Mystik Realm: Celestinia Academy

Eight: Reacquainted Strangers with history

We reach the campus cafeteria at around ten past six pm. It's a largish building that is separated from the other buildings of the school, it has are large public entrance and exit and a few staff only access points.

Inside the high ceiling is obvious and it is lit up by large hanging electric lights, the floors are marbled with grey and white tiles. Most of the walls are filled with windows and there are around fifty tables each of which sits around five to eight people, chatting and talking comfortably, for the most part anyway.

We stand at the entrance searching for Dale, scanning the tables as quickly as possible. Demina nudges me and when I’m looking at her she gestures with her shin and eyes to the table Dale and a few of his friends.

I nod and start toward their table, Demina leading a few feet ahead as we weave through the dense tables.

Halfway there I trip, my eyes widen in fear, the guy’s leg that tripped me was barely visible. I start to fall, my ankle twisting awkwardly and I know I will hit the floor, hopefully, I will die so that I don’t have to endure the embarrassment that is going to ensue. Before I can die though, someone with long muscular arms catches me milliseconds before I hit the hard tiles. I gasp in relief or shock, I’m not quite sure which, now I’m scared who the person holding me is. I do not want to be labelled ‘The Klutzy Chick who can’t get to dinner without tripping over’ I'm not usually clumsy though.

I can smell him, he smells like sea water and burning pine, a very pleasant scent, addictive.

Why am I smelling this random guy?

“Watch where you're going sweetheart, you don’t want to get badly hurt,” A deep husky voice drawls out next to my ear, his warm breath tickling me the side of my face. I squirm uncomfortably at the proximity and turn to view my “saviour” and… I recognize him? From somewhere, those eyes and lips, lips? And his hair, the colour is burned into my brain for some reason…. Who is he? Why do I know him?

Oh. my. god…. It’s him, that guy who saved me from drowning my first and only time I went to the beach, holy, Jesus Christ... It is fudging him. What was his name again? Dan? David? No, Demina said his name was Drake. I’ve got to say, he cleans up pretty nice, he’s much more built up in the muscle department now.

What are you doing? You’re an i***t. Stand up!

“Y-you?” I stutter out while trying to get out of my position in his arms.

“What? We’ve met before? Surely I would have remembered someone a gorgeous as you?” He mused to himself, drawing out the word ‘gorgeous’ adding a flirtatious edge to his words, he keeps the pondering expression on his while righting me so I stood up straight, instead of slightly lopsided and half leaning on his arms. I imagine him going through a book of girls in his head with labels such as clumsy psychopath and cute klutzy dork among less PG names.

He is so damn cute, no hot, damn hot, curly dark hair, lightly tanned skin, golden hazelnut-green coloured eyes with dark lashes framing them purr-fectly and he is like two feet taller than me.

Did I just purr? At least it was just in my head, I would have an aneurysm if I purred aloud right now with the audience around us.

I blush as my gaze goes to his lips and I stutter out a barely coherent sentence, “A-at the G-gold Coast, you were the one who s-saved me from d-drowning,” I finish off mumbling to my feet, I can’t bring myself to look at his gorgeous face.

“Oh you, you had on that cute blue and pink flowered bikini right?” He asks and I nod, I remember that bikini, I grew out of it ages ago. For the first time I notice the complete and utter silence in the room, everyone is staring at us and I mean everyone, most girls are staring at me with hatred, some just with their mouths almost hitting the floor. Oops, I don’t want an angry horde of fangirls trying to kill me, I think I would prefer to be nicknamed, ‘The school klutz’.

I blush and look over at Demina whose mouth is agape and staring at us unabashedly.

“Drake right?” I say sheepishly holding out my hand, deciding he was kidding about the ‘gorgeous’ comment he’d said earlier. “We didn’t get properly introduced after you... kissed me or whatever, well mouth to mouth so that I didn’t die, thank you for that by the way.” I’m rambling, why oh why is this happening to me right now?

He laughs and says, “Your welcome, but you could hardly call that a kiss! It had no tongue or real chemistry, plus I was saving your life if you want me to show you what a real kiss is... I could,” He leans forward licking his lips invitingly.

NO! no, no, please no! I really do not want an angry horde of jealous girls after me. I can already tell he’s bad news, and yet the thought of him kissing me gives my stomach butterflies, which makes me angry.

Luckily, he just takes my left hand and kisses my knuckles gently, his lips are soft, not wet or dry, they feel.. Nope. I can’t believe that for a second I thought he might actually kiss me. I sigh in relief but a tug of disappointment pulls at my gut, of course, he wouldn’t actually want to kiss me. The pull of hurt and slight rejection is gone just as soon as it came.

“Dray-key, what are you doing? You can't honestly be talking to that scrappy, ugly, little thing.” A blonde girl latches on to Drake’s arm and sends a glare towards me. Her eyes don't altogether look quite natural they look like they’re glowing and have a reddish tinge to them.

“Mayleen, go away. Can't you see nobody wants you here?” Drake says to her without even a cursory glance to acknowledge her existence, he also shakes his arm from her clutches violently.

She flinches, sends me a glare before stalking off in wobbling high heels to a group of girls who were glaring at me earlier, she holds her arm as it hurts but doesn’t say anything about it. Actually, the girls are still glaring at me, some of their eyes have that same red tinge and glow.

“I believe you are Alya, such an innocent name,” he says and I snap my gaze back to him. He has a Cheshire grin on his face as he talks, as is Mayleen had never interrupted our reunion.

“Yep,” I say awkwardly trying to slow my heart rate. Then to avoid looking like a wimp I spice it up a bit, “For not such an innocent person,” I smirk suggestively, pretending to glance down at that part of him, his face shows shock that is quickly disguised as a snarky smirk.

“Yes…. I see,” he says glancing down at me, “how ‘bout we…” he doesn’t finish his sentence before Demina butts in;

“We best be on our way Ally, you haven’t eaten much today, you don’t want to starve, you can talk to ah, the guy that tripped you in the first place… later, when he actually apologizes,” Demina says distracting me and reminding me again of where we are, she takes my hand and weaves us through the tables.

I glance back at him and wink. What has gotten into me? I just winked at the jerk who tripped me. Yes, but he’s the hottest jerk… I almost growl at myself, but I somehow manage to restrain myself from that humiliation.

“Bye Lia,” Drake pronounces the name in a way that almost makes me shiver, he made up a new nickname for me, I’ve never been called Lia in my life. I’ll just go die in hell in a lot of pain, it would be better than this.

“See ya,” I reply, trying to remain civil, and not just run away to never return here, it would be easier.

“OMG! All I didn’t know you could flirt, I might need to take some lessons,” Demi says as we just about reach the table where Dale was sitting earlier, but he’s gone.

“Sure,” I say as I look around for him.

“You shouldn’t get involved with him, his bad, a bad, bad, playboy,” Demi says shaking her head disapprovingly.

“Where’s Dale?” I ask one of the boys at the table.

“He started to leave 'round about when you said, ‘when you kissed me’ to Drake Morberoes, who is, by the way, the school's biggest player. And he actually left when you looked at his crotch.”

“Oh, right,” why’d he leave? It can’t have been that bad right? “what's your name anyway?” I ask politely, trying not to dwell on Dale, or Drake, both tasks I’m finding rather difficult.

“Rier, Alec or Alexander Rier,” he says to answer my question.

“Nice to meet you, Alec,” I say and sit down across from him and next Demina.

“Ahuh,” He answers then ignores me as he continues to munch his lasagna.

“How do you get food?” I ask, which sounds stupid.

“With this,” she picks up an object from the middle of the table, I hadn’t even noticed that it was there until she’d pointed it out.

It actually looks like a calculator, but it's black and shiny, the screen is also less… crappy? There are still numbers but there are no symbols, just an enter button.

Demi gets the menu from the guy next to her and shows me how the meals and drinks are all numbered, it goes up to like 200.

“What do you want?” she asks.

“Burger and fries?” I’m craving something unhealthy.

Demina types in a number and presses enter, a burger and some fries materialize on a plate in front of the calculator.

I take the plate and start to eat the fries.

“So Where is Cora?” I say turning to Demina who just got her own meal.

“She’s arriving at school this weekend, she had some family trouble I think,” she says between mouth-fulls of her salad, I don’t really know how she can eat so healthy all the time.

“Oh, okay then, I’ll get to see her then right?” I say as I pick at my food distractedly, wishing I’d gotten lasagna now instead of my plain burger and fries.

“Probs,” she doesn’t look up from her salad.

I can’t keep my mind off Dale for long, why did he leave when I started to flirt with another guy? I mean I know me and Drake could never be anything, but Dale doesn’t know that I know that. Maybe Dale thought I would get hurt, or maybe just maybe, he was jealous, jealous that I had flirted with someone else and I hadn’t even flirted with him, even though he is superb boy-candy, just in a different way to Drake’s bad-boy vibe. Dale has more of a hot popular nerd guy vibe...

“Hello? Alya you home, knock, knock?” Demina’s persistent voice interrupts my inner ramblings.

“Yeah…?” I slur my words out as she breathes a sigh of annoyance.

“We need to leave the Cafeteria now,” she says strongly, her voice barely penetrating my stupor.

“Wh...what? Why?” I ask stupidly.

“Because there’s a lockdown, duh, can you not hear it?” And just as she says it, the hard blaring sound of an emergency lockdown reaches my ears. I don’t know how I could’ve blocked out that harsh sound, it pierces my ears so much so that I flinch outwardly, I’ve gotten my ears pierced before, this is so much worse.

“What’s happening?”

“I don’t kn….” she doesn’t finish.

“ALL STUDENTS GO TO YOUR DORMS, THERE HAS BEEN A BREACH IN THE WARDS, A DEMON IS HERE, DON’T PANIC, GET TO SAFETY, EVERYTHING WILL BE OKAY!!.... Intruder…. Intruder, Please go to your dorms immediately it is for your safety.” it starts to repeat over again, making my head pound and my eardrums start to implode.

I turn to Demina whose face has gone as white as a ghost, her eyes staring blankly at nothing in particular, her fists are clenched tight and she’s shivering slightly despite the warm night.

“We need to go, Demina,” I state, trying to get her attention, “Demina?”I repeat her name to try and get her to leave.

“DEMINA!” I yell, adrenaline starting to run through my veins, completely bringing me out of my thoughts of Dale.

Something like thunder ricochets through the area, alarming everyone, it's like, it generates fear, or the sound is fear itself.

My legs become weak and I almost fall onto the floor, others aren't as lucky and actually fall to the floor, painfully. The sound continues for a minute making my stomach plummet, then tie itself into knots.

“RUN!!!!” I shout, somehow recovering quicker than most of the other people.

A dark mist descends on us and I see that it's coming from the ventilation system, which could mean it's a school precaution or it might not be, I prefer the first idea.

I'm thinking all this as I run to the exit, but I lose Demina in the commotion of moving bodies, and in the loud noise she wouldn't hear me even if I screamed her name. I guess I’m on my own, why me?

The persistent “intruders alert,” repeats as the darkness thickens. I reach the door when it's pitch black, I blink and suddenly my vision returns but it's like infrared lights, I see the heats signatures. It's weird seeing like some sort of predator, demonic if anything, the way the heat rolls off their bodies like I’m going to… to eat them, luckily that idea isn’t a pleasant thought. Some people have boiling hot red signatures with heat coming off them in waves whereas others seem to be freezing cold.

Almost everyone around me is floundering, unable to see, but a few people, like me, are standing still and looking around at the panicked students. There isn’t a teacher in sight, not that I'd be able to tell with my vision going all heat signature on me, which is better than being blind if I’m honest.

I can see outside the windows, and my vision returns to normal quickly, adjusting to the darkness of the twilight outside. There are only a couple of other people who are able to see what I am seeing, a figure in a dark red cloak is strolling towards us, his hair is long and golden, what I can see of the skin is ghostly pale, and eyes as red as blood, I know, an original description.

I whisper softly, ‘who are you’ so that he cannot hear me but somehow he does. He turns to me, the hood falling back to show his head, and that's when I meet his gaze, He stares at me, his eyes glowing red, my eyes burn and I blink. He is still staring, a sort of recognition in his eyes. Somehow they're lighting up the ground ahead of him, like the headlights of a car, but instead of lighting up the ground, it makes it look like the ground is drenched in blood.

I take a step back and as do the other few people around me, he, on the other hand, starts to stride toward me, his long hair flowing around his face like how hair looks in water but it glows white and I’m pretty sure most peoples’ hair doesn’t glow in water. but before he can take more than a couple of steps, a weird buzzing sound fills my ears.