Enter the Shadows: Book One of the RTS Series (First Full Draft)

Chapter Twenty-Five

Leala

It felt strange for Leala to return to school after what had transpired over the last few months. With spending so much time surrounded by the unusual, returning to the usual felt somehow more surreal than any Nadir world she had seen.

What concerned her more was that Robin hadn't been responding to her messages a whole lot in the days leading up to Leala returning back to school. She silently prayed nothing serious had happened to him during that time.

Her fears were partially eased when she actually arrived at school, and right as she entered the building she spotted the familiar grey hoodie belonging to Robin. He stood by the base of the staircase, his face turned to the side.

"Hey, there you are!" Leala ran up to Robin, causing him to flinch and jump a bit. "Did I scare you? Sorry..."

"N-No, I just... I couldn't sleep much." He turned to face Leala, and she gasped.

Robin looked like a mess; there was a dark purple bruise surrounding his eye, and his lower lip had a dark red scab over the corner. He looked like he had just gotten out of a fight.

"Oh my god, what happened to your face?!"

He gently touched the skin around his bruised eye. "I fell down the stairs a few nights ago."

Leala's jaw fell slack. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine," he muttered, "just tired and a little sore still."

"Just...let me know if you need anything, okay? You look like you just lost a fist fight!"

Robin gave a half-hearted chuckle. "Honestly, I think I'd prefer if it was a fist fight instead of falling down the stairs; at least the former is a little more dignified."

"Hey, um..." Leala looked for a way to change the subject, "did you see your schedule for the semester? We never got to talk about it before and I want to see if we were in any of the same classes."

Robin shuffled through his messenger bag and pulled out a paper similar to the one Leala was already holding in waiting. They looked over the two papers together.

"Oh!" Robin spoke up suddenly, sounding a lot happier than he did a moment ago. "We're in the same English class!"

Leala perked up at this. "That's the first class of the day, right?"

"It is. We should probably make our way over soon."

While Leala would've rather talked more about Robin's health over their classes, it didn't take a genius to know that he didn't want to talk about it any further. An awkward silence fell over the pair as they headed in the right direction, making Leala feel a bit guilty for bringing it up.

Walking into the room, Leala quickly scanned the sea of faces; some were familiar as they mostly just talked with friends or looked at their phones. But out of everyone, one stood out in particular. A guy with ashy-blonde hair and grey eyes who stared at the other students as if they were about to jump out and attack him at any moment.

The moment Leala and Robin did walk into the room, he gave them an odd look. Likely because of Robin's black eye, though it was difficult to tell.

"I don't think I've seen him before. He's probably new here." Robin spoke up.

The mystery student narrowed his eyes at the two of them suspiciously before looking in another direction.

Leala made a face. "He doesn't seem really friendly..."

"He could just be a bit guarded," Robin lowered his voice, "if he's new he might just be uncomfortable around everyone. To be honest I felt that way for a while when I was first going to school."