Chapter 5: The Weight in His Chest

Rei ran toward King, but the magic user was fast. King shouted and pointed his hand. A red bolt of magic shot out. It hit Rei on the side of his hip.

"Ah!" Rei cried out.

The heat was terrible. It felt like a hot iron was burning his skin. Rei stumbled, and his balance was gone. King did not wait. He stepped forward and punched Rei hard in the ribs. Rei felt the air leave his lungs. Then, King punched him again, right in the jaw.

Rei fell to the floor. His head was spinning. The taste of blood filled his mouth.

"You are just a kid!" King laughed. He raised his hand again. The red light was getting very bright. "I will kill you, and then I will kill all of them!"

Rei looked at his friends. They were crying. He looked at the teacher, who was bleeding on the ground. If Rei did not stand up, everyone would die.

Rei ignored the pain in his hip. He ignored the blood in his mouth. He stood up slowly. His eyes were wide and empty. He did not feel like a student anymore.

King screamed and tried to fire his magic at the tied-up students.

"No!" Rei roared.

Rei lunged forward. He did not aim for the arm or the leg this time. He held his cricket bat with both hands. He swung it with all his strength at King’s head.

CRUNCH.

The sound was loud and sickening. The red light in King’s hand went out. King fell to the floor. He did not move. He was not breathing.

King was dead.

"Rei...?" Saki whispered. She and Daichi ran away from that room and they see this. Rei killed a man. Her voice was shaking.

Rei did not move. He stood there, holding the bat, staring at the body. The cold feeling was gone. Now, he felt a heavy weight in his chest.

I killed him, Rei thought.

The words would not stop. He was a Law student. He wanted to go to a big university abroad. He wanted to help people with the law. He had a perfect schedule for his life.

But now, that life was over. A murderer cannot be a lawyer. His dreams were gone.

Rei dropped the bat. It made a loud sound on the floor. He began to shake. He did not feel like a hero who saved his friends. He felt like a monster. He looked at his hands, and all he could see was the blood.

The silence in the house was louder than the screams from before. Rei stood in the center of the room, his breath coming in ragged gasps.

Hiro was the first to move. His hands were shaking as he untied the ropes around his wrists. He stood up and walked toward Rei, but he stopped three feet away. He looked at King’s body, then at Rei’s empty eyes.

"Rei... you... you saved us," Hiro whispered. He wanted to hug his best friend, but his legs wouldn't move closer. He had never seen Rei look so cold. The boy who joked about schedules on the bus was gone.

Hana—the girl Rei had liked for years—was finally free. She sat on the floor, rubbing her bruised wrists. She looked up at Rei, and her eyes filled with tears.

"Rei, your hip... you're bleeding," she said softly. She reached out a hand, but when Rei turned his head to look at her, she flinched. It wasn't because she hated him. It was because she couldn't believe those same hands that held law books had just taken a life. "Thank you," she sobbed, "but... I’m scared, Rei. I’m so scared."

In the corner, Kaito and his girlfriend, Yumi, were standing up. Kaito was the "Elite" student who always looked down on others, but he had always admired Rei for being so honest and disciplined. Now, Kaito looked at Rei with a mix of respect and horror.

"I didn't think you had it in you," Kaito said, his voice cracking. "We all would have died if you didn't... do that. But man... You really killed him."

Yumi clung to Kaito’s arm, her face pale. "He’s so different," she whispered, loud enough for Rei to hear. "He looks like a different person. Rei, are you okay? Your face... it looks like a mask."

Rei heard them, but their voices felt like they were coming from underwater. He looked at his "Elite" friends and his crush. They weren't calling him a monster, but he could see the truth in their eyes. They didn't see "Rei the Student" anymore. They saw "Rei the Killer."

The image of the honest, hardworking student who was going to study abroad was shattered like the glass on his watch.

He walked past them without another word. He didn't look at Hana. He didn't look at Hiro. He walked toward the kitchen to find some water to wash the blood off his hands, but he knew that no matter how much he scrubbed, the feeling of the "crunch" against his bat would never go away.

Hana didn't stay for long. She was a kind soul, and seeing the teacher lying in a pool of blood gave her a sense of purpose. She crawled over to him, her hands trembling as she tore up a clean tablecloth from the kitchen.

"Help me!" Hana called out to the others. "He’s losing too much blood!"

Saki ran to her side immediately. The two best friends worked together, their movements frantic but coordinated. Saki held the teacher’s head up while Hana pressed the cloth against the red, burnt skin on his shoulder.

"It’s okay, Professor. Just keep breathing," Hana whispered, her tears falling onto her hands.

Saki hugged Hana tightly for a second, their shoulders shaking together. "We’re alive, Hana. We’re actually alive," Saki sobbed into her friend's hair. "I thought... I thought that man was going to..."

"I know," Hana whispered back, gripping Saki’s arm. "But Rei and Daichi saved us. They really saved us."

The two girls looked over at Rei, who was standing by the sink in the kitchen, washing his hands in silence. They wanted to go to him, to hold him and tell him it was okay, but the way he stared at the water made them stay back. It was as if a wall of ice had grown around him.

Kaito and Yumi joined them, helping to move the teacher to a softer pile of coats. Yumi sat next to Saki, rubbing her back. The "Elite" group and the regular students were no longer separate. In this dark, haunted house, they were just children clinging to each other for warmth.

Hiro sat by Kenji, who was finally starting to wake up with a groan. "Take it easy, Kenji," Hiro said, his voice thick with emotion. "It’s over. The gang is gone."

All of them were trying to console each other, saying hopeful whispers, but the mood was quite somber. None of them could look away from the body of King, which was still there near the entrance. Each time they looked at the dead body, they were reminded of the change that had occurred in their world. They were on an island where magic was real, and where their friend had to become a murderer to keep them breathing.

Hana finished the bandage and looked at her best friend. "Saki, what do we do now? The bus is broken, and there’s no signal."

Saki looked at the dark windows, where the pink fog was still swirling. "We stay together," she said firmly. "We don't leave this house until the sun comes up."