The Chronicles of Time - Book 2: The Book of Flames

Chapter XI: Desperate Measures

Chapter XI: Desperate Measures

The "Anthony's Passing" Celebration party was—to summarize it—time consuming. I didn't even notice that it was already the middle of night until I saw Keith snoozing on one of the tables dangerously near a plate racked with pizza. Mrs. Craye and her husband did their best to entertain the rest of us that are still awake, but there was a lot to do. Stories to tell, good food to eat and games to play.

It was like half of the academy was there and I barely even recognize some of them. I'm guessing the free food attracted them somehow even though they didn't even know who I was. But I was okay with that; some of them congratulated me like passing last year was a big achievement. It was obvious they were just there for the food, but like I said, I was okay with that.

Kyon and Bernard were busy chatting up with a bunch of younger kids, telling them stories of their time at the academy, how they went to weird training missions where they have to find a guy in a hotdog costume in downtown London or go around a far off mountain to hunt monsters the Academy had set free for them to practice on. The kids seemed to get giddy over this with excitement. To them, the academy was a grown-up thing and compared to their elementary school here at First Cloud, the Third Cloud Academy was a big grown-up step.

I felt out of place somehow, though. Skye wasn't there; she was still at the hospital, recuperating from the last battle. I got a short peek of her room before I left the hospital and she didn't look very good. She had a sizable bandage on her head like she had hit the ship's hull on the way down. Felix wasn't there to ease my awkwardness as well. Last time I saw him at the harbor, some patches of fur were gone on his body and his head was bleeding. I wouldn't expect him to recover so quickly.

Being the guy who got from the field, people asked me to recount what happened in the mission. I didn't really have a knack for telling stories, but I tried. I think I might've taken away some of color though, because they only look partially impressed. I bet if Skye told it, she'd be able to add more details.

"You look glum," Mrs. Craye said, putting a hand on my shoulder. "Shouldn't the celebrating person be the most celebrative in the room?"

I forced out a smile. "I know. I just can't enjoy much with most of my friends not here."

Mrs. Craye sighed and grabbed a seat right next to me. "If my daughter was here, she'd never rest until you're tired to the bone. She likes parties like these," she said, looking fondly at the crowd of teenagers and kids, laughing and buzzing with stories.

"I wasn't much of a party guy back at San Francisco," I explained. "I mean, sure, my friends drag me along, but it's usually just us. This is the first big party I had with loads of people I don't know."

"Daunting, isn't it?" Mrs. Craye said, smiling.

"Very."

She laughed. "This is nothing compared to the University."

My eyes widened. "Althea has a university?"

Mrs. Craye nodded. "Back in Terrania. It's hard to make a university in every Kingdom, you see, so the Pri-Guardians decided to just make one huge on at Terrania. They weren't kidding about it being huge. It's got a lake, a cavern, a river—it's like a mini-Althea. The old Althea," she said, exhaling as if remembering something fond. "I sure hope those monsters don't rampage that place until we recapture every Kingdom—"

She stopped talking. Her mouth hung in mid-sentence like she just got shot by a freeze ray. The music had stopped as well, and when I looked around, all the teenagers were also paused. One dude was dancing mid-air, a girl just tripped over someone's shoe, some kids laughing—all frozen.