The 4 Kingdoms: Rise of the Shape Shifter

Chapter 18: Race to the school

I hanged up and looked at Kristine. “Where we first met Bruno…” I said dropping the phone in the ground… “He’s actually at our school…” I looked up at Bruno’s body, unsure of what to think, things had gone as low as I could possibly think of. I was lost, completely lost.

    “Come on!” yelled Kristine as she yanked my arm. I wasn’t aware, but I was starting to jog along with her. The cold air numbed my face as our speed made everything around us different. “You’re a Shape Shifter, your speed’s better than mine! You need to hurry up!” she said pointing out my true speed. Because of the nature of our powers, Shape Shifters were physically stronger and faster than the other Kingdoms.

   “I got a better idea, hop on!” I yelled as I ran ahead of her and transformed into a black horse. She jumped and landed on my back. I started going at my full speed as she held on to my neck. I took all the empty roads and routes to avoid being seen. I’m coming for you, you bastard! I thought as I kept getting closer and closer. My hoofs hit the ground harder and harder as I sped up even more.

     I finally reached a road close to the school and saw the building in the close distance. I ran close to the front and stopped a few yards away from the door. Kristine jumped off my back as I transformed back to my normal form. The two of us walked close to the door. I breathed deeply as I tried to catch my breath. I caught up with it a bit fast and started breathing hard through my nose. “Do you smell that?” said Kristine as we got closer to the door. There was a strong chemical smell in the air that was coming from the school. I didn’t recognize it at first but I suddenly remembered what it was.

    “Spray…. paint…” I said walking towards the front doors. There was something else in the air besides the paint, something evil. This is it. I thought as we both took a second to get mentally ready. I took a deep breath and advanced even closer to the school. We stopped when we were right in front of it. There was a locked chain wrapped around the doors. I turned to Kristine, “It’s all yours” I said pointing out the lock.

    She slowly raised her hand and pointed at the lock. The lock opened up and the chains loosened immediately. I moved them and opened the doors. “Do you sense anything inside?” I asked before we went inside.

    “An Alchemist and something weird, it’s not human but it’s not like us either.” She said, Witches had the ability to sense beings in a small area, it allowed her to tell when one of our kind or humans was close.

    “Let’s go in then” I said. The two of us stepped in and walked through the halls, heading for the second floor, almost by instinct. The fact that everything was quiet made our steps more solemn.    

    We reached the center of the school where the stairs for the second floor began. I started smelling a familiar smell once we were a few steps up, it was a sweet almost fainting smell; Janis’s smell.

    The two of us reached the second floor and found a girl with straight flat loose hair wearing a blue blouse and tight dark jeans at the end of the hall. I recognized her immediately. I then noticed something odd about the hall I hadn’t noticed. There were two rows of opened water bottles around Janis’s feet, a total of fourteen separated from each other. “So this is Janis?” said Kristine as she kept walking slowly towards her. I noticed a door opened behind her leading to the storage floor.

     I followed her and felt the tension in her pointed straight at Janis. “It’s nice to meet you, Kristine Dawn.” Janis said crossing her arms and staring calmly at us. “Well here’s the thing, you two can’t pass through me unless you manage to by some sort of luck.”

    A deep confusion hit me as I took a closer look at her pale wrist. There was a dark red diamond mark going around it like a bracelet. “Is that mark…is it the Mark of Titan?” I asked. The Mark of Titan was a curse put on anyone who broke an important code in the Kingdoms. Once the person got the mark, they would lose their powers, their memories of their life in the Kingdoms, and be banished as humans. It was the only irreversible curse to exist.