Chapter 3: Explanations


It all happened so fast, in his head Alex played back just what had happened before his eyes. The prefect, the one holding the shot gun, was less than a step away from Terri when she said it, those words, "Guard Skill, Distortion", it was those words that caused it to happen, when Terri uttered those words as if by magic a faded hex pattern appeared before her, flashed and disappeared, disappeared that is until the prefect let fly a shot from the gun, there was a flash, a bang and blood, blood, not Terri's, she was the intended target, not even Alex's but his own, the prefect dropped to the floor, his shirt tattered and blood soaked, the shot had been reflected off of the hex shield and right back at him, he was dead.

"He's dead" muttered Alex grasping his stomach with one hand and covering his mouth with the other "dead"

Terri who hadn't budged at all said "No shit", surprisingly calmly she however wasn't, infact she was the exact opposite, stiff with fear. Slowly she looked herself over checking to see how well her magic shield worked. When she was sure she had not been hit she turned to Alex who was still standing there holding his stomach, "come on help me get him out of here"

"Hell no, im not getting involved in this, at least not until you explain what the hell just happened" snapped Alex.

For a second there was nothing but silence as both of them glared at each other.

Terri inhaled, as if she was about to say something but then

"YOU", standing in the door way was Mason, his cold crisp voice shattered the silence like a stone on a glass window, Alex hadn't noticed it at the path but Mason was big, really big, his large impending figure took up most to the room in the door way, his head was only a few inches from the top. Mason, stared straight at Alex and raised a jet black sword in his direction, another thing Alex didn't notice until Mason made it clear was that he had been holding two of these, one in each hand, dripping from the tip of the sword was a crimson red liquid, blood.
"Just what the hell were you thinking" you could feel rage building as Mason spoke, "how, could you let them get in here, how could you drop your guard so much", now shouting "HOW COULD YOU LET THEM GET SO CLOSE TO HER!

"Mason!" exclaimed Terri, "it's not his fault, I told him to open the door, I dropped my guard and I, I haven't told him yet, please Mason, it's not his fault, it's mine".

"Fine" said Mason in a more calm voice, turning to Alex he smiled, "but he still has to learn, the same way we did, haha" he laughed "time to die" upon saying that he threw a sword towards Alex

Alex turned to dodge it and then turned back, "what the hea…." Looking down he saw it, mason had lunged forward with the other sword, now at least three quarters of its length was driven into Alex's chest, Alex coughed, it was unbelievably painful yet warm, blood was now streaming from his mouth and his vision blurred, he could make out Terri move closer, next to mason and looking up at Alex.

"Im sorry", her voice echoed in his head as he drifted out of consciousness "don't worry well explain everything" those were the last words he heard before it all went to black.

"Hey, Hey Alex, WAKE UP!"

Once again Alex had been rudely awakened by the now familiar voice of Sam and a pounding in his head. Realising he wasn't dead he quickly sat up and started patting his chest where the sword had been, "I, im not dead?"

looking around Alex saw that he was still in the principal's office. He had been sprawled out on the now blood soaked sofa, there was a trail of blood from where he had been standing leading over to him, on the chair opposite sat Terri, head down in a very large blue covered book, along the spin in gold writing was "The works of William Shakespeare", Sam was standing in front of Alex however it was clear that he had been sitting in the leather chair as his jacket was sprawled across the back of it, finally in the large chair behind the principals desk was Mason he was inserting a CD into a small red stereo. He lent back as the music started to play, it was a familiar song that Alex had heard countless times in life, Sweet Home Alabama by Lynyrd Skynyrd, other than Sam no one really was paying attention to what had happened.

"Alex hey, earth to Alex, stop zoning out man how ya feelin"

Alex turned to sam and replied "yea, apart from the fact that im supposedly dead sitting in a room with a girl with some sort of magic powers and a crazy lunatic who stabbed me in the chest.

This outburst got both Terri and Mason's attention, "you had to learn" said Terri calmly peering over the top of the book.

"Everyone dose" said Mason still slumped in his chair.

"What are you talking about?" demanded Alex

"Calm down man, stop shouting" said Sam in a very monotone voice, "lemme explain, firstly most who come here don't believe what we have to say until they've experienced death for themselves.

"Ok" said Alex "So riddle me this, where is this place, Heaven, or Hell?

"Neither" said Sam cheerfully, "well actually were not quite sure, it's some kind of purgatory, the schools huge I mean it's like a small town but it's completely surrounded by mountains, every time we try to leave we end up right back at the front of the school, there's no way out.

"There is one" interrupted Mason, "A way out I mean"

"Mason no" shouted Terri "no" she was standing now, her eyes were wide and tears started to form in the corners, "no, I don't want to be alone anymore, I miss to old days with everyone, we were all happy, even if it was only for a while" tears were now streaming down her face "I don't want to be alone anymore"

As mason got up out of his chair he said "come on T, calm down"

"No!" she screamed running out of the room.

Mason got up to follow her but Sam stopped him "no" he said calmly "let us handle it" turning to Alex he said "come on lets go"

Alex got up out of his chair grabbing the red blazer hanging by the door, his own had been covered in blood so it had to do, both of them walked out into the hall "so where would she go?" asked Alex

"There's only one place she ever goes when she's upset, the roof."

The old metal door to the roof covered in rust, Alex pushed it open, it was evening now, if Alex had to guess he thought it would be around 7.00, 7.30, the sky was clear, filled with stars, the air was crisp, as both the boys walked out onto the roof they saw Terri, she was lying in the middle of the roof looking up at the sky, her right arm was stretched up as if she was trying to catch a star. Neither boy said a word, they just walked slowly towards her.

"Why me Sam?" She said having noticed they were there from the point the old door creaked open, "Why me?"

"What do you mean" his tone of voice was different, more loving than his usual calm tone, like he knew exactly what she meant.

"You know what I mean, tell me, why couldn't I be like you, or mason or Alex", She was tugging on Sam's jacket her face berried in his chest, looking up she cried "why couldn't I be human, like you?

In his head Alex thought to himself about what she had said to him before, or at least tried to tell him, but if she wasn't human, what was she? He desperately wanted to ask and find out for himself but he knew it wasn't the right time or place, so he just stood there looking out at the school, it seemed to stretch on for ages, it was dark so it was hard for him to make out where the buildings ended and the forest began. They all just stood there for a while, Sam knelt down for Terri to hold onto and cry into his chest and Alex just standing, watching.

None of them knew how much time had passed but it was more than an hour when the door creaked open, it was Mason. He looked at the scene and said to Alex "come with me". Alex did as Mason said and returned to the stairwell with Mason.

"What is she?" Alex had held on for well over an hour, the curiosity did nothing but build within him he had to know.

"What?" exclaimed Mason

"Terri, just what is she? I know she's not human like us, so what is she?"

"Hmmm" Mason took a few seconds to think to himself then answered, "She, Terri, is an NPC.

"What?" asked Alex

"Well that's not an exact description", stated Mason, "this is a little difficult, you see back when we were in the Battlefront, that's what we called the group we were in, there came a point where lots of new people showed up one day, just out of the blue, she was one of those people. Never before had we seen something like this, over 50 people just appearing. We never even thought about how they would be NPC's, NPC's don't notice or comment about our goings on like our not being in class or carrying weapons, they never questioned it, but these people, they did. They could clearly see the guns, they were scared of us, all of them could see what we were doing and questioned, why? Not only that but they all had amnesia, they couldn't remember a thing before they showed up here, it's not uncommon for people who come here to have amnesia, a lot of people hit their head when they die so of course it's not crazy that they would be affected somehow. We thought something was weird but we took them in anyway, we thought that it must have been some big accident or crash something to blame their appearance on. Eventually we put it down to a bus or train crash. For a while everything was fine until one of them died. We sat with him, waiting until he woke up, it took a lot longer than anyone else to long we thought he wasn't going to wake up but eventually he did, we wished he didn't, after he woke up he was different. When he sat up he asked who we were, he didn't know us, he forgot who we were. Next thing he stood up and instead of going with us he said he had to go to class, he had to go to class. We followed him and watched. He just sat there, He's still there now, so are the rest of them, they all eventually died. When they found out some of them offed themselves they weren't able to go on living with us. Others went on until they eventually died, they were NPC's. Something happened to them it made them sentient, but when they died they, reset, they went back to being a normal NPC. After a while they all passed, all of them but her. She's still here, she's the last of her kind, she's, special".

Alex turned to face to door but mason stopped him, don't tell her I told you, ok and don't let her know you know, ok?

"Ok", said Alex "ok"