Chapter 35: Yoru

“This is the place,” said Yoru, begrudgingly. He had never liked his school. He’d always thought that the rooms were cramped and the teachers didn’t have an education. Hawkwing Secondary School was not his favourite place.

“Thank you, Yoru,” said Elben, walking into the building. Yoru followed suit soon after stepping into the deserted concrete structure for the first time in weeks. The group of six walked into the building, its chalkboard scent lingering on their tongues. Its old tiles cracked under their feet and a warm breeze floated through the air. It was mucky inside and felt like walking through a swamp. He dragged his feet at every step and was glad he didn’t have to go to summer school that year. In fact no one did. The school didn’t have enough money to pay for it so they decided to not send anyone to it. Yoru was glad that he didn’t have to go to school in the summer.

“It’s warm in here,” said Haverian, wiping sweat from his brow.

“It is June,” said Limiria, “but it is a little unnaturally hot.”

Yoru looked at his phone, “It says it’s twenty-five degrees outside, I don’t know why it's so hot in here.”

“Weird… mine says it's forty degrees,” said Josh, putting his phone away.

Thalorian peeked into one of the rooms and noticed a piece of large machinery poking out.

“What is that?” he asked.

“Oh that’s the air conditioner, we use it in the summer to make it cooler inside, but it’s almost never on,” answered Yoru, walking toward the machine. Weird, the heating is turned up to max… Yoru turned the knob down and the building immediately cooled down.

A shriek sounded in the distance after he turned the knob. Hm?

“I’m going to go investigate, you guys stay here,” said Yoru, walking towards the scream. His feet made small tapping noises against the tiling and he brushed his hands against the walls. Dust coated his fingers but as he got closer to the source of the shriek it started to become less frequent.

Yoru turned into the room and he saw around ten things he now knew as Droks. “What are you guys doing here?” he muttered.

The Drok that seemed to be their leader glared at Yoru and jumped at him.

“Braris!” Yoru said as a reaction. A bolt of fire sprung from his hand and charred its little body. It made a pained noise then ran back at Yoru’s leg. Yoru kicked it away easily. It’s almost funny how these things almost killed me. Between attacks from the Drok Yoru investigated the room. He noticed a group of Droks centered around a smaller one. On its chest was a piece of ice that was slowly spreading. Is it… dying? Yoru wondered. The Droks surrounding it looked at Yoru in fear and shuffled closer to the smaller Drok.

Droks aren't the most attractive creatures. They have small wrinkled bodies that are a sickly grey tone. Their bald heads aren’t doing them any favours and their eyes look like they were just bleeding. But in that moment there was something about them trying to defend their young, with its big eyes and untarnished body, that made him take pity on the little things.

“I’m going to let you live, but don’t let Thalorian see you, he’ll probably kill you guys.” Yoru put a finger over his mouth as a gesture of silence, and left the room.

After he had gotten back to the group, Thalorian asked him a question, “What was it?”

Keeping his silent promise, Yoru replied, “Some Droks, I killed them.” Yoru lied. “One of them was a little strange, though.”

“Why?” asked Josh.

“Well, there was a shard of ice growing from its stomach, they must have turned up the heat to keep it from dying,” said Yoru.

“Probably the frozen cough, sometimes it happens to young creatures, never humans though, it slowly freezes them to death,” Limiria continued, “we’ve known it’s been a thing for a while, but no one's found a cure.”

“That’s… too bad,” replied Yoru. He realized that the small Drok was probably going to die soon because the heat was turned down. Hopefully they can help it… “Let's get moving.”

The group continued walking through the hallway of the school. Yoru was still worried about the Droks. He knew they had tried to kill him, but he’d taken pity on them, not because they were frail and couldn’t defend themselves, but because they were innocent, just trying to protect their young.

They walked in silence for a while after that. It was quiet. The loudest thing was the sound of their shoes hitting the tiling. Yoru’s act was itching in the back of his head. He thought what he did was the right thing, but they were Droks, and Droks killed people. He thought back to all those days ago when a pack of Droks had almost killed him. What if they do that to someone else? Yoru pondered this and eventually decided that even if those Droks killed someone, he had, hopefully, saved the life of their young.

“Josh, are we close?” asked Elben, hopefully.

Josh glanced at Elben, “Don’t ask me, I don’t know where the staircase is.”

“Ah, of course,” Elben replied, he then turned his Haverian, “are we close?”

“Yeah, I think we’ll be there in a few minutes,” he replied. Haverian sped up a bit and turned into a corridor. Yoru recognized it as the main hallway.

“Haverian… this is a regular staircase,” replied Yoru, “I use it every day, I think I’d know if I was traveling to other dimensions.”

“It may appear that way, but don’t be fooled, the Translucent Staircase inhabits regular staircases.” Haverian gestured to the staircase. “You must climb it with the intention of changing plane, normally we’d have to guess whether to go up or down to get to the Great Above, but I’ve used this one enough to know the answer.”

Haverian began walking up the stairs with his eyes closed, clearly focusing on something.

After he got to the top of that flight of stairs he spoke, “Come on, it’s fine, after you go up one more you’ll be in the Great Above.”

Yoru and the others looked at each other and began climbing the stairs, focused on ascending.

Suddenly, the world around him started to tremble, and he felt as if existence itself was tearing.

“What’s happening, Haverian?” yelled Thalorian, feeling the same thing Yoru was.

“I- I don’t know, it’s never done this before!” Haverian nervously replied. Haverian reached out his hand to help some of them onto the landing. Yoru saw Josh, Thalorian, Haverian, and Ablebren reach the landing, but he couldn’t. He was losing focus, his head was ringing. Yoru stumbled and shook, his feet slipped under him and he tumbled down a tread of the stairs.

Yoru grabbed another tread and began to climb up the stairs like a ladder. He glanced behind himself and saw the stairway collapsing behind him, not just the magic, but the stairs themself.

A hand sprung out in front of him and he grabbed it, Yoru pulled himself onto the landing, panting. He looked up and noticed that the person who had pulled him up was Haverian.

“Thanks, you saved me,” Yoru said between pants.

“Least I could do,” said Haverian. He turned toward the other people and continued, “It’s never done that before, it’s always been stable.” Then in a muttered voice he said, “Maybe because you're not from the above or below…”

“Let’s go, we’re almost to the Great Above,” said Thalorain, walking onto the next flight of stairs, promptly disappearing.

Yoru turned to Josh, “Well? Let’s go save Iris.”

Yoru and Josh, walked onto the stairs and into the unknown.