Page 105 of The Blackened Blade

My hand catches on a latch, and feeling around, I quickly find a handle.

I unbolt the catch and push against the door with all my might, praying it wasn’t locked or worse,spelled.

It slowly creaks open, the weight hard and heavy as I continue to push.

The large metal door only moves a few inches, but relief spreads through me with the fact it wasn’t locked, and spurs me on to keep moving.

Shoving the door harder, I throw every ounce of my energy and the whole weight of my body against it. It slowly screeches open, dragging across what sounds like rocks or gravel. I continue pushing against it until there's enough space in the gap I’ve made for me to squeeze through.

The ground crunches beneath my feet, the jagged rocks stabbing into my bare flesh, the fact that I’m shoeless only dawning on me now. The bastards had taken my shoes, and they didn’t even let me keep my socks.

Looking up I see a crescent moon above me and the dark night surrounding it. I guess that answered at least one question.

I turn toward the area surrounding me. An ocean of trees and dark forest were spread out around me and as far as the eye could see. The dark green trees reach toward the night sky in every direction with the academy nowhere in sight.

I take a deep breath, closing my eyes and trying to shake off the nausea rushing through me as strange images hit me.

Ivy Harris.

Jeremy Colton.

Jake Andrews.

And Alice Parker.

Their faces flash before me, and even blurry and shaky I can make them out. Their voices and laughter sound out around me like an echo as I feel my body being moved back and forth in the quick memory.

So they were behind this.

I should have known. Most of the time it always was them. Why do they continue to bother with this crap?

The effort to do this alone was baffling me. Did they not have anything better to do?

What did they even hope to get out of this? To see me cry, to break my spirit a little more? To teach me where my ‘place’was?

Or did they just plan to leave me here?

I look toward the forest in front of me. Just rows upon rows of dark trees and bushes, as far as my eyes could see.

I turn back from where I came from, and that's when I see it. The dark place I’ve just escaped from.

It's a large metal shed of sorts, with dark warning signs and sealing spells all over it. But they're now torn and broken.

And that's when it all clicks.

This was the detainment shelter for the sixth year Defence class. This was where they kept wild magical beasts for training. It was only for final year students who had the magical capacity to take on these wild creatures. And usually they would take them on in groups or teams.

The school didn’t want to risk injury or danger to other students so they placed them to the back of the academy, through the forest and up toward the mountain, and it was one of the furthest points from the academy.

And now I was here…and the spells keeping the beasts in place were gone.

They weren’t inside. If they had been I wouldn’t have made it out, especially having been drugged and unconscious.

Quickly turning around, I watch the treeline, flickering my gaze in every direction. How many of them did they have in there?

Did these assholes really want medead? This was beyond some cruel prank.

I’m thrown into the forest–at night–with wild magical beasts set loose to hunt me, and weakened by whatever drug or potion they’ve fed me.

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