Omnis Bestia

Chapter Two: A Spiritum

 I woke up to the smell of over-easy eggs, toast and avocados, and a silhouette belonging to Malik in the doorway. At first, I was confused. Of course, Malik knew where the spare key was but he would have at least tried to call me before just barging in.

"Now I could be mistaken, but I was almost positive that you had a rather important engagement this morning. Let me think..." Malik started running his hands through his auburn but slightly curled locks, sarcasm dripping from his words. But I knew I must've been missing something because his amber eyes gleamed with amusement "Oh yes, I remember, you have this obligation called high school, and I do believe that if you don't hurry Amara, you'll make yourself plus Nikolai and myself miss it."

"Σκατά! Γιατί δεν με ξυπνάς;  Why would you not wake me up?!" That's what I had been missing, and there was nothing like the fear of completely bypassing your first day of high school to get the blood pumping. I'd immediately shot out of bed and headed for the bathroom, punching Malik lightly for finding humor in my suffering. He knew I'd been freaking out because I tended to resort to Greek when I was stressed. It was the language my mother had taught me first, although I hadn't really understood at the time why knowing a language almost nobody in my country knew let alone spoke would help me in the long run.

In fifteen minutes I'd been dressed, packed and ready to go. Fortunately, Mom had made lunches the night before (probably with the knowledge that someone would have had to wake me up) for Malik, Nik and myself. She had already left for work but Nik had decided to whip up my favorite to-go breakfast: avocado and egg toast. Even though he seemed like a disorganized mess most of the time he is a much better cook than Malik, who almost started a fire while boiling water.

"Delicious as always, Chef Kalseru," I said as I took a bite out of my food while walking out the door.

"Only for you Mara, Mr. Abbutt over there can eat concrete for all I care," Nik said innocently, pretending to be oblivious to the Malik fuming to my right.

"My name is Malik Abbas, an honorable and empowering name, you dirty, tongue-twisted, fire-breathing serpent," He shot back, holding his head up haughtily. While I loved Malik and Nik, I would've had to say that the reason they got into fights so often was their fatal flaws. Malik was very honest and prideful, always saying exactly what he thought while barely needing to prove he was better than everybody else. Nik, on the other hand, is impulsive and reckless, which together was definitely a dangerous combination. Although sometimes the insults they gave each other kind of flew right over my head.

Instead of normally butting in and stopping them from fighting, I ended up zoning out, thinking about all kinds of things and at the same time nothing at all. I then caught movement out of the corner of my eye and stopped walking. Malik and Nik kept going, both still determined to win... whatever they were debating about. I stared as I studied the movement between the trees and the shadows of the forest. We always passed right by it, but I was never allowed to go in, Mom had given excuses of wild bears and poisonous snakes that had stopped working when I was about ten. I had never really minded and had always respected her wishes. But at that moment I had never been more drawn to take a peek, to see whatever form I had noticed following me to school.

I then stepped off the sidewalk, into the ankle-high grass and walked towards the trees. It was as if I didn't want to, but needed to see what was behind the brush and see how far I could run into the wood until I was out of breath. I was incredibly close now, the shadowed figure waltzing closer as I became so close my fingertips just scraped the bark of the nearest tree. Until I was suddenly pulled back by rough hands and dragged back to the sidewalk.

"What the heck were you doing, Mara!?" Nik all but shouted, trying to cover his worry with anger but failing miserably. Another flaw about Nik, he wasn't very good at hiding his feelings. "We've been calling your name for the past thirty minutes, and not only did you not hear us but you were this close to running off into the forest! If we hadn't reached you in time..." Nik began to mumble under his breath, although I could only catch words like "Bestia" and "Cloven of Noctis", which all sounded like mumble jumble to me.

"Hey, I'm fine, really. I just kinda spaced out for a little bit, then I thought I saw something between the trees. I had thought that it might have been some kind of creature." That then started to get me thinking about what kind of creature it was. "Maybe it was some kind of stalkling or a newborn vampire! But then it wouldn't have been in the sun... Oh! Maybe it was a dark elf."

I could've sworn I saw a shiver go up against their spines at my last comment, but I might have just imagined it. One thing Malik and Nik had in common was that I had never seen anything phase them. They never seemed tense or worried about anything, which always made me feel safe and comfortable around them.

"Are you sure you're alright Mara? You didn't respond at all and you looked a little spooked" Malik had always been able to read me like an open book, so even if I had wanted to, I could probably never get away with a lie when he's around. "Maybe we should just head home, and come to school tomorrow, we've definitely already missed the first period."

"That's not necessary, I really am okay. Besides, the first period was Algebra II and isn't something I'll particularly miss anyway. If we don't show up now my Mom will worry, and I'd rather tell her that I got a little sick this morning but was okay for the rest of the day than tell her I missed my first day of high school."

"She's right, and just because she may be feeling under the weather doesn't mean we'll receive a 'Get Out of School' card. And besides..." The rest of Nik's statement I couldn't catch as he had mumbled it into Malik's ear. Even though I knew that the two of them weren't exactly "best buds" I had a hunch that they were always closing off a detail or two in conversations. Every now and then Malik or Nik would pull the latter aside and have a drawn-out discussion together, or they would both end up going away for a few days with no explanation and coming back with an excuse like "last-minute fishing trip". I always tried to respect their privacy and not pry into their lives, but you start to get ticked off about not being a part of the inside secret after seven or eight years.

"Alright, so we're going to school then. Might as well take our time as we're already late." Malik grumbled slightly, probably because he missed his class. Our schedules had been emailed to us overnight and he had been excited about advancing in his fencing class, as he had been taking lessons since he was young as was by far the best in his class.

"As long as we can just go already, it's hot as frick and I just want some AC." I rolled my eyes at Nik's complaints, he always seemed to be complaining about the temperature. It was always too hot or too cold as if his body temp reflected the temp outside.

"Well then what are we waiting for? The last person to the building buys everyone else ice cream!" I shouted over my shoulder as I was already running at full speed. The boys, never ones to back down from a challenge, began to sprint after me. But even as I ran towards my school, I couldn't help but spare a glance behind me and towards the woods, where if I squinted I could still make out the outline of something darting in between the trees.