Mana

Chapter 2

    Chapter 2

      As students began to complete their tests, banter over the location of their professor began. As they began to debate their theories, Autumsworth slowly walked into the room, trying to sneak around and hoping nobody saw her. Well, she hoped. As she entered, everyone looked in her direction. Confused stares filled the room and the teacher's face remedied with a bright red. 
     
     "Hello students," she greeted them with a slight shake in her voice, near unnoticeable, but present. 

     She walked down the center of the lecture hall, and nothing moved or made a sound. It was as if time itself had stopped. She walked towards the front of the room and waved her hand over something next to her. Fire formed a desk next, and she took a seat in a newly formed chair behind it. She folded her hands and breathed in. Fire surrounded everyone's test papers as each one just appeared on her desk. 
     
      "I apologize for that little fiasco earlier, it was very unprofessional and it was wrong for me to act the way I did," she apologized, and Esegiel would've believed her if not her eyes were the same evil red.

     The air was again quiet until her layered voice broke the eerie silence.  
     
     "You are dismissed." Students rushed towards the exit, trampling each other as they sprinted towards the doors. 
     
      "Here, we can leave quicker through this." Quail ushered Esegiel towards a swirling black two-dimensional oval that hovered beside his seat. 

     "What is this?" Esegiel looked at Quail. 

     "A portal." 

     "Do you really think I'm going through that?!" He laughed, "I'll take my chances with the crowd." 

     As soon as he finished his sentence, Quail picked him up by the arm with unnatural strength and threw him into the disc, soon jumping in after him. Esegiel hit the ground of the inky black world, with Quail emerging from the same portal. After gaining his bearings, he promptly punched Quail in the shoulder. 

     "What is this place!?" He asked with fear tainting his voice. "How did we get here!?" Quail began to laugh, the look of desperation Esegiel maintained on his face was priceless to him. 

     "How many questions are you going to ask?" He continued to laugh, "You need to chill out." Quail walked around the void, pacing as he decided where to stop. 

     "Right about here," he said, waving his hand in the air. An identical swirling black disc formed in the air, blending in with the rest of the black landscape. At this point, Esegiel was desperately trying his best to maneuver through the spacious area. It was disorienting, grayish-black shadows flitted in the distance, each one felt like its eyes were greedily drawn on him, his arms felt wobbly and his head was heavy. He tried his best to stand straight, to not wobble about, and with the grace of a drunken man, he fell to the inky floor. 

      “C' mon!" He shouted at the stumbling child, as he phased through the disc. Esegiel rose to his feet and went through the portal. He was then spat out at Quail's feet with the portal behind him closing. They were right outside the school's gates, with other students walking just out of the way of where the portal formerly floated, and they were all unphased by his all but elegant entrance. Quail helped him up, and as a thank you, Esegiel punched him in the shoulder again. 

     "I have to see someone," he then asked, "Would you mind tagging along?" 

     "No, not really," Esegiel responded. "It's not like I have anything else to do." 

     They walked through the gates that left the school and started down an adjacent sidewalk. They passed large corporate buildings and many restaurants between the shadows of them.