Rich Kids Don't Die | Featured

Chapter Six

HOURS LATER, AN ALARM OF DEADLY ambulance sirens rang about the MIC. The boy had been reported dead, having suffered the fatal causes of magical poison, as well as what they had called darkness. A different kind, they said.

Children leaned onto the glass walls of the training room, eyes wide as a misty air of condensation clouded the glass, the result of their mouths hanging open in awe. An aura of palpable dread hung over the magicians heads. They bustled around with chatter – but not the upbeat kind. It was low, discreet. Hushed whispers and sniffles every now and then.

It had been a dark day, for everyone. But Maddie had yet to figure out what was really going on. Of course, holograms of death, disaster, and war had scared the living devil out of her. But she could not display as much dismay as could the rest of the magicians in the MIC. She didn't even know the boy. Not to mention she was still so new to events like these.

It was no secret – nothing could really prepare you for the complexity of the magical world. What she'd seen replayed in her mind, like a horror-movie, but she kept quiet about it.

Doctors in pristine white cloaks, which glowed against their brown skin, were assessing the body on the stretcher with multiple spells and healing herbs. Try the Aloe Vera, one of them muttered. Stir it with some Sakai.

Maddie thought to herself – yes, of course. Who knew? Maybe his soul would transport back to the land of the living.

She wasn't quite ready to believe that the poor boy was dead. But his body was limp, his veins drowning in a black tint, which flowed from his toes up towards his torso, as if an ocean with rising sea levels. His limbs to his collar bone, to his neck, where the poison burst into flames on his skin and tore through his flesh.

The doctors backed away, eyes wide as the flickering fire cackled ferociously.

Oh, God. He was rotting. Right there, on a sad old stretcher as the doctors attempted to remain calm. She couldn't believe it.

A yank at her arm snapped her out of her thoughts. Maddie scowled. What was it with people yanking her all the time? Was there no such thing as personal space in the world of magicians?

To her surprise, it was not a certain goofy-grinned boy named Alex. Instead, an electric redhead trainer had hold of her arm, a small sneer curling onto her lips.

Katya. That was her name.

"Look, newbie, you need to go." Katya drawled, her teeth razor sharp. It was as if she was yapping, the way she snapped at Maddie in such an irritated tone. Her eyes were storming, a blazing fire flickering away with each breath. They almost matched her shining crimson hair.

Maddie smiled sweetly. "You wish, Kat,"

Now it was Katya's turn to scowl. "Don't call me that."

Just as Maddie opened her mouth to retort with a witty remark, a young girl in a powder-blue dress and glittery sandals run up to Madison, her cheeks flushed with her straggly locks flowing in the wind. She patted Madison's hand daintily.

"Are you Madison? Alex is calling you." the girl said, her rosy cheeks tear-stained. She sniffled. Probably a friend of the deceased boy, it seemed.