We Three Mages (Editing)

Chapter Five: Research

Jared’s sleep wasn’t all that great, in fact it was terrifying. He, Mari and Nadia were back in the library, fighting against Krilitrox. Mari barely held her ground and Nadia was on the floor, not moving.

“Insignificant swine. You will never be able to wield that power.” Krilitrox laughed.

“What power are you talking about!” Jared shouted at him.

“Ha! You don’t even realize what you hold do you?” Krilitrox opened his mouth to talk once more when there was a rapid pounding coming from somewhere.

“This is your wakeup call!” A voice came from outside Jared’s dorm room door. Jared sat up covered in sweat and was breathing hard.

“What?” Jared asked aloud.

“Classes are resuming.” The voice called in answer. “So get moving.” And the person left Jared to decide if he was up for classes.

It hadn’t taken him long to get ready and eat a little breakfast. He got his bag in order, books, scrolls, pen, ink, spare paper, the book he found in the library…

“The hell?” Jared made a motion to take it out of his bag when another knock was made. He quickly closed his bag and grabbed the handle of it. “Coming!” He shouted. He opened the door to see it was a friend of his, Dex.

“You good to go?” Dex asked Jared. Jared had to stare at his friend to make sure he was really real. Same curly brown hair, same fair skin, same dumb look on his face.

“Y-yeah.” Jared locked the door behind him and started to walk.

“Students caught up in the library incident are allowed to miss classes today to recover and stuff.” He told Jared with an honest voice.

“The why not just cancel classes all together!” Jared sounded angry.

“It was a majority decision made by the Upper Years. They want to avenge their fallen students and friends. The faster they can graduate, the faster they can do that.” Dex quickly explained. “Though about half the school is still in shock and parents are already withdrawing their kids.”

“I’m not the least bit surprised.” Jared kept thinking back to the look on Krilitrox’s face when he looked around to see his handy work, the pleasure that seemed to seep from his voice made Jared want to kill him.

“Jare, you sure you don’t want to miss today? You look pretty high strung.” Dex put a worried hand on his friend’s shoulder but Jared just shook it away.

“I can’t be left alone right now.” He finally admitted. The two of them reached their first class to see that only a third of the students were even there. Jared searched the room to see that Nadia had also decided to show up. For some reason, he felt relieved and less alone. “I’m sitting over there today.” He pointed at Nadia.

“Seriously?” Dex sounded a bit offended.

“Yes, seriously.” Jared had a bit of a bite in his tone and he left his friend in the doorway and sat next to Nadia.

“H-hi.” She said very quietly. It was obvious her night hadn’t gone well either.

“Rough night?” Jared asked as he put his bag on the table. Nadia just nodded. “Same here.”

“Alright, that’s enough talk!” Their teacher walked in to the classroom and everyone quickly stood up. “Sit down.” The teacher was a man in his late 50’s early 60’s and had a very stern look about him. He looked ready to bite someone’s head off at any given moment and today was not his day.