Amity

Chapter 20: Welcome to Reiax Academy

Dré's eyes shot open, his shirt drenched in cold sweat. He looked around the all-white room. The walls were bare, with three empty beds on his left and right. "I'm in an infirmary?" he asked himself. He was more surprised that he was even alive. A wave of relief filled him as he raised himself into a sitting position on the stiff mattress. His button-up shirt and black jeans had been replaced by a black muscle shirt and a pair of black, loose-fitted slacks.

"It's a shame what happened to Kim, though," he heard Isaiah say outside of the door. He looked out of the square window and saw his friends outside in the waiting hall. Isaiah was sitting on a leather bench, his maroon jersey ripped to shreds. Michael was leaning against an off-white brick wall, his arms crossed as he studied the floor. Both Megumi and Keiko were sitting on the leather seat set beside Isaiah, both looking glum. "Getting stabbed through the stomach to save someone must really suck. It'll suck even worse for Dré once he finds out what happened."

Those cold words sliced straight through Dré's heart with deadly precision. Dré turned his back to the door and slid down onto the ground, staring at his feet in utter disbelief. Kimmy had risked her life to save him, while he made himself blackout by using his power. If she died, her blood would be on his hands, and that imperceptible blood would taint Dré's psyche for as long as he lived. He brought his knees to his chest, wishing that it was him that was fighting to survive instead of her.

"I can't believe how close she was to dying," Keiko said. "I hope that she will be alright."

"Of course, she will. She's being looked at by one of the best living healers to date," Megumi stated. "Besides, you heard what my daddy said. No one has died in the entrance exams yet."

"Emphasis on the word yet," Michael said. "Just because there hadn't been a fatality yet, doesn't mean there can't be one. If that woman hadn't come when she did, Kimmy would have died, and it would have been all Dré's fault."

"Why do you have to be such a dick?" he heard Megumi ask.

"It's fun once you start doing it. If I could make money by hurting people's feelings, I'd be a millionaire by now."

With an indignant sigh, Megumi said, "I'm gonna go check on Dré. It'll be better than having to listen to you mock him."

Dré heard the light thudding of her footsteps, but he didn't dare move. He didn't want to seem like a person who had just escaped a death-defying situation with nothing more than a few cuts and bruises while one of his friends almost died because of him, especially Kim. He wanted to look exactly how he felt inside; defeated, morose, incapacitated by grief's vice-like grip around his neck.

"The bed would make a more comfortable place to sit, dude," Megumi said from the doorway. He didn't even hear the door open.

Dré murmured as he rested his chin on his knees. He felt that he couldn't look Megumi in her eyes, for they would only make him feel less guilty, something that Dré didn't have a right to feel.

Megumi shut the door behind her and sat with him against the wall. The intoxicating scent of strawberries flowed into his nose again, uplifting his spirits as he remembered their time before he came to this damned academy. It was a feeling he didn't deserve.

"I'm so pathetic," Dré sighed through his knees after a moment's silence.

"Oh," Megumi said quietly. "I didn't realize you were listening."

"Listening about how I blacked out? Or about how I got Kimmy killed because of it?"

"She's not dead, Dré," Megumi sighed. "It's true that she got hurt pretty bad out there, but she's gonna make it."