God's Gaze

Part Two Chapter Ten: Freezing Over

       With May's arrival, so did the heat. The cloudless skies let forth the sun to drench Baesary in hot rays of sunshine. Yves had a lovely slither to work and took a longer route just so he could check out the freshly bloomed flowers this one neighborhood had littered about. Peonies, Roses, and Hydrangeas lined the sidewalks with a bountiful of colour. However, once he arrived at school, he realized that administration was cheap on air-conditioning.

      Yves quietly fanned himself with a discarded piece of paper as he went over what he scrawled across the whiteboard. Sweat dripped from his brow and onto his eyelashes where he had to blink away the liquid. He loved spring, but it was days like these where he preferred teaching during the winter.

       "Does this make any sense? Need me to review what we just learned with you all?" he asked the class. He turned around to face his students. Some appeared on the verge of death; practically melting into their desks, while others greeted the heat with joy. He eyed Mister Auguste. Throughout the entire lesson Yves noticed the boy acting skittishly and glancing at the door every so often. The snake-shifter shrugged it off and took a pile of papers off his desk and placed it on the student's in the front row.

       "Pass a copy to each student behind you and have a quick read of it. I expect your assignments on my desk by the end of next week," he explained, bringing his attention back to the whiteboard. Papers shuffled while Yves erased his handwriting from the board.

       The classroom door swung open so hard that it broke off its hinges with a plume of fire erupted from the hallway. The knife flew through the flames and planted in the wall right beside Yves' ear. Another soared at his face, but he dodged it before it joined up with the other blade in the wall. Students screamed and scrambled to hide under their desks while some attempted to unlock the windows.

       From the hallway, a brick wall of a man leapt at Yves and slammed the snake-shifter to the floor, pinning him down. His tail flailed frantically as the man sat atop him and began to punch him repeatedly in the face and neck. Yves gasped for breath when a fist connected with his nose. He reached for the cigarette packet in his breast pocket, but the assailant slapped it away out of reach.

       Oh God, this was bad. Yves attempted to shove the man off him by the arms, but the man was nearly twice his size and locked him in place on the floor. His glasses flew from his face when the side of his head got punched. Yves struggled beneath the assaulter and wrapped his tail around their waist, but they didn't budge. As he continued to be beaten, all Yves could think about were his students.

       He hoped they got away from whatever was going on. The screaming persisted, which means some couldn't escape. How pathetic, he was allowing this monster to defeat him so easily. His own blood clouded his vision along with his nose and mouth dripping with the crimson liquid.

       The man suddenly flung off Yves and gasped against the whiteboard with an arrow protruding from his shoulder. Yves shakily sat up and wiped the blood from his eyes to see Mister Auguste wielding his bow and arrow. The fairy shot the man a water imbued arrow that chained the man to the whiteboard. Mister Auguste rushed over and hit the man over the head with the butt of his bow, knocking him out.

       It took a moment for clarity to return to Yves, but once he was relatively ok his eyes darted around the room. Multiple humans he didn't know grabbed his screaming students with some rendered unconscious. Yves hastily grabbed his cigarettes and electrified them, hurtling a barrage of them at the attackers, and shocked them against the desks.

       Mister Auguste drew back his bow with no arrow docked and shot a beam of water towards them. Their heads slammed amongst the bookshelves as they groaned on the floor. "Call the police!" Yves ordered a student. The Aenon girl nodded frantically with tears in her eyes as she dialed three numbers on her phone. He motioned for her to escape through the now open window that went into the courtyard.