrong princess?" It asked, taking a giant leap to where Orea had crashed.

“Fight! You’re free to,” it said and stepped back giving Orea some space to get up. She did and rubbed off blood from her nose with the back of her hand.

“You bloody bitch,” she said and sniffed, settling into a fighting stance.Whatever was in front of her she could assume it was not Toucka.

“C’mon,” it said similarly settling into a fighting stance. In response, Orea stretched out her palm.

“Incinerate,” she chanted and her outstretched hand released a huge fireball blasting the other side of room, effectively setting it ablaze.

Orea was furious.

“Too slow,” the voice said, coming from her side, it grabbed her by the torso and pushed her into the wreck that was once kurt’s wardrobe.

Being in the superior position now, it began raining blows on her with its fists covered in some kind of green force field. The punches hit their target and Orea bean to bleed from her nose and mouth as the punches bombarded her knocking her back down to the ground.

“Speak up princess...,” it said while lifting her face up with her cheeks in one hand and tapping her with the other, blood spilling from Orea’s mouth with each tap. She was still conscious however and whispered softly.

“Behind you, bitch.”

“What?” The cursed spirit didn’t have enough time to look backwards before its 'head' got chopped off by a sharp long blade.

“Kurt...,” Orea gasped breathlessly as she lay, blood propping out of her mouth with each breath.

“You..., you did it,” she said, and managed to sit up with a loud groan.

“What was that?” Kurt asked. Staring, even though he didn't have any eyes at the moment.

“I don’t know,” she said and groaned as she tried standing up.

“Jeez, I didn’t know I had so much blood,” she said after realizing her once bright blue uniform top was soaked with blood.

“Me neither,” the same disembodied voice echoed again. Orea retracted in fear, and Kurt started convulsing violenly. It was obvious he was trying to fight the cursed spirit from repossessing his body but it was to no avail, he was obviously losing. Orea shifted backwards as kurt’s figure squeezed and morphed, distorting as if it was going to warp out of space.

“Did you really think you could win?” It asked followed by a loud blood stirring cackle. While it walked slowly towards Orea who was now dragging herself across the floor, moving away from it.

It reached her.

“I never lose!” It screamed, its left hand morphed into one of the long black blades she had seen on Alicia and the rest.

“Please...please,” Orea gasped. Raising up its blade arm, it sliced her head clean off, and her world went dark.

♠️♣️♠️

After an unknown amount of time a loud sound like a beep could be heard in her little dark void, followed by a bright light which almost blinded her 'eyes' if not for the quick action of her 'arm' which she swiftly covered her 'eyes' with.

[Welcome Orea Noveda, please choose a language]

It was some sort of banner suspended in front of her. A digital banner of course, it didn’t have any visible strings or anything else holding it in place. It was floating. And the voice was indiscernible as it was neither male nor female.

Orea was thoroughly confused as to why she was in a room that didn’t seem to have any dimensions but was just white all over. For a moment she thought she was in the afterlife but she was pretty sure the higher power knew what language she spoke. She usually found mysterious stuff interesting while she was alive, so she was going to flex with this one. It wasn't like she had somewhere to be.

Then she wondered where she was supposed to type, because she couldn’t see any options for her to choose from. Then she figured it was probably a voice command type of thing.

“Gojean,” she replied, followed by the beep she had heard initially, followed by the banner suddenly disappearing, another one taking its place.

[Select gender]

“Female?”

The banner disappeared again and another arrived with the same loud beeping.

[Select role]

“Role? what role?” She asked rhetorically. The system seemed to have heard her so it put down a number of smaller banners, which held options for her to choose from. There were options like archer, caster, healer, and all sorts of fighter types. Orea wasn’t the type that wanted to get physically involved with someone up close and magic wasn't really useful in the last fight she had so she chose Archer.

[Welcome Orea Noveda, tutorial starts in 10...9...8...7...]

“Tutorials? What tutorials?” She was genuinely confused, she just answered a few questions and now she was going for some tutorials she didn’t even know the nature of. By now the countdown had reached one and her world went black again.

Opening her eyes gently, she looked around her and discovered she was no longer in the white void but now somewhere in the middle of a thick forest. She hurriedly got up and patted dry leaves from her clothes which she stopped patting the moment she realised they had changed.

Instead of her dark blue top and black pants which was her school uniform, she was now wearing a thick black leather armour which was ontop a tight, black long sleeved inner wear, with an equally tight black leather pair of trousers, and some big black leather boots.

Other than the fact that she was very uncomfortable in this new dressing, she also noticed they were all made of leather and somewhat armoured. She looked around her and noticed a quilt filled with arrows and a long wooden bow, which she was quite sure weren’t lying down there when she first woke up.

She took another look at her surroundings. She had woken up in a little clearing and the bushes looked awkward and strange, not any like she had seen before. The trees were monstrously tall and had wide canopies and were almost tightly packed despite their sizes, she looked at the plants around her but she didn’t seem to recognise any of them.

“Where am I?” Orea asked herself in a whisper.

[Welcome to Krayus401] She shrieked in response. It was the same voice that had spoken to her while she was in the white void.

“Why would you startle me like that!” She yelled back but there was no answer, just her voice echoing in the forest that felt like she was the only one in.

She bent down to pick the quilt which she hung over her shoulder. It was unexpectedly heavy. A suprised look flashed across her face. It was carrying only arrows yet it was so heavy. She bent to pick the bow too and after, began trudging through the area with smaller bushes. According to the voice, she was on some wierd planet and was definitely no longer on earth, therefore she didn’t want to get eaten by something unearthly, not that she was sure of her current existence though.

Nothing made sense.

She could still remember getting killed by some loathsome demon and then waking up in what she thought was the afterlife and then reawakening in another planet. She was still wondering if the same thing had happened to the rest of her friends when she heard another pair of footsteps in the distance.

She immediately crouched among the bushes and peered, but didn’t see anything or anybody. The sound seemed to have stopped immediately she did.

“Maybe just my brain messing with me,” she said and got up. She was about to take another step when something tackled her by the waist and slammed her violently into the nearby bushes, raining blows on her.

“What the fuck.,” Orea mumbled. The person seemed to recognise her voice and stopped.

“Rea?”