Dragon Witch ✔️

47 - School Lunch

That was it? Just two questions to determine my entire future? At least that made it simple, but what if I'd answered wrong? I never should've mentioned Kyton. They didn't like that I'd drank his blood.

Scalene stood and crossed the room to a bookshelf left of the desk. One whole shelf was filled with the same white books. He took one off the shelf and came back to the desk.

"This is your handbook for being a parasite at MMC. Read it. Memorize it. Follow it." He set the handbook in front of me.

I straightened. "You mean, I passed?"

"Of course. As long as you follow the guidelines in that book, you'll be a fine addition to the MMC family." He clapped me on the shoulder. "Since I've already missed my first class, I might as well cancel the others to keep everyone on the same schedule. I would be remiss if I let you go before making sure you understand the guidelines."

Sitting down, he opened the handbook. "Chapter One: Feeding Etiquette. When eating in the OPSA cafeteria, respect the territory of established diners. Riveting stuff, this guidebook." He chuckled. "I'll give you the summary. Parasites are highly territorial. If you sit at the wrong table, you'll get beat up. The tables are labeled, so it shouldn't be hard to avoid the risky ones."

You've forgotten something, Yufens said. He wiggled around in a circle and pinched something off a shelf behind him. When he wiggled back around, he had a cube-shaped ID scanner in his pincers. He set it on the table.

"Of course, of course." Scalene held his hand out. "Your ID, please."

I handed it over. When he took it, it didn't snap back on its zipcord. Maybe there was a distance requirement before it started working, or giving it to someone else disabled the zipcord. Either way, he had no trouble sticking my ID in the scanner. He wiggled his fingers at the top of the scanner. There must've been some invisible telepathic holographic letters or something there, because the scanner beeped and ejected my ID.

"Here you go." He gave me back my ID.

It looked more or less the same at first glance. Then I noticed a purple app with white claw marks on it. There were also the letters "MP" in the upper right hand corner of the card.

Scalene pointed to the "MP" in the corner of my ID. "This means you're a magical parasite. It won't show up on any public rosters, to minimize conflict between you and the non-parasitical students, but all of your teachers will know what you are." He tapped the purple app. "This contains a navigation map for all of the OPSA facilities and upcoming OPSA events. Now, back to the guidebook."

***

After three hours of running through the guidebook and quizzing me to no end, Scalene finally let me stop. I'd missed two classes--one of them his--but I was pretty sure he would've kept going if Yufens hadn't kicked us out of his office.

"See you on Wednesday," Scalene said as we parted ways outside of the OPSA office.

"See you then, sir." If he taught class the same way he ran through a guidebook, I was in for quite an experience on Wednesday. Long-winded didn't even begin to cover it. Eva had fallen asleep two hours ago.

After putting all my textbooks--and my new guidebook--in my textpad, there was plenty of room in my backpack for Eva. I slipped her inside before jumping onto the invisirails. A few minutes later, I jumped off outside the Allergy Friendly Cafeteria. Wait a second...

I checked my ID, and it said I'd gone to the right building. I was right outside the OPSA Cafeteria. It could be in the same building as the allergy friendly one. Well, there was only one way to find out. I went up the steps and opened the door. Tried to open the door. It was locked. There was an ID scanner next to the door that I hadn't noticed before. I ran my ID through it, and the door swung inward on its own.

Past the door, a thick shimmer of glamour hid the rest of the building. When I stepped through it, it was like stepping into another universe. Or a freaky zoo. The first third of the cafeteria near the door was normal enough--a buffet station along one wall, square tables and chairs dotting a wooden floor.

The middle third of the cafeteria was an honest-to-goodness olympic-sized swimming pool filled with fish and snakes and--was that a shark? Before I could be sure either way, a blue-scaled dragon shot out of the water and pounced on the large fish. Dragon and shark sunk beneath the surface. A trail of dark blood drifted behind them.

The last third of the cafeteria was almost normal compared to the middle third. On the left, thick trees grew on grassy hills. On the left, boulders dotted sandy dunes. Mountain goats and deer ran from one half to the other, chased by giant wolves.

"Look out!" someone shouted from overhead.

I jumped back as something the size of a baseball smacked the ground. It was a dead bird. It smelled like magic, so it had to be one of the livestock animals they kept in here. I glanced up to see a whole other biome twenty feet above my head.

Trees grew from hovering clouds. Birds flew from tree to tree, chased by dragons and giant bats. There was some kind of shimmering barrier that kept the birds from flying down too far. A dragon-sized hole in the barrier right over me was outlined in glowing neon red. As I watched, a flying shadow dove through the hole and landed next to the dead bird on the ground.

"Sorry about that," the shadow said. Its voice was feminine and strangely familiar. "I tried to chase it away from the cloud dome entrance, but it died first." She folded vaguely dragonfly-shaped wings flat against her back and sat down next to the dead bird. "Want a piece?" She dug her shadowy fingers into the bird, ripped a strip of bloody meat off its breast, and held it up without looking at me.

A shriek sounded in my backpack. Where? What- Why small- out out out!

I swung my backpack off my shoulder and unzipped it. Eva flapped her way out of it, shrieking furiously.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to scare you. You just fell asleep, and-" I grabbed her in both hands before she could take off. Switching to thoughtspeech, I added, Calm down. Everyone in this room would eat you, given the chance. Keep close, and keep quiet.

She fell silent, peering around the room. More than a few monsters peered back, and she shivered in my hands.

Want go back please. She wiggled out of my hands and jumped back in my backpack. Grabbing the zipper with her beak, she closed it.

Smiling, I put my backpack on again. She would be safest in my bag. When I looked up again, the shadow girl was staring at me. It would've been impossible to tell which way she was looking, since she was made of shadow, but she had glowing red eyes that fixated on me.

"What are you doing here?" she asked.

I scoffed. "Why does everyone keep asking me that?" I waved my ID in her direction before realizing that she wouldn't be able to see it unless she was a teacher. "Never mind, but I wouldn't be able to get in here if I wasn't registered, right? You don't have to worry. I passed the test and everything."

She stood, clutching the bird in one hand. It dripped blood that disappeared as soon as it touched the floor. There must've been some kind of cleaning spell at work. The shadow girl hissed at me. She hurled the bird at my feet.

"I knew you were trouble. I knew you were using him. He defended you, you platank, but I knew-"

I backed up, ready to flee out the front door if this got ugly. "You don't even know me. What's your problem?"

"What's my problem?" She jumped into the air, wings buzzing at her back. "You're feeding off my baby brother, you despicable-" Her anger seemed to get the best of her, because she sputtered at me for a minute.

"I think you've mistaken me for someone else." I took another step back. "I'll just come back later." When she wasn't there.

"Oh, I don't think so, Lilly."

"How-"

She shivered, and the shadows billowing around her faded away to reveal a hovering sprite. Not just any hovering sprite. It was Nissa. Nissa Fae, Kyton's sister.