Ashwock Academy ✓

C H A P T E R - E I G H T E E N

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There was screaming all around the academy.

Rafe and Damien scrambled around their room to find something to light it. The window panes had been shut on the outside when the power went out, making it even more dark. It was almost impossible to see, so they tended to always pick up books instead of something bright.

Ella paced back and forth, thinking about the other four on the first floor. She whimpered, looking at the ground. Their sound grew, and soon it was like whining and screaming mixed.

"Ella, would you stop it already?" Jackson snapped. He frowned, crossing his arms and looking away from her. He didn't know why he got so annoyed, but he just did. He leaned up on the closest wall, thinking to himself.

"Could you help us, Jackson?" Rafe asked impatiently. Damien agreed as they kept scrambling, but Jackson didn't move.

"You're doing great," He said unemotionally, putting a thumbs up as if they could see it. 

"What's up with you?" Damien asked. Jackson shrugged.

"What do you mean?" Jackson asked.

"You're not helping us at all! Do you want to live? Because it doesn't seem like it."

"Just shut up."

"Will you two stop you bickering and help me?" Rafe snapped angrily. Damien turned away from Jackson and kept looking with Rafe. "Ella, you too." She got no answer. "Ella?"

Jackson, Damien and Rafe turned around to look at her, and they were shocked.

The whimpering had disappeared, and so did Ella.

"Shit," Damien whispered, putting his hand to his face and shaking it. He should have told the others about Ella's headache-if that's really what it was-and now it was too late.

She was gone.

***

She rushed through the school, her feet taking her as fast as she could run. Ella ran down the stairs and past a corner, hoping that it was the right turn. After all, she couldn't see anything.

Ella knew that the others would be worried about her, but she didn't stop to think about it too much. She needed to make sure that the others were alright and if they needed any help, and she would be there to give it. She was running too fast to concentrate on the screams for her name.

Suddenly, she turned another corner and realized that she hadn't been that way before. Ella looked around at her surroundings and gulped. She had run the completely wrong way.

Exhausted from all of her running, Ella collapsed and didn't try to get up. Her head fell back onto the wall and she groaned from the impact. Her whimpering continued, not just from fear but also from sadness. She looked around the academy, hands shaking and lips quivering. She didn't want to die. She didn't want anyone else to either.

But she knew it was going to happen.

Her mind flashed back to when she first arrived at Ashwock. Ella watched herself snap pictures of the school, excited to start a new life there. She watched herself go inside and to her dorms. Then it skipped forward to when she said the curse on Raven in the classroom and watching her suffer, then the same thing happening to her, only much, much worse. 

She gasped, and she remembered finding Jessica dead right after Raven woke her up by her scream. She thought of saving Fox instead of Rum, watching an innocent boy die at her fault. And then there was finding Fox's dead body, not knowing exactly what had happened to make him pass.