Lost in time

1. Dagger

Sebastian tried to control his shaky breath.

He didn't want unwelcome attention.

But the dagger stuck in his right side made it difficult. He leaned against the white wall with a bloody hand. He could only think of the poor cleaning lady who would later clean all this mess.

Choosing where you want to live for the next few years is nice, but not if no one tells you beforehand what its location entails.

Thinking back, the entire faculty relied on the student's predictability. They thought that everybody would choose rooms around common spaces to be as close as possible to each other. Their thinking made sense.

Magicians were gregarious creatures. They used to follow the leader, in this case, the mass majority.

That is if your friend wasn't Anastasia. Then you only follow her.

Rooms were chosen in the first year - on the first of January. It was assumed that the newcomers had time to get to know each other and choose a partner with whom they wanted to share a room for the next few years. There was no restriction on the number or gender of the bedroom's occupants.

Guys could be in a room with girls, just as there could be one or ten people. The decision was up to them.

The rooms could be adapted and changed during the stay if the magician received permission from his roommates.

Gender did not matter at the beginning due to the young age. Later, it relied on a charm found in all occupied rooms and electrocuted anyone who tried to get closer to their roommate than the school rules allowed.

The only conditions were as follows:

No roommates or rooms can be changed while studying.

Every student must choose an already existing room.

Its location cannot be changed.

The majority of students stayed in the vicinity of the three primary social rooms.

Thanks to this, they could enjoy the daily meeting of their neighbors and easy access to the dining room.

Those who didn't like big groups and preferred peace and quiet had rooms near the professor's lodges, a little further from the dining room, but they had a spa on the floor.

And then there were Sebastian and Anastasia, who were accommodated on the other side of the castle, just as far from everyone and everything.

Right next to the Forest. In the highest and most dangerous tower on the entire campus.

Over the years, Sebastian regretted his decision to leave the choice of room to Anastasia. Especially when he had to get up twenty minutes earlier than everyone else every morning because otherwise, he wouldn't have time for breakfast.

Or when he fell asleep - always because Anastasia was too immersed in her dream from which he could not wake her up - and he had to run because the classrooms were five minutes away from their room by slow walking.

But he regretted it the most in moments like this one.

When one of the many stray monsters from the Forest decided to attack him.

The reality that some of those creatures sometimes got through the large wooden gate that led out of the castle and was built right next to the entrance to their tower was a fact they learned a few weeks after they moved in.

After Sebastian woke up to someone licking his hand. It was a baby unicorn, and he was still thanking Mother of Magic that something worse hadn't visited them the first time.