The way my friends stand, they look like ghosts of themselves.
Something happened to all of them in those rooms.
The Keeper Principal let me off easy.
Their eyes look lifeless without color. Their faces are pale.
They look lost, as if someone has taken their souls.
What did they do to them?! My hands shake as I walk toward my friends.
My heart wants to jump out of its chest.
"What did they do to you guys?!" I ask with a broken voice, my voice ringing across the hallway. Leena is the only one who looks in my direction and glances at me.
"Illusions," she says above a whisper.
Illusions?
They must be using their light magic to make them experience the most horrible things they can think of in an attempt to get any information out of them. My fists feel like they are going to break with how hard I am tightening them.
If it isn't for me, they probably would never be interrogated like this. I feel so selfish for not thinking about how my friendships with others could put them in so much danger. It is times like this when I feel more alone than ever. The people that I care about slowly drifting away from me covered in the blood of my hardships.
I don't want them to be put in danger like that.
"They showed us things, Nico. Things we couldn't escape," Matteo says briefly, in a hoarse voice.
The amount of rage I have within me makes me want to march into the Keeper Principal's office and kill him with the darkest curse. Sadly, though, this task remains impossible until I become strong enough.
Remember what I said about the organization that is on our side being a little too rough with the academy?
I take it all back after realizing how truly cruel these Eradicators in disguise are.
It is just very sickening to even think about it.
As we all either stand or sit down on the floor in silence, the Keepers continue to swarm around the academy. The place feels more like a military camp than a school. The Keepers must still be on edge, even if the attackers have retreated.
After a short while, the Keepers guide all the students into the great hall.
Whispers scatter through the wind as all the students gather around each other in the great hall. We all stand in anticipation as the Keepers talk amongst themselves. Finally, the Keeper Principal shows up. His footsteps, though normal, sound like earthquakes amid the silence in the great hall.
We are all too scared of what may happen next.
"All students! As you all know, the Keeper Academy is severely damaged and in disorder. This shall not last very long, as we are in the middle of restoring everything and sorting out the chaos. We will not stand for darkness and will not allow it in this academy without strict supervision," he says, his voice booming across the great hall.
I feel like he is looking at me as he says that.
"All students must return to their rooms after this meeting. No student under any circumstance will be allowed to leave their room to go somewhere else without permission from a Keeper. Keepers will position themselves throughout the academy. I know this may violate personal space outside of your room, but it is necessary to enforce an orderly environment."
"We want the best for our students, and we want to make sure all of you are safe," the Keeper Principal says, pausing for effect.
What a load of lies.
He just wants to make sure he can keep a tab on all the students and keep them trapped within the academy without them even knowing it. Even the students who get kicked out of the academy, who are deemed unworthy of being their tool, are still kept track of daily.
The worst thing about all of this is how some students genuinely believe these Keepers are still how they used to be decades ago, before they became Eradicators.
If the Eradicators hadn't removed that piece of knowledge from my peers and suppressed their memory, then we wouldn't be having any of this.
"Thank you all for your understanding. To reward all of you for following the rules, you all will be given a chance to temporarily become official Keepers!" he says, raising his hands in the air for dramatic effect.
This announcement makes some students all energetic, as it is an opportunity for them to increase their status.
"I know what you are all thinking. This is a permanent promotion position where you can be a Keeper even if you can't use light magic. This is not a joke or a lie," he says while smiling.
The students are now all excited and paying close attention to the Keeper Principal. The more lies that spill from his mouth, the more I want to punch that smile off his face.
He doesn't want to provide them with an opportunity to advance themselves. He wants to use them as watchdogs and extra tools to fight off the mysterious organization.
The Eradicators want to use humans to fight against other humans. The cruel thing about it is that all the students, including me, are still teenagers or in our early twenties.
"You may apply to become a Keeper using the paper forms we give to you on your way out of the great hall. This is all that is to be announced for today. Thank you for listening, and please bear with us until the situation is one hundred percent safe for unsupervised movement," the Keeper Principal says as a round of applause echoes throughout the building.
I hate to admit it, but the Keeper Principal knows how to give an influential speech. He knows how to exercise complete control over the students while making them not rebel against it.
As we all head back to our dorms, people eagerly grab the application forms. I, of course, want nothing to do with them. I enter my dorm and slam the door shut.
My body throws itself onto my bed as the exhaustion of the past two days catches up with me.
It feels like things keep happening nonstop, and I have barely any time to rest. I roll over to lie with my back on the bed, putting my hands behind my head.
I wonder where we go from here. Do we just have to wait until the organization does their second attack and bide our time? The organization for sure helped me discover the forbidden section of the library.
My guess is we just have to wait.
I stretch out my right hand toward the ceiling, imagining it to be a star in the sky.
Out of nowhere, my hand glows.
Dark energy forms around my fingers and palms. This time, though, it is different because sparks of light magic appear on my hand as well. My body jolts itself into an upright position as both my hands start to glow even brighter.
They glow with a mix of purple and yellow light. It is as if they are in harmony. Other colors appear as well, such as green, blue, red, etc. My entire body soon glows with all these colors swirling in harmony.
It feels like I can do and be anything in the world, as I feel all this mysterious magic flow through me.
I feel the calmness of the water, the stability of the earth, the determination of fire, and the wind of independence all at the same time. The feeling quickly leaves my body as I immediately become super tired afterward.
My eyes close by themselves, and I am asleep before I know it.