Warcry Academy

Four

Clematis's POV.

"Welcome to Warcry Academy."

Those words hit me like a bullet. My heart shrinked with all the desperation. I could see the man about to explain a lot of things. One tall girl, with utterly long dirty blonde hair, tied in two lengthy plaits, green rimmed glasses, emerald eyes and vague, small freckles dotted on her warm, olive skin, cupped her hands over her mouth and let out a shriek. She started crying, badly, and everyone watched her. I felt sorry for her. The man observed her for a fraction of a second, obviously aggravated, before carrying on with what he was saying. "Now, contestants, first we shall get to know all of you," he crookedly grinned, "line next to your boys, girls."

We did as he demanded; I lined up with Chive, hands by my sides. Everyone else lined up behind us. The man took a step forward towards us, and smiled... in a weird way. "You are?" he questioned, making eye contact with both of us simultaneously — one of his eyes faced Chive's and the other faced mine. I shivered, trying to make it unnoticeable, but because of that, the man's grin slightly faded.

"Clematis Missful," I whispered, terrified. The man's old hand shook mine, and afterwards I quickly sucked the drop of blood coming out of my thumb, as the man's sharp, silver ring had scratched me. The man turned completely white, the first time I'd seen him scared. He looked at the blood coming out of my thumb, which was now a curious... orange. Orange blood?! My eyes widened.

Everything was silent, until the man forced a smile and spoke again. "Nice to m-meet y-you Clematis M-M-Missful," he stuttered. I didn't show any expression on my face as he said that. He faced Chive, who spoke next.

"Chive Spirikust," he said proudly, although I could still tell he was as terrified as we were.

The man made his way down the line, and I took in some of the names.

"Bethany Ndubusi." That was familiar — even though I'd only heard it once, it seems like I've heard it everyday, I suppose.

"Lioma Virstive." "Martina Ainslie." "Lewis Chatslou." "Zendaya Sallow." "Fearn Realm." "Wasabi Kanol." "Miamoe Lasaffa." "Pandora Gilbie." "Winter Pavla." "Mothiacj Queensber."

I'm sure there were more, but I never heard them — that Martina girl, was the one who had shrieked earlier. The man gingerly ambled to the doors, with no reason why. He pivoted on his left foot, swishing around towards us, and smiled crookedly — again. "Contestants, call me... Sir Wensly." We all nodded anxiously before Sir Wensly spoke again. "Follow me, please, contestants."

Sir Wensly led us through the surreptitiously creaking, dark, oak wooden doors that were four times the size as me. Everyone followed heedfully, while the only sound that we heard was Sir Wensly's high, leather boots clicking on the concrete floor. We lingered through extremely tall wooden hallways with dirty, grey bricks as walls. Sir Wensly stopped in all of a sudden, and so did we. Someone had stepped on my foot, making me shoot them a stern look back — Martina, again. She is, undisputed, clumsy, and she wobbled back with a quick "sorry!". I turned around to see the first door on the right side of us. It was just like the entrance door, although it was a little smaller. It still had the same features; wooden, metal patterns of violence, tall. Unexpectedly, Sir Wensly pulled out a shiny golden key for the door, even though there was a handle and the door was obviously slightly open. With a squeak, the door opened and we slowly, circumspectly, stepped inside.

The walls were slate, — which seemed strange — coloured beige, and so was the ceiling. I slid my hand up and down the walls, like everyone else did, and it was utterly smooth. Bookshelves with dusty, old books were lazily placed on the back wall and reached up to the ceiling. There was no light, only little candles with flickering lights that pranced and danced in my eyes. A large wooden table was in the exact center of the room, on the cobblestone floor that made an echo when you stepped on it. Unusually shaped glass bottles of green, indigo, blue, orange, yellow, red, and any other vibrant colours you can think of were on the tables and hidden behind books on certain bookshelves. A glowing, bright, white crystal ball was beaming out light all over the walls when Sir Wensly clicked his fingers. Magic? Wow... I thought.

Then, a blood—curdling scream pierced the air. It wasn't mine.

The girl called Winter, with incredibly white hair, the most blue eyes I've ever seen, short and from Town One, screamed as she plummeted down a trapdoor that let to a bottomless pit.

Bethany, who was standing in front of her, grabbed her arm, nevertheless, she slipped. Her partner, a boy called Mothiacj, burst into a flood of tears.

Sir Wensly, the man from before, chuckled. "What's so funny?" I yelled at him. "We're five minutes into Warcry Academy, and a poor, innocent, thirteen year old girl has just died!"

"She's brave," someone murmured from behind me, "I heard that Sir Wensly kills whoever shouts at him." After hearing that, I felt tears evolving in my eyes, and I held them back, succeeding. I'm going to die. Right now.

Sir Wensly gritted his teeth at me, turning around. "You don't shout at me, young girl," he warned. "You must pay!" He shouted and brung up a golden staff to my face with an expression full of anger. My hands were in my face. A droplet of orange liquid fell from my finger to the floor and a sudden echo hit my ears. After a minute, I let go of my arms to see Sir Wensly frozen like a statue with wide eyes and about to absolutely destroy me with his staff.

I turned around. Everyone was frozen. Everyone were statues. I crouched and looked up.

Bethany wasn't frozen. "Bethany?" I asked, standing up. "What happened?"

"You froze everyone."

"But not you... Why aren't you frozen?"

"It... It doesn't affect me."

"I don't understand," I whimpered, plopping down on the cold floor. "How is this possible?"

"It happened because you're an orange blood. Orange bloods are the rarest kind of magical creature out there," Bethany explained, while I watched her words come out of her mouth in horror — this must be a dream... "They're extremely powerful and there's only two of your kind. Orange bloods freeze every human being and wizard and witch there is in the world when they're scared. They can summon powerful beasts and defeat all species in the surrounding land."

"You're not human?" I was stunned.

"We can talk about that later, when I get to know you better," she said, which I understood.

I felt kind of proud to be an 'orange blood'. But I was terrified at the same time. At least I didn't kill everyone, only froze them. "How do I unfreeze everyone?"

"To unfreeze everyone? For that, you have to overcome the fear. It can take an orange blood years to do that, but in your case, it's pretty simple. You only need to get rid of Sir Wensly's staff."

"So, I'm an orange blood."