The Trials

conversation.

We entered the forest. It was still morning so there was sunlight filtering through the leaves of the trees. My partner, Cassandra, wasn't even in my group. I had never seen her before in my entire experience at Nars Academy. She jogged up to me as I looked around the woodlands. "Hi Nancy!" she exclaimed. "T-that is your name, right?"

"Yeah," I replied drily.

"Okay! Hi, Nance!"

I scowled at her. "Don't call me that."

"Oh. Okay. I'm Cassandra. You can call me Cass for short."

Without looking at her, I said, "Okay, Cassandra."

"N-no, you can call me CASS for short. Not Cassandra, ha ha."

I looked at her with no expression. "I know."

She tightened her lips. "Okay... uh, how long have you been at Nars Academy?"

"Since I was six."

"Oh. What for?"

I shrugged. "My parents had an accident."

"Oh, I'm so sorry. A car accident?"

I shook my head. "No. A bungee jumping accident."

"Oh my God, that sounds horrible! What happened?"

"Their ropes weren't secured well so they plummeted to their deaths."

"Oh..." Cassandra's face paled. "What'd you do?"

"I pushed the workers off the bridge."

"You WHAT?!"

"I pushed them off. It was their fault that my parents died."

"And you were six when this happened? Weren't they like, a lot larger than you?"

"Yes. But I had adrenaline in my veins, and the workers were shaken up by my parents dying, so I just shoved them."

"So how'd you end up here?"

"I realized it was illegal so I decided to run away and came across the academy. They gladly took me in."

"Oh... that's very interesting. Well, I'm an orphan. My parents apparently didn't want me so they left me at the doorstep of an orphanage. They didn't want to go inside the building because they were embarrassed. The orphanage, however, was closed, as it was midnight. But my trainer came across me and picked me up and brought me to the school. So I've been here my entire life practically."

I looked at her. "Nice."

"That's... not how I'd explain my life story, but yes. 'Nice.'"

I nodded. Just about then, we heard a loud screech from the sky, and we looked up just in time to see a woman with red bat wings.