______I stood dumb-founded, staring at the empty air through which Thgin had just disappeared. Oh, if my life wasn’t screwed up before, it is now. I am so screwed... I turned behind me to find my teachers, friends, and classmates all string at me in shock and fear. Yep. Very, very screwed...

______It was a dead silence across the entire crowd as the metal glinted underneath the un-melting ice in the mid-day sun. The uneasy silence was broken as Mrs. Willie Corlew’s walkie-talkie crackling to life. “Mrs. Corlew? This is Coach Badgett. Can anyone hear me? What just happened? Report. Over.”

______Mrs. Corlew shook her head as she snapped out of her stupor. Her thick brown hair boasted a few flakes of ice from the spell earlier that floated to the ground and melted as she squatted down to retrieve the walkie-talkie from the ground where she must’ve dropped it earlier. She stood uneasily, brushing invisible dust from her skirt, “We’re fine Mr. Badgett. Everyone seems to be accounted for. Over.”

______“Alright Mrs. Corlew.” His voice replied through the static, “Let’s move all these kids into the gym. Over.” Mrs. Corlew looked up, seeming to be completely recovered. “Alright everyone! You heard Coach Badgett,” she yelled in her typical tone used for herding us to the gym for assemblies. “To the gym!” The silent crowd seemed to suddenly gain life as it moved towards the gym, everyone talking and yelling across the crowd as normal. Of course, the subject up for discussion was anything but normal.

______“You, hold on a minute,” Mrs. Corlew’s voice rang out to me as I began to follow the crowd. “I want to talk to you.” Oh this is what I need. Her asking me questions I don’t know the answers to. Great. She would want to take me to the office, or worse, talk to the police. It’s not like I did something wrong. Her words hold no power over me. I could just ignore her... Like I need that kind of trouble... I froze with my back to her, waiting for her to say whatever she had to say.

______“What,” Mrs. Corlew’s voice broke with fear and uncertainty. She clearly had no idea as to how she should react to the situation. Her voice wavered as her mind strained tried to make sense of what had occurred, “What was that?”

______I couldn’t help but feel as though I had just broken all her concepts of the world within the past few minutes. And I couldn’t answer any of her questions in a manner that would satisfy either of us. Like I know what’s going on... I thought I was dead for a second there. I don’t know anything to tell you what happened. And I doubt you’d take well to the idea that it was magic. My voice broke coldly into the silence, “It’s beyond your comprehension.” Mine too...

______She stood in shocked silence for a moment before her voice squeaked with a familiar anger. “You, you’re mocking me!”

______At least she was back to herself. She knows herself and her place again. To not take shit from the students and to enforce discipline, manners, and rules upon us. Good for her. Now what about poor little me? I’m still completely lost. Damn my luck... “No,” I continued in the icy voice that had to be demeaning towards her. “Not mocking. Simply stating facts.”

______I could feel her anger practically burning a hole through me as she stared at my back, for once, with nothing to say.

______“I will join my classmates now,” I said once again in the eerily cold and calm tone that had to be irritating the hell out of Big Willie. “Settam.”

______I walked towards the doors of the school, the last word echoing through my head. Settam? What the hell? Where had that come from? I had meant to say goodbye. The mind is always the first to go they say. But still... Maybe I should see a shrink. Maybe the entire school should. Mass hallucination, maybe. Maybe someone had put something in the air ducts. Enough kids around here have parents working on the government base in town; they could get a hold of some pretty weird chemicals if they wanted to... I better not think about it too much. Just get to the gym. None of my friends have class on this side of the school right now. So they couldn’t see what happened. I shouldn’t have to explain anything to them. Thank the gods for small favors.

______

______Krysta sat to my left, Adam to my right, with his current girlfriend, Sharon, next to him. We all fall under the freaks category, all except Sharon that is, she falls into the prep category, and just to give you a general idea of her personality, Jessica is a good friend of hers, but she is a kinder, more intelligent person.

______I hang out with one of the three groups of freaks at my high school. There’s the freaks that go out and spend all their time at raves and parties, listen to punk music, and dress as outrageously as they can get away with, and may who spend a great deal of time getting high, or watching everyone else get high. The other group of freaks dress equally strangely when they feel like it, but for the most part can fit into the normal crowd without being noticed, their parties are somewhat tamer, and most don’t get into drugs, they seem to have an affinity for computers, fantasy, manga, anime, little known information, and most importantly, magic. I fit in under the category of the second group best, but I spend more time with the third group, the ones who are either trying to shift from one group to the other, or the ones who got tired of being one or the other and take on properties of both.

______Krysta and I laughed as we simultaneously flicked off Rich, a junior varsity football player who had cheated on both Krysta and Sharon. Keeping with her traditionally submissive and overly-polite nature, Sharon scolded us with a soft-voiced, “Guys, that’s mean.”

______“That’s the point,” I replied through a malicious grin. At least something’s being normal. Maybe this can all blow over... Riiiight... And I’m the queen of England too.

______The cheerleaders made a run out to the center of the gym floor, and started yelling and posing in a futile attempt to turn the confusion into a pep rally. They clapped and tried to get us to spell out Trojans, the school mascot. Adam started rifling through his backpack.

______“What are you doing?” Krysta turned towards him with interest.

______“Looking for paper,” he was almost laughing. He had something planned.

______“And why are you doing that?” She replied to his less-than-satisfactory answer.

______“Hold this.” He shoved a plastic straw into Krysta’s hand and her eyes gleamed with amusement as his plan came forward. “Damn.” He hissed angrily as his search came up empty-handed. “Do you guys have any?”

______“Nope.” Krysta said disappointedly.

______“All my stuffs in my locker, I was in Chem. lab.” Oh well. There goes that entertainment.

______“Good.” Sharon was visibly upset; her face had turned tomato red with her frustration and embarrassment. She’s such a wimp and goody-two-shoes. I swear, why she and Adam are a couple is beyond me.

______“That’s right!” Krysta suddenly looked up, slamming her fist into her palm in realization. “You were over on that side of the school! Any idea what happened?”

______Shit. Damn. Fuck. Hell. Last thing I frickin’ need... “Err... Sorta.” I replied slowly, trying to think of something to say.

______“I have an announcement!” Coach Badgett’s voice echoed across the gym. By the gods, I’m saved by the Badge. He took the microphone offered by a teacher and his already loud voice was further amplified. “Due to the damage in the Math and Science hall we will be releasing school early.” He paused taking a deep, reluctant breath. “Car riders may leave now, bus riders will be detained until the buses are ready.” A deafening cheer rose through the crowd and around half the students stood up to head outside.

______Adam clapped both hands on my shoulders and tried hi best to look pitiful. “Kody... Buddy, Pal, Bestest-best friend?”

______“Yeah you can ride with me.” Just stop that before it goes any further. “Share. Kry. You want rides?” I turned to offer them a quick way out of school as well.

______“Really!?ThankyouKody!” Sharon spoke so quickly I could barely pick out the separate words.

______“Cool deal.” Krysta smiled mischievously. “Let’s check out the damage before we leave though.”

______“I can barely believe there was really a fire...” Sharon’s eyes glazed over as she tried to imagine it.

______No good can come of this...

______“Yeah.” Adam spoke in his best Beavis impression. “Fire, fire, yes! Heh, heh, heh!”

______

______They fell to a dead silence as we walked into the courtyard next to the Math and Science halls and saw the destruction.

______“THE FUCK!?” Krysta’s voice was angry and strained as though she had been screaming.

______Sharon took a couple of steps backwards, covering her mouth with one hand, her eyes growing wide. “W-w-w-wh-wha-what ha-hap-happ-happened?”

______“What the hell are those?” Adam spoke slowly in whispers, looking at the Gafi as though they were some sort of poison snake.

______“Err...” Do I really want to answer this? “They’re called Gafi. They’re some kind of weapon.” Might as well continue. “The larger three were chasing the other one. The smaller one stepped on the building before turning to fight the others.” And how the hell should I explain to them that I know all this? I guess they’ll hear eventually... That I talked with that strange guy... Thgin.

______“Then... There’s some sort of weapon that they use to freeze each other?” Sharon asked nervously.

______“Something like that,” I looked away as I spoke. There’s one thing I don’t have to explain for a bit. “Let’s get outta here.”

______“Yeah,” Adam shook his head like someone trying to shake off a particularly disturbing dream. “They give me the creeps.”

______Adam and Sharon made a dash for the parking lot and my car while Krysta hung back with me.

______“This place reeks with magic,” she spoke calmly as though she were saying the sky was blue. She didn’t look at me, only at the Gafi beneath the sparkling layer of ice. “What really froze those things?”

______I was planning to tell her anyways. So why do I feel like a kid caught with her hand in the cookie jar? “I did.” I spoke softly, like a guilty child.

______“Uh-huh.” She still managed to sound like someone observing the most basic pieces of science. “And what caused the fire alarm? What really happened?”

______I suddenly wasn’t feeling so guilty anymore. I had saved lives after all! “I pulled the alarm,” I spoke with a calm, almost proud confidence. “I’ll explain the rest later.”

______We both hurried on our way to the parking lot the way Adam and Sharon had gone.

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