Chapter 5 - Lord Fernsby

So, to recap: Dante got caught shoplifting, sent far away to some boarding school, the bus to the school crashed, he saw his bus driver beheaded and is now relying on a psycho to save him and all these other kids from freezing in the middle of nowhere. Couldn't get worse, right?

Spoke too soon.

"Firstly," John started as he rummaged through his duffle bag, "I shall capture us some prey to feast upon."

John began to ruffle through his duffle bag, as he did Dice walked up to and struck up conversation. Dante could already tell they knew each other.

"Hey John," Dice started, stroking his pet in his palms. "Where exactly do you plan on getting this prey?"

"Simple," John answered standing straight with an object in his hands. "From you."

The object in his hands was a mallet, with a wooden handle and black iron anvil at the end. Before Dice could respond the mouse already caught on and leaped out of its owners arms, scampering for its life. John gave chase almost immediately, walloping the hammer at different spots of the ground where he thought the mouse would be. Dice was yelling for John to stop and Claire even gave chase, still remaining mute to John's strange behavior. The crowd stared and yelled as the little sadist continued his hunt, hammering very close to Tootie's head at one point. The rodent had enough and turned to crowd. Its owner was standing at the front and center, crouched down and arms spread open. "Here Tootie!"

Just as the kids thought the varmint would live another day, a black metal squashed those naïve hopes with a loud and clear SPLAT!!

Guts and blood sprayed Dice's tearful face, along with John's satisfied one. The kids screamed and backed away with horror, Dante was sure now he was going to throw up. The only two aside from John that weren't scared were Claire and Izzy.

Claire seemed rather frustrated than terrified. The only thing she managed to utter as John picked up Tootie's remains was. "Uncalled for, don't ya think?"

"Our new classmates must survive one way or another, C. Besides, Dice has a ton of pets, he'll be fine."

Dice was curled up in the grass, cradling Tootie's disembodied tail. "Oh Tootie, you were my only friend."

Izzy looked curious, like John was some historical statue she wanted to study. "No way..." Was all she muttered.

"What?!" Dante asked, slightly gagging.

Izzy turned to him with the same gleam she had on the bus pre-crash. "That's a raaksha!"

"Really now?!" Kimmy sneered, clearly sarcastic. "You know he already said that right?"

Dante stared at both of them with bewilderment. "RAAKSHA?"

"Yeah," Kimmy said, nudging Dante, "Relax, it's my first time seeing one too."

Bernie finally spoke up in what felt like hours. "Look what he's doing now."

John was by the bus, which was leaking a heavy amount of gasoline, which had already formed a huge puddle. "Secondly, I shall make us a fire to cook the prey with."

"Hang on," Kimmy spoke up, "You want us to EAT that?! We just saw you KILL that thing!"

"You can keep my share of it." Dante chimed in, followed my a series of mumbles in agreement with Dante.

"I WON'T EAT MY FRIEND! I'D RATHER STARVE!" Dice declared all dramatically.

"Fine, more for me." John said coldly. He walked over to the gas puddle and horked in it. When the phlegm hit the puddle, steam...no...SMOKE began to appear.

Dante was completely dumbfounded. He SPAT and made smoke? What is happening?? No, I'm going to find out right now.

This John guy did scare him, but now Dante just wanted answers. To EVERYTHING. Dante marched up the killer and prodded him hard on the shoulder for his attention. John was watching a candlelight sized fire appear when he whizzed around, those fiery eyes staring straight at Dante's black ones. "What?"

"How did you do that."

"Do what?"

He pointed at the fire, that grew into the size of the gas puddle. "THAT."

"You saw me do it. I just did it."

Izzy marched over, totally poker-faced. She held John's cheeks with her palms, the gleam of excitement still in her eyes. "You're a BABY raaksha!"

John's cheeks grew red in Izzy's hands. "NO! AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!" Izzy's smile was brighter than the fire, which began crawling across the grass and around the bus, much to the other kids dismay.

John pushed her off. "I am not! You will NOT speak to your lord Fernsby like this!"

"JONATHAN!"

The Russian girl cried out, her face brightened up by the flames that were currently engulfing the bus and grass around them. All the children backed up far, like the fire was following them. Dante backed up so far he bumped into another boy. He had golden tan skin with chestnut dreadlocks that fell to his shoulders. His brown eyes softened looking at Dante for a second before they both heard everyone screaming. John's cooking plan literally went up into a wildfire. The dreadlocks guy asked John if he could stop the fire. How does one just STOP a fire like that? Dante asked. The arsonist shook his head in shame.

"Alright," He said, he had a strong Spanish accent. "Everyone, follow me!"

Only Dante and John followed at first, but Claire noticed the three take off and ordered everyone to do the same. All twelve children ran towards the forest behind the open valley of the bus crash. If John wasn't controlling the fire, it sure felt like something else was. This wildfire was literally chasing them instead of spreading across like a normal flame. It followed them into woods and crawled up a few pine trees, gnawing on them until they fell, hopefully on the children. While they ran, Dante noticed there was no smoke anywhere, he wasn't suffocating at all, and when he turned back, he saw the fire was travelling in a single line, occasionally splitting in two to scamper up a tree and knock it on them.

Speaking of which, a gigantic, smoldering pine tree began to sway and fall right at Dante's direction. He tried sprinting faster, but a tall tree also meant a long one. Just as it seemed like the end, he heard Kimmy's voice yell his name and suddenly she was beside him. Before he could ask any questions, in a split-second she wrapped her arms around him, locking his arms by his side, then a sudden flash of orange appeared before him, and he was at the front of the crowd with the Spanish guy on his left and Kimmy on his right. "Wait, wha-" He wanted to ask her, but she disappeared again. Like, ACTUALLY, LITERALLY DISAPPEREARED. In a flash of orange she was gone, leaving a tangerine, shaped line of her behind. Dante turned to Spanish guy like was gonna throw up, but instead of upchucking, he fell head first into water.

Dante opened up his eyes to see nothing but grey. He heard muffled yelling of the Spanish guy and other people. That's it, I'm gonna puke. His chance was interrupted again when the atmosphere of water he was floating in flurried upward and vanished. He let out a gasp for air, then a gasp of shock when he looked above him. First of all, he'd fallen into a river, and now said river is floating above his head. He turned to a freckled kid giving him a hand out of the ditch. Lucky - yeah Lucky was his name. Dante accepted Lucky's help and when he got out, They both stared in awe.

"Holy moly, Pablo." The Russian girl said. Pablo held up the entire river in the air. His arms extended upward where the river was just barley hovering over his palms. "Nice save." Claire said, slightly red.

Pablo smiled through his clear struggle to manipulate the water. "Thanks, Claire. Thanks Jane. Now everyone stand back."

Everyone backed away, only a few steps though. The trail of fire approached rapidly and everyone could see the blazing pine trees in the distance. Pablo mustered all the strength he could and propelled the river over everyone's heads and straight at the trail and blazing trees behind it. Even if he didn't mean to, Pablo still splashed every one of his classmates. The dozen kids stood for a moment stumped. The Russian girl, Jane, spun around all red in the face. "Pablo! That was extraordinary!" Another four girls chimed in with their compliments, equally tomato-faced. Izzy turned back, still a tomato the squeal at her friends. "We have a MERMAN YOU GUYS! A MERMAN!"

"A cute one too." Bernie said all flustered. The only girl who wasn't beetroot was Kimmy, who seemed to have a look of hurt when Bernie muttered those words.

Bernie herself hadn't seemed to notice the sting her words had to Kimmy and went off wandering toward some family of owls trapped under a burnt tree branch. Everyone else was either thanking Pablo for saving their lives or yelling at John for putting them in danger. Dante was the former. Except he wasn't thanking Pablo, more of interrogating him. "How- why- did- you LEVITATED that water. HOOOWWW?!" He was beginning to sound a little crazy. Pablo was unfaced. "I was water-bending, silly. Not too good at it, though."

"NO! YOU SHOULDN'T BE GOOD AT IT AT ALL! YOU SHOULDN'T BE ABLE TO DO IT!"

Pablo looked a little hurt. "But I can.." he said in a pouty voice.

Dante's eye twitched as he marched off toward Bernie. "Please tell me I'm on drugs or something."

"SHH!" Bernie pressed her finger to his lips and motioned to the owls with her other hand. "They're giving me directions to a campsite."

"Huh-"

"Tweetie-toddle-tweet-twitty-tee?" Bernie asked the birds. The mama owl spread her wings and seemingly began leading Bernie to a place to stay. She smirked, confident with her weird skill and shouted at the others, "Campsite here everyone!"

The camp in question looked rather abandoned. There were six purple tents lined up beside each other and a campfire that looked long gone out. There were grey, fold-up, plastic chairs seated around said campfire. The mama owl perched on the branch of a tree above the site and let out a cheerful hoot, as if to say: "Here you are, honey."

"Thanks, Miss." Bernie gave the owl a thumbs-up, as it flew away. Dante's mouth was completely agape, not from just that, but EVERYTHING he's seen this morning. He turned to the other kids praying he wasn't alone on this feeling. But they seemed fine with this witch-craft, nonchalantly thanking Bernie for her assistance and sorting out who was gonna share a tent with who.

"I'll share with Dante," Izzy announced to their re-forming circle. "Give you two some space."

Kimmy's eyes widened with a silent Screw you or Thank you. Dante couldn't decide which one.

Soon, everything was quiet. The sun came up in silence as kids whispered to their friend in a tent or caught up on some sleep. Dante was wide awake with Izzy lying beside him, rambling about how this will all be worth it when we see the school and its facilities. Eventually Dante had to speak up because NONE of this was normal. "What is this school?" He asked, his voice low.

"Pardon?"

"You realize how messed up this situation is, right?"

"It's not that messed up. Bernie said the owl's saw the family camping here a few days ago and just lazily left their stuff here."

"That's not what I meant..."

"What do you mean?"

Dante shot up and turned to face Izzy. "What do you mean, what do I mean? None of this is normal! Why am I the only one that can see that?"

He didn't mean to yell, he was just so angry about everything that's happened to them. "If THESE are the students of Laronda's, then I don't even want to IMAGINE the school itself."

"Lamronba."

Dante froze. That's...familiar. "What did you just say?"

"Lamronba. Y'know, the school you enrolled in?"

Dante's brain flashed back to the shop he and his dad went to. The leaflet with the swirly writing, the Draft Year is what it read. The bus saying Drafts Welcome, how his father took the leaflet from him...and walked out with that same one.

"Dante, oh what's wrong, you look like you're going to faint." Izzy sat up as well so the two were face-to-face.

Dante looked her in the eyes and said: "I am not supposed to be here."