Past the Woods Beyond

Chapter 6: The Forest Groups

So it was settled. Neptune had officially gone mad. The Dean of Good, Professor Ruth Swanheart, a stern but good old woman, had searched the halls for these so-called "Soul-eaters" but there was no sign of them. Neptune had to go stay in the infirmary, for both physical and mental treatment.

"Is it weird that I feel sorry for him?" Wesly asked. Kaiden shook his head. "No, not weird at all. Yeah, he was mean and arrogant, but not evil."

Colin nodded in agreement. But there was something about Neptune's story that made Colin think it was true. What if he was part of the reason why the Soul-eaters were released? The more he thought about it, the more it made sense. He was released into this world, then only one day later, Soul-eaters start coming. And he didn't think it was a coincidence that his least favourite guy got attacked.

Classes continued, and for some odd reason, no one mentioned the whole Neptune incident. It was as if the teachers didn't permit them to talk about it, trying to uphold the school's reputation as a safe and good place.

After some very odd classes like animal communication and a painfully boring Governance and Kingdom Training class (again, why did they need to know this?), it was time for Surviving Fairy Tales, which Colin was not looking forward to. Kaiden had explained that they were in groups with the Nevers, and to be quite frank, Colin didn't know how to feel about the Nevers. Evers had always complained about how gross and mean the Nevers were, but Colin knew not to judge people by first impressions. In fact, Colin always made bad impressions on adults, always moving around and not being able to control his mouth.

"Who's group are we in?" he asked.

Kaiden responded, "We're about to find out." He pointed at the Blue Forest gates, where Nevers already stood, gawking at the Evers with cold expressions. Colin had no idea why, but he searched the crowd of Nevers for a certain person in mind. He must be somewhere at the back, Colin thought.

~~~

Andric had a plan in mind. It was sort of long-term, but he knew it would work. Manipulation was Andric's speciality. He knew that if he could just get Colin to trust him, it would be much easier to kill him. The forest leaders started coming around, sorting the students into groups. Andric stood there, waiting to see which Evers would be in his group. None of his fellow Never members knew him that well. A tall, muscular tanned girl named Gypsy was in his group along with Darcia, who was busy looking at her nails. Tash, Lauren and Mel were put together and seemed very happy about it, and a friendly girl named Lola was put into the group. Conan was also placed in the group and seemed glad that he wasn't put with Gally.

"Do you hear that? Peace," he remarked, sighing in relief.

"Indeed," Andric replied, staring intensely at Colin like he was his next murder victim.

"Who are you looking at?" Conan asked, trying to locate where Andric was staring.

Andric turned, shaking his head. "Just staring into space," he lied.

"Oh yeah. I do that all the time," said Conan, who looked very nervous for some reason.

Andric hated making conversation and he despised small-talk. He was about to climb the tree until Conan blurted out, "Wait."

"What?" Andric asked, confused.

"I've seen you before. In my village," Conan noticed, narrowing his eyes. "In the kingdom of Netherwood."

Andric remembered why he had been there. He'd lived there for a while but had to move quickly since he was caught for stealing. As a now-orphaned boy, he constantly needed to move around to find places to stay.

"What?" Andric asked, not wanting to talk about his past after Neverland.

"You're an orphan, aren't you?" Conan asked, trying not to sound too curious.

"Of course I am. As if it wasn't obvious," Andric responded, leaning on the tree.

"No, it wasn't obvious. But I know. Other orphans can tell," Conan told him, looking down like he wanted to avoid Andric's gaze. "When I saw you in my village, I didn't feel quite as alone. I was no longer the village creep. I found someone else like me. Another boy with powers. Another orphan."

Andric knew deep down that this guy was nothing like him. After all, this guy didn't live centuries ago.

"The village creep?" Andric asked. "That's a pretty good title. You can go off scaring little children."

Conan chuckled for the first time, and replied, "That's exactly what I did."

So Conan wasn't just some muttering fool who hid in the shadows, Andric thought. He had to admit, he was glad Conan didn't just say the words "Shut up."

~~~

Colin got placed into group 4 with Abigail, Alyvia-Laurell, Angie, Myrtle and Evanna. There was one other new person named Gael, whom Colin had not seen before. They seemed shy and quiet, as they didn't speak at all yet. Their black hair was cut in a long pixie cut and they were pretty muscular, which made Colin feel sort of intimidated. It didn't help that they never smiled once. Colin could've mistaken them for a Never if they had worn a black frock. Neptune was originally supposed to join Colin's group, but to Colin's delight, since he was still healing in the infirmary, he couldn't attend. Group 4's Forest Group Leader was a short Satyr as he had the top half of a human, but goat legs as his bottom half. He had long horns growing from his head and a long curly goatee on his pointy chin.

"Where are the Nevers?" he asked. Colin's group all shrugged.

"Maybe they're hiding," Angie suggested. The Satyr checked his schedule.

"Oh, my mistake. We were supposed to meet at the big tree. I'm Clover, by the way," he explained.

He went along, galloping or whatever goats did when they walked, motioning for the group to follow him. Colin searched the place nervously, fidgeting with his uniform buttons. He tended to do that when he felt like this. Colin was never really a believer of destiny, but he really felt as if the boy in his dreams was in his group. Colin had many questions swarming his head. What if as soon as he went near the boy, he wanted to kill him like how he did in his dream? Why did he keep having those dreams? Did this boy dream about him?

Well, as soon as they arrived at the tree, Colin saw that he was correct. The boy was indeed sitting on a branch, in his forest group. That familiar cold sneer. Ears that stuck out. Those pale blue-green eyes were staring Colin right in the face.

"About time we met, laddie," the boy in Colin's dream spoke.