His glaring eyes moved from me to the rest of the class, but not before giving me a once over. His eyes showed he wasn't impressed.

I was suddenly very conscious of my slouched back, unlaced shoes, and the books and papers in front of me. I move to straighten it.

"The past is full of secrets, but the focus of our next couple weeks will be pages 1 through 100, which deals with the past of the Parax, quite specifically, the beginning of Fizi Kuhl and Mena Tal". He rests his book on the podium and flips through his book." Since a lot of our time today was wasted, you will all need to read up to page 54 for tomorrow's class"

A lot of groans and 'awwws' took place. Cedrick sank lower in his chair and groaned

"What?" I asked with my face.

"One page in the book has so many words on the page it makes me dizzy", he says, "And the words are this tiny," he says as he barely touches 2 of his fingers together.

"Come now class, that's enough of that" Grim says strictly, his facial expression shutting everyone up. He steps off his elevated dais and walks through the rows of student desks,

"For the remainder of today's class, enlighten me on your knowledge of Fizi Kuhl and Mena Tal".

A couple of students— really brave people in my mind— spoke up and told him facts, stuff I was already aware of.

"Pish Posh", Professor Grim says. "Even a child knows those things. Tell me the details, the lives, their past. Tell me something exciting about them".

Daniel raised his hand and after Grim gestured for him to continue, I heard his voice for the first time. "Here's a fact," he said in a scratchy, rough voice, "Mena Tal betrayed Fizi Kuhl". He spits out venom with each word

The class erupted into arguments. I sank back in my chair as people began to throw stuff.

"Your one to say that Osa", a guy yelled to Danial, "Aren't you basically a Ghoshlios? Raised by them anyway". The guy laughs with all his friends.

Daniel's reaction scared me.

He hadn't moved a muscle, but his eyes took on a look full of immense rage. I flinched when he looked over the class and landed on my face. He stared at me for a second, letting me be aware of his hatred, before turning back to the guy who I had overheard being called Andrew.

I shuddered. I still felt the heat of his gaze on me.

Andrew brings himself up to Danial's face and leers nastily, "Nothing to say now, O-Big-And- Mighty?"

Danial keeps looking at him, and his gaze flicks over to me for a second, and then suddenly Andrew begins to turn blue. He starts to shake, and claws at the air and his neck. He falls onto mine and Cedric's desk, and we stand up and step back as I realize he can't breathe

" Oh my goodness!" I shriek, shaking my hands. "Oh my goodness!"

Professor Grim finally steps forward and remarks, "Goodness sake Danial, are you planning on killing the man?" he pats Danials back but makes no more move to get him to stop.

Some of the Ghostilios kids start screaming. Andrew is almost deathly gray and is only moving the bare minimum.

The door starts to rattle, and we hear Dodobi's voice seeping through, "Grim? What is going on? Why are your students screaming?". You can hear the rattling of the door. "And goddamnit, why is this door locked?"

Grim's face loses his look of humor as he bends down to whisper something to Danial. As Andrew draws in a huge breath of air, the rest of the class lets out a collective breath of relief. Grim walks away, but not before sending a look of admiration to Danial, and Andrew continues breathing heavily. Some of the kids hustle over to Andrew as Grim opens the door.

"What happened here?" Dodobi exclaims taking in our disheveled appearances. His eyes land on me, and he asks silently if I'm okay, before seeing Andrew and his almost lifeless body and rushing to his side.

Grim calmly walks alongside Dodobi, "Nothing to worry about Headmaster, just a routine debate about history, nothing out of the ordinary".

Dodobi looks as if he's about to say something, but turns back to Andrew as he has a coughing fit.

We all return to our seats, as instructed by Dodobi, and wait until he returns from the nurse's office.

Nothing could protect us from the rage on his face. "What in the world happened here?" he screams. Grim opens his mouth to respond but Dodobi cuts him off. "Don't bother. Andrew already told me."

Grim doesn't at all seem put off by Dodobi's behavior and just says "You also know that throughout history, listening only to one side of the story has caused many problems."

Dodobi scoffs and turns to the class. "Let's find out what happened then. Someone tell me the events that took place here".

Students begin to talk all at once, but Dodobi manages to understand. He turns to Danial, who's on his phone as if this whole situation was not caused by him.

"Danial Osa", Dodobi says threateningly "you have broken several of our school's policies, almost killed a fellow student, succeeded in severely injuring said student, and proceed to ignore me!" Dodobi appears more bothered by Danial's nonchalant attitude than anything, and Grim noticed his anger and attempts to calm him.

"Headmaster, he is but a boy. He acted in rage. But do not fret, since this all occurred in my classroom, I will deal him a just punishment."

Grim? Punish Danial? With the way he acted towards him, it seems highly unlikely. Maybe Danial would end up getting a slap on the wrist, but how does that compare to almost taking someone's life?

I scoff at his words, and Dodobis's eyes flick to me in a way that tells me he understood what I was thinking.

Dodobi just stared at him, before exploding on him and saying "You? Give him a punishment? Grim my dear boy, you are also being punished!"

Grim blanks "Me? Whatever for? I didn't cause their quarrel!"

"You didn't end it either" Dodobi states, "And that is worse. Now," Dodobi says "You shut your trap, you will also hear your punishment. Privately. In my office". He turns to face Danial. " As for you, young man, you will be in detention for the next month, have a shadow for 2 months, and have a new curfew".

Dodobi looks over the rest of the students as if silently warning us of a similar fate if we act out. "You also lost fifty points for your team" he says as he walks out with Grim in tow, and the class was over.

Hana, who had no problem with the whole ordeal, now stood straight and whined.

We had lost fifty points.

As far as I know, we don't even have any points.

Danial had not at all seemed apologetic over his actions, but appeared sheepish as Hana expressed her disapproval over losing that many points.

"Great", Cedrick mumbles as he stands and gathers his things. "We haven't even started the first task, and we already lost fifty points". He looks over at me expectantly. "Do you know what this means?"

I nod my head no. 

He groans. "We have negative fifty as our score".

I may not know the scoring and how it works, but I do know having negative fifty points starting off is going to make things way more difficult than it needs to be.

"I guess that means we have to try harder tomorrow", Cedrick grunts unhappily.

"Why? What's tomorrow?" I ask, packing my things as he waited for me.

"Our first task," he says walking out the door.

I linger in the class and look back to see Danial staring at me. That's it though. No scary smile. No creepy leering. Just staring. And somehow, that scared me just as much.

I bolted out of the room. I don't know if it was my imagination or not, but I felt my throat squeeze and my breath comes in heavy heaves as I walked away, still thinking about Danial Osa.