ACADEMY FOR THE DAMNED

Chapter Twenty Six

Chapter Twenty Six

When Dillon regained consciousness he thought he was in his bed at home and waking from a horrible nightmare. Seconds later the realised he was not at home and the nightmare was real. He remembered Ut'Urlis-Hr'Her had told him he would change into a monster and follow for all eternity as the Ut'Urlis-Hr'Her laid waste to the cosmos, but that Dillon would forever remember his former self. For a few terrible seconds he was convinced that had happened to him.

"It's alright," said Amina. "You're safe."

"Nobody's safe," said Ike. "We're on a knife edge."

Dillon sat up. "What happened?"

"You hear that?" said Emily.

Dillon heard titanic crashes and explosions some way from him. He knew it was coming from outside the building. What the hell was it? Then his enhanced senses informed him of the two titans outside fighting. He could see them with his inner eye, two giants striking each other with thunderous blows.

"Drink this."

The neck of a plastic bottle was pushed to his lips. It was water and Dillon gulped it down. He was dehydrated and weakened by the terrible battle he had just fought. The water brought his faculties in sharper focus. Dillon stood up on rubbery legs and looked about.

He, Emily, Ike and Juliette and Amina were at the centre of a group of teenagers. Those people had their attention focused outward. They were surrounded by monsters. Flapping things with wings of leather swooped down but were rebuffed by something solid yet invisible. Other things with human forms battered at this invisible barrier. Other creatures like giant maggots with rows on wicked needle teeth batted their heads at the wall. The giant toad stood outside gazing at the teenagers with its single eye. Yet other creatures fought one another, wielding teeth and claws and tails and limbs and even crashing their entire bodies into one another. The main hall, what was left of it, reverberated with screams and twitters and growls and shrieks and guttural cries and moans and sounds Dillon had never heard before, and clearly alien to this world.

"Guardian came to our aid. It made a giant robot and set it against Ut'Urlis-Hr'Her," said Dillon in wonder.

"Guardian wants this world as much as Ut'Urlis-Hr'Her," said Juliette. "And not for any good reason."

Ike was distributing plastic bottles of water to the teenagers in the group, but not using his hands. The bottles had been packed in a cardboard tray with a cellophane covering and were now floating out among the teenagers and the teens grabbed them and unscrewed the tops and drank deeply of the bottles before handing them on to their comrades.

"Finished with that?" said Emily. "Good."

She took the bottle from Dillon's hand and gulped down what remained of the water. She threw the bottle aside. Dillon was a mass of pain. He knew nothing was broken but his body was bruised and battered and his skin burnt. A lot of his clothes were gone and he wore just a top and shorts.

"We had to take off your clothes. They were burning," said Ike. "I removed them using telekinesis."

Juliette stroked a hand across Dillon's brow.

"You have the power to heal yourself. Concentrate on your body and feel it heal."

Dillon did as Juliette urged. He felt the pain dwindle and he was aware of weeks of healing happening within minutes. His skin re grew and the burnt dead skin sloughed off. This regeneration was not without cost and he felt suddenly extremely weak and sat back down again, the world whirling about him.