On the coming Monday Yuri found himself on his back in the gym hall again. Their grades for the self-defense class had been finalized and a list of students scoring in the top third had been transmitted to the Expedition Corps. Mrs. Orlov had been suspicious of Yuri's miraculous victory and had him compete with Sora multiple more times while watching like a hawk. This time the results were more to her expectations but there was no way to prove his cheating. And to Yuri's surprise Sora straight up denied that any cheating had taken place during their deciding match, no matter how much Mrs. Orlov prodded.

  “Saved by a fluke, Yuri. How disappointing”, she said, shaking her head while she and Sora were staring down on him. “Everyone has a bad day sometimes. All of us here know that better than anyone”, Yuri grunted as he was struggling to sit back up.

  “I suppose that's true”, Mrs. Orlov sighed and went to inspect some other fights. Sora bent down and held out her hand to help Yuri up. He hesitated. It became awkward but Sora just kept her hand outstretched until he took it.

  “You are fast and have a natural understanding of fighting. You could improve significantly very quickly if you were just training outside of self-defense class as well.” she said. “How about I train you? None of the others want to practice with me when they don't have to and I can use the extra competition.”

  Sora had taken off her red protective headgear as she realized that Mrs. Orlov had ended the class. Strands of her sand-colored hair were plastered to her brow with sweat. Yuri was stunned by surprise and he had still not spoken a word since Sora helped him up. He had thought about that possibility himself and now she had one-upped him by offering before he could bring himself to ask her. He felt slow and stupid. In his daze he noticed that Sora had gotten tired of waiting for his answer and turned her back towards him, heading for the locker room.

  “Yes, I would like that!” he nearly shouted after her, embarrassed by his raised voice. “Thank you”, Yuri added more quietly. Sora half turned around with a smile on her lips.

  “No need to thank me, I am always glad to get an excuse to beat you up.”

  “Watch it, I will beat you in time”, Yuri replied.

  “In your dreams Yuri and we all know who the real “Dreamer” is. I will see you here tomorrow afternoon. I can get the key from Mrs. Orlov. Don't you dare to be late”, Sora had to say about that.

  *

  Outside the gym hall Yuri met Janusz, who was standing at the edge of the lawn gazing over the empty field. He was crumpling up his baseball cap between his kneading hands.

  “Are you alright?” Yuri asked, slowly approaching him.

  “Yeah”, Janusz simply answered without looking at Yuri. “It's time again soon”, he continued, “And graduation comes after.”

  “Harvest”, Yuri murmured, he had forgotten how close the two events were related.

  “Such a stupid word”, Janusz said, “Too bad that it seems accurate.”

  Yuri knew what he meant. The first group of people who ended up in Nowhere had exactly the backgrounds that were necessary to establish a functioning colony made up of the areas that became known as the 13 Outposts. Architects, construction workers, scientists, doctors, politicians, military personnel, teachers, preachers and so on. But noticeably, there were no farmers. Like someone knew that nothing could be planted in Nowhere and that farmers weren't necessary in the first place since food could just be brought into existence by Creators.

  Groups arriving in Nowhere since then did not share these characteristics at all, they were all just made up of children and young teenagers. There was however one thing that every single person ending up in Nowhere had in common, immediately before their relocation another person in close proximity died. It could be just one or an enormous number but there was always at least one person dying.

  As faith in the old Earth religion slowly crumbled because of their inability to accurately explain both the miraculous relocation and the location their believers ended up in, a new religion began to rise. Dismissing the few parallels to the Christian concept of the Rapture, the Church of the Divine Harvest was formed.

  “I seriously hope the Church was indeed wrong with both their interpretations”, Janusz said, “No matter if perpetually being stuck here as some obscure punishment or as a trial of faith with an existing way back, it just implies too cruel a God for me to believe in.”

  Yuri was hardly listening anymore, thinking about how the Harvest had dredged up memories he intentionally suppressed every single day.

  Voices shouting, screams.“Stay away from us!” The smell of smoke. The ghostly glittering of the knife. The fingers holding it covered in blood, fingers he knew.

  Yuri managed to stop the memory by force, trickles of red forming on his palm where the fingernails had dug into the flesh. Something dawned on him. “I have never seen Sora at the Harvest.”

  “She never witnesses it”, Janusz said, “Can't blame her. I don't want to go either but I don't want to forget.” He put his wrinkled cap back on his head of curly, black hair, rummaged in his bright blue backpack, pulled out his Nintendo Switch and turned it on. “I can't wait for the recruiters to show up after the graduation to drag me off to the Expedition Corps”, Janusz said bitterly, “I don't want to do anything. I really don't want to be here. Well, here is to another day in paradise”

  He left Yuri standing alone on the edge of the lawn , leaving a faint trail of electronic music in his wake.

  *

  “You really are fast”, Sora said. They were resting on the floor mats of the gym hall, exhausted and sweating after their scheduled sparring session. “But your hits don't have enough strength behind them and your stamina isn't great either, you will have to work on both. Also you can't just move in and try to sweep someone off their feet, that only worked on me last time because I was distracted by your cheating.”

  “It's annoyingly tedious”, Yuri complained, resting on his elbows and still trying to catch his breath.

  “Everything in life is tedious”, Sora said, “Haven't you realized yet?”

  “I am getting aware of it”, he said, faking an exaggerated annoyed expression which made Sora laugh. For a while they sat there not saying anything. The soft sound of raindrops hitting the windows started to fill the silence.

  “Say,” Yuri began, “how does your dreaming work? Can you dream normally or is it always connected to your ability?” Sora looked at him with an expression Yuri had trouble interpreting.

  “Can I dream normally?”, she said, “No, nothing of that shit is normal.” “It feels more like waking up in a different world”, Sora continued, “And it's hard to accept that all of it is real. Sometimes when I wake up I even think that this world is a dream and their world beyond is the only real thing that exists.” She gave him a sad smile but even through the sadness Yuri saw how beautiful of a smile it was.

  “There are different stages”, she went on explaining, “the first one is like floating around without control, scenery and places quickly changing. That way you can see more of the Nether but everything is blurry, distorted and confusing. Then there is the second stage, where you really enter the Nether in a proper Dreamstate. It's like lucid dreaming except you have no control over anything but where you are going. In this stage they can actually see you and when they do they come at you. If you can't get out fast enough they can hurt your dreamself. I don't think they can hurt you in a physical way but I heard of cases where Dreamers died from shock, unable to exit and experiencing the pain of getting torn to pieces by the Coffin-Dwellers and the other beings you can't even imagine.

  “Then there is the worst case scenario of running into a Puppeteer, no one really seems to know what they look like. If the Dreamer gets possessed by the Puppeteer, he will awaken and be forced by the Puppeteer to attack any person he can find. All possessions end either with an Internal Security guard killing the Dreamer or the Puppeteer forcing the Dreamer to commit suicide. There has not been a single report of a Dreamer surviving a possession. Luckily they happen very rarely. Still, it's like having a Sword of Damocles hanging over you every time you enter Dreamstate.

  “I have heard Seers joining the Expedition Corps are taught to open real portals into the Nether and that they use them for their offensive and scouting missions. Dreamers also get taught to telepathically communicate with their comrades.”

  Yuri had not said a word as she had been talking and even now he was just looking at her trying to imagine everything Sora had told him.

  “I probably shouldn’t have told you all that creepy stuff although you asked. Now you won't be able to sleep tonight”, Sora laughed before adding in a more serious tone: “And neither will I. But I guess it's better that way, I don't want to dream tonight.”

  They sat in silence again, Yuri did not know for how long. It seemed to be for an eternity and just an instant at the same time.

  “The rain has stopped”, Sora noticed, “We should be going.”

  *

  The moment had come, he knew it before it was announced. It was evening, or it would have been if something like that existed in this place. Yuri was standing at the edge of the gigantic piece of lawn in front of the gym hall. Over the course of the last half hour, other students and faculty members had gathered here while the security and psychological team were finishing their preparations. Yuri waited. After some time he became aware that Janusz was standing next to him, expressionless. They waited together in the midst of the steadily growing group of people.

  Then it happened. The first one appeared in a flash, he seemed unharmed but his face was pale as milk.Yuri guessed the boy's age was about 14. The boy didn't seem to notice that he was no longer on Earth, unwavering he was moving forward.

  He is in shock, Yuri thought. To his surprise and horror he felt a twisted feeling of joy rise in his chest. This boy appearing here before everyone was the indicator that there still existed a connection between Earth and Nowhere.

  It still exists! It still exists! There must be a way back then!

  Two members of the psychological team escorted by two security members were rushing over the lawn and towards the first result of this year's “Harvest”. They put a blanket around his shoulders while softly talking to him. The boy did not seem to notice anything.

  The next flash appeared and with it the second person to arrive. She was screaming. Her hair was on fire and she was frantically trying to put it out with her hands. The rest of her clothing also seemed to have suffered from the flames but other than somewhat reddened skin, she seemed unharmed. Another team was rushing towards her, meanwhile she had managed to extinguish her burning hair and had fallen to her knees, crying and sobbing into her arm.

  They appeared more rapidly now. Some screaming, some silent, some unconscious, some running. Yuri saw a child, maybe 12 years old, wearing what seemed to be middle-eastern clothing. The boy's face was covered in a mix of soot, yellow dust and dried blood. Cradled to his chest like a treasure he held a torn off human arm.

  Yuri stole a glance at Janusz, this time he wasn't nervously kneading his cap. He stood unmoving, almost frozen, invoking the image of a general who had just lost a decisive battle and now hopelessly had to watch his men getting slaughtered. Suddenly Yuri remembered Janusz's words about Sora never witnessing the “Harvest”. He wondered what she was doing now. Being holed up in her room or maybe trying to bury the knowledge under the exhaustion of self defense training?

  *

  Yuri made it his objective to acquaint Sora and Janusz with each other but to his surprise they seemed to be far more familiar with each other than he had anticipated. Janusz also did not seem to have any aversion towards Sora for the potential dangers her presence brought with her by being a Dreamer. With the final days of their school life trickling away and students and teachers alike no longer putting in anything resembling true effort now that grades had been decided, the three of them took to playing card games in the back rows of classrooms to pass the time.

  There was only a single school in all of Nowhere and everything related to it had the entirety of the 13th Outpost associated with it. After the initial involuntary colonists had been adults of varying ages the selection of people being transported to Nowhere during the yearly Harvest phenomena had shifted to children between the ages of twelve to fifteen. Accordingly these children were divided into four grades based on their prior educational background.

  Since the Outposts in Nowhere had been constructed about fifty years ago by the first colonists, there also existed children that were born in Nowhere and had never been to Earth at all. Their education began at age six and in separate classes from the “Harvested” children until they reached the age of 12 when their supernatural powers developed. From then on the classes were merged.

  Since the population of Nowhere was international, teaching English was one of the main priorities of the school. Additionally students were taught Mathematics, Environmental Studies that dealt with explaining the nature and strange phenomena in Nowhere to the best of the current researchers understanding, the History of the Outposts, Education and Training of Abilities and Self-defense classes. The Self-defense classes were a holdover of the civil war times of twenty five years ago during which they were first introduced.

  “I know this is one of your last lessons before graduation and that you are not paying any attention whatsoever but could you at least pretend to do so?” old and gray haired Mr. Harrison asked in his rough voice. He was one of the teachers for Education and Training of Abilities and wore an old, gray wool pullover with a high collar, making it almost a turtleneck. Yuri, Sora and Janusz looked up from one of their card games although they were not the only ones being occupied with anything else than listening. Eternal light fell through the big windows on one side of the room. The classroom itself was made of the same creme colored stone as the corridors and the students were seated on desks of dark wood.

  “What differentiates a Painter from a Creator?” Mr. Harrison demanded to know from Sora. The wooden chair creaked under Sora as she shifted her weight and sat up straight again. Sora shrugged before she recited from memory:

  ”For still unknown reasons, every person being transported to ”Nowhere” develops one of five supernatural abilities. The “Creator” is able through concentration to manifest anything of which he knows and understands the contents and working mechanics. Every creation seems to be an exact replica of how the Creator remembers said object. This is also true for food. In this case the manifested food maintains the taste the Creator remembers for it, even if it is eaten by someone else. Manifesting living beings however, is impossible.

  “The bigger and more complex the manifestation, the more severe is the exhaustion suffered, ranging from physical pain and unwell being to migraines, fever, collapse and in the worst case, death. Knowing your own limits is therefore essential in using your ability, the downsides of overestimating oneself are shared among all ability types.

  “The “Painter” shares many similarities with the Creator but as the name already says, instruments of drawing need to be used to manifest something. Drawing something in the correct size has an influence on the effectiveness of the manifested item, drawing it to small or to big results in reduced effectiveness. Unlike the Creator, a Painter can not produce food.

  “So far the Painter just sounds like a downgraded version of the Creator but the Painter has one unique trait, he can use combinations of words and drawings to create a “symbolic” version of what he is manifesting. Meaning the manifested item serves all physical purposes but remains invisible and intangible. The person under the effect of a symbolic painting experiences all benefits and drawbacks that the painted object would offer in real life, such as weight, or narrowed vision in case of a helmet. Maintaining a symbolic painting however demands constant concentration and quickly drains a Painter of his stamina. The symbolic manifestation can be terminated by the painter touching the original painting or by simply destroying it.”

  This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  “So you are paying attention when it matters”, Mr. Harrison grudgingly admitted. He cleared his throat. “Continuing where I left off, much like Seers, Switchers are also heavily incentivized to join the Expedition Corps. The main reason for this is of course that they can act as makeshift Seers by temporarily copying their abilities. This way the limited number of Seers can be somewhat bolstered and the entire functionality of the Exposition Corps rests on the back of Seers. Without them there are no portals, no exploration of the Nether, no finding a way back to Earth. Although the researchers of the Internal Security may have differing opinions on that.

  “The prioritization of Seers and Switchers started after the Militia under leadership of Belete Diro backing the government emerged victorious out of the civil war against Sotiris Nephus' insurrectionists of the Church of the Divine Harvest. I was already quite old back then but as a Switcher myself I was part of the Militia during the war.” Mr. Harrison let out a deep sigh. “The war was the greatest foolishness that has taken place in the history of the Outposts. There we were killing each other instead of joining our knowledge and strength in finding a way back. Humans truly are fools, no matter where we are. I was allowed to leave the Militia soon after on account of my age, by then it had already renamed itself to the Expedition Corps.”

  Yuri and the other students had actually listened to the end of Mr. Harrison's story in attentive silence. None of them had known that Mr. Harrison had fought in the civil war.

  “Look at the time”, Mr. Harrison said as he noticed Mr. Cyrus leaning on the inside of the door frame, Yuri himself also had missed his arrival but he was sure Mr. Cyrus had heard the end of Mr. Harrison's story just like the students had. “Guess I talk too much”, Mr Harrison concluded, “Class dismissed.”

  *

  This time their Seer lesson at the headquarters of the Internal Security went off without a hitch, no accidentally opened portals, no other problems. Mr. Cyrus and most of the other students were already close to the exit of the building while Yuri, Janusz and Sora, with their final lesson now over, saw no reason to hurry back to the dorms already. There was still plenty of time left before the official graduation ceremony was to be held. So they hung around in front of the classroom and enjoyed not really having to do anything.

  The sound of shattering glass abruptly ended their relaxation.“What the hell was that?” Janusz asked the other two. It seemed to them as if the sound had come from inside the classroom. The deep rumble of furniture being moved around forcefully, followed by a loud crash, confirmed their suspicion in an unpleasant manner. With their ears pressed to the door they listened only to jerk back as something was thrown through the room culminating in the sound of shattering wood. Sora almost had her hand on the door handle before she had a better idea.

  “Look inside!”, she whispered towards Janusz once they all had somewhat recovered from the sudden shock, their hearts still beating faster than they fancied.

  “What? Oh... Right”, Janusz said once he realized what Sora meant. He started concentrating while staring intensely at the white wooden door, his irises turning a glowing red while the rest of his eyeballs were consumed by blackness. “Holy shit!”, he proclaimed, now being able to see through the door and walls. “It's a Coffin-Dweller!”

  No sooner than he uttered these words, the door was blasted from its metal frame and hinges as a wooden table was thrown into it with a sound so deafening that Yuri held his ears. Now no longer visually protected, he and Sora got their first glimpse of the inside.

  The room was a mess, most chairs and tables lay sprawled out over the floor, the blackboard was broken, the remains of a shattered chair below it betraying the reason why. There were claw marks all over the black board as well, where Janusz's portal had appeared days before. At the other side of the room stood one of the beings, which the Expedition Corps after their first encounter had named “Coffin-Dwellers”.

  It looked like someone had dragged a hammerhead shark on land and not given it enough time to evolve. Two meters tall and strangely humanoid, wearing shorts of rough black cloth held in place by a belt made of rope. Its upper body was exposed, thin but muscular and sickly pink blood was streaming from a deep, almost Y-shaped cut on its chest. It was covered in other bleeding cuts and here and there shards of glass were sticking out of its pale gray skin.

  The black eyes sitting almost at the sides of his hammer-like head spied Sora, who was closest to the now empty door frame. It blinked once, eyelids closing vertically, and opened its mouth, an equally vertical slit almost dividing the face in two halves and revealing an uncountable number of needle-like teeth. For a moment Yuri saw Sora's shoulders drop, then she raised her arms and lowered her body in a combat pose. Yuri believed he spotted something else, a faint glint in Sora's eyes and the slightest hint of a twitching grin.

  Is that euphoria? he wondered.

  “We can't let it get outside!” Sora shouted as she rushed into the room. “Yuri, draw me something!” she added while positioning herself at an respectful distance between the Coffin-Dweller and the door frame. Yuri had not even realized that he had been carrying his bag and drawing book with him all day, so accustomed was he to it.

  Finally Yuri understood what Sora had already realized before him, this was a chance to prove themselves. Excitement started to rush through him like a wave of electricity, He quickly entered the room as well and with trembling hands pulled out his drawing book which he stabilized on a fortunately upright standing table, hastily flipping through the pages looking for an empty one.

  The Coffin-Dweller lunged at Sora who barely managed to dodge the swipe from its four-fingered claw. Yuri could see that the skin on its upper left arm had been neatly removed revealing the biceps underneath. Out of the corner of his eye he also noticed that Janusz had now positioned himself in the door frame, in order to block it or just to get a better look he did not know.

  “Hurry up!”, Sora screamed at Yuri, as the next swipe ripped some fabric out of her button-down shirt. Yuri had almost finished his drawing, at first his mind had been blank but then came to him that which was never far away at the back of his head. The drawing book page was too small to represent the kitchen knife at full size, so its usefulness was going to be limited. He pulled the knife from the page and immediately felt that it was too light.

  “Sora!” he shouted and slid the knife over the classroom floor and in her direction. Sora had managed to land a few punches on the gray-skinned torso, avoiding the Coffin-Dweller's face because of the gaping, teeth filled mouth, but it seemed unimpressed by the impact of her blows .

  She ducked under a bite of the hissing monster, picked up the knife and drove the blade through the palm outstretched to grab her. The blade did not go in far, having been drawn the wrong size also made the edge duller than it was supposed to be but the Coffin-Dweller still recoiled with a pain-filled hissing sound. Sora was panting by now and sweat was running down her face, the point of the knife that she kept aimed at the Coffin-Dweller was trembling uneasily.

  The sudden sound of rushing footsteps drew closer and Janusz was shoved out of the way. Two sharp, banging sounds rang out and the Coffin-Dweller's head exploded, covering the wall and the mound of toppled furniture it collapsed on with gray and pink splatters of brain and blood. All three of them were now looking at Mr. Cyrus, who was still aiming his Beretta M9 pistol at the fallen Coffin-Dweller. He quickly took a look around and at them.

  “You guys alright?”he asked out of breath.

  “I guess so...” Sora answered for all of them after having examined her ripped shirt but otherwise finding herself unharmed.

  More footsteps announced the arrival of Roman and four members of the Internal Security, armed with their signature MP5 submachine guns. Roman's gaze first fell upon the ruins of the dead Coffin-Dweller, then at the gun in Mr. Cyrus's hand and finally at the three not-anymore students. “You again...” he said when he recognized Janusz who instantly started to defend himself.

  “I had nothing to do with this!” “Yet this is the same Coffin-Dweller you brought here when you pulled that coffin over from the Nether”, Roman replied.

  “I did not even know that thing was inside and I never intended to open a portal!”

  “What exactly is going on here?” Mr. Cyrus asked before any of them could say anymore.

  “None of your business, this is a matter of the Internal Security”, Roman replied. It was a strange scene seeing the younger man, still almost a child, dressed in his light gray uniform, command such power over the one head taller, dressed in formal attire and still pistol brandishing Mr. Cyrus.

  “None of my business?”, Mr. Cyrus repeated, not believing his ears. “Three students have just been attacked by a Coffin-Dweller, a creature from the Nether and you call that none of my business?” He was almost shouting by now. Roman stood unimpressed letting his gaze wander over the bloody knife in Sora's hand, recognizing it, a crooked smile appeared on his face.

  “Is that what happened?” he asked calmly. “To me it looks more like these three encountered the Coffin-Dweller and attacked it in a desire to feel heroic. Why else would they be in the classroom together with the Coffin-Dweller? They could have run and informed Internal Security as soon as they realized the threat.”

  “Once it broke the door down we thought it best to confine it in this very room until Internal Security would arrive”, Sora spoke quietly.

  “Interesting but there were three of you. I see you and Yuri already entered the classroom without much of a thought but he could have run to get help”, Roman said, nodding in Janusz's direction.

  “I did not think of anything, my mind was just blank”, Janusz admitted.

  “Also you have forgotten something very important”, Roman continued, “The fact that the Coffin-Dweller was in this room prior to the door being broken down means it got in some other way.” None of them had realized it even though that conclusion was painfully obvious. Indeed there was another shattered door leading to a smaller room used for keeping supplies. They had not noticed it in the confusion of the fight.

  “Go check”, Roman ordered his men who made their way past the ruins and disappeared into the supply room. “The window has been broken, seems like it came in that way”, came the report from one of the men.

  “All of you better leave now, we will take care of this”, Roman spoke towards the three and Mr. Cyrus, shaking them from the lethargy that had briefly gripped them. Before Mr. Cyrus left the room Yuri muttered a brief “Thanks”, towards him. Mr. Cyrus gave him a concerned nod and walked off.

  “You all got lucky today”, Roman claimed as they themselves made their way out.

  *

  Surprisingly there was no fallout for their reckless action, they were not even called to the principals office. Yuri guessed the only reason for that was that the three of them were technically not students anymore. With what had just happened they now actually had to hurry to change into their ceremonial school uniforms and make it to the graduation ceremony.

  Yuri watched as the auditorium slowly filled up, Sora and Janusz beside him. The walls were paneled in light brown wood and the stage on the far end of the room was of similar making. The spotlight from the ceiling illuminated a solitary microphone stand waiting to be used. The graduation ceremony was the only occasion on which the students were forced to wear their gray and white uniforms and Yuri simply was not used to that view.

  “This looks so weird”, he remarked to no one in particular but it was Sora that answered.

  “Right? I did not even know that I had a uniform until they mentioned it and I found it in my wardrobe. I could swear it wasn't there before.”

  Principle Wells made his way through the room and towards the stage, climbing the short flight of stairs to the top. The light gleamed on his bald head. He was dressed in a suit that mirrored the gray and white colors of the ceremonial school uniforms.

  “We never see him either”, Yuri continued, “What's he doing all day anyway?”

  “Being holed up in his office most likely, who knows what running this school is actually like?” Sora said. “Have you ever been there?” Yuri wanted to know. “In the office?

  “No, I only pass the door from time to time, it's on the second floor.”

  “Are you sure about that?” Janusz asked, he had been even quieter than usual since their encounter with the Coffin-Dweller. “I remember it being on the first floor.”

  “What does it matter which floor it is on?” Sora asked back. “No one of us ever had to go there and after today no one of us ever will, it's just a room.” Wells reached the microphone, his fingers tapping on it sending out unsettling sounds through the large hall.

  “Another term comes to a close, another Harvest reaped”, Wells began, his deep voice echoing throughout the big auditorium.

  “I hate that traditional saying, too bad that he's right”, Sora complained, “The Church of the Divine Harvest doesn't even officially exist anymore, why have the words not been changed by now?”

  “There has to be a reason for it”, was all that Yuri answered and both fell silent again.

  “Graduation is upon you and you had ample time to consider your future paths. Because that's what you are, our future. Never forget that”, Wells continued his speech. “As always we honor our dutiful Seers and Switchers who are consistently the first to take up the call of joining the Expedition Corps which like the Internal Security is always in need of capable minds and hands.”

  “Fucking hypocrite”, Yuri heard Janusz mumble through clenched teeth.

  “Today's sudden security breach serves as a sufficient reminder why service in the Expedition Corps and Internal Security are necessary in the first place and that we can never be careful enough.” At those words from Principal Wells both Yuri and Sora turned their heads towards Janusz who faced them with an uncharacteristically angry expression that almost literally spelled out

  “How dare you.”

  “But don't forget the careers wrongly considered less heroic than those of our potential fighting forces, where would we be without food creators or teachers? This very institution would not exist without them,” Principal Wells droned on.

  “I'm out of here”, Janusz said, already turning around and moving towards the exit without bothering to see if Yuri and Sora were following him. Yuri shot a worried glance at Sora.

  “Let's go”, he said but waited the brief moment until Sora had decided for herself.

  “Yeah, we better,” she said and joined Yuri. No one tried to stop any of the three from leaving the hall, in fact no one paid them any mind.

  *

  They caught up with Janusz almost immediately, he had made no effort to walk fast. The rest of the school was positively deserted and an eerie quietness permeated everything. Dust particles were dancing in what was anything but sunlight, falling in through the windows of the corridor. Outside, the almost artificially green looking grass stretched in total flatness up to the barrier-like wall of darkness in the distance, only occasionally interrupted by solitary trees that felt like they had been placed at complete random.

  “I had forgotten how creepy this place can be”, Sora muttered, her words echoing from the walls. Janusz let out a hollow laugh.

  “Have you already forgotten the Coffin-Dweller? Yuri's frequent complaints are absolutely right, this place is just plain wrong. This was the worst thing that has happened in a long while and technically it was my fault.”

  “You did not open that portal on purpose”, Yuri said.

  “Purpose or no purpose, it does not matter. It happened and someone could have gotten hurt, killed even”, Janusz disagreed. He turned to look at Sora. “And you just rushed into that room like you were out of your mind. You could have been killed Sora.”

  “But I didn't”, Sora grinned back at him, “Here I am, safe and sound.”

  “My life is already decided”, Janusz said, his anger flaring up again. “But you two are plain insane. You could choose to do anything else but you are joining the Expedition Corps voluntarily. I just don't get you. I beg you, do something else.” The anger in Janusz's voice had rapidly been replaced by sadness. Yuri and Sora just looked at him without a word. Then Sora let out a long sigh.

  “I have never felt more powerful than I did in that moment I faced the Coffin-Dweller, never more in control of my own life.”

  “I just want to get out of this messed up place and back to Earth and I will do whatever I have to in order to achieve that”, Yuri stated.

  *