MODERN MAGICS. Tianyu (Tony) Zhu
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except for Celia.
Of course. Damian thought as his heart fell, Why would she be here? Being newly awoken, she’s probably in a city now, living a better life as a Lesser.
The rest were quick to bombard Damian with questions stemmed from fear, scared of what had happened yesterday. When are we gonna leave? Who were those scary people? We do have a plan right?
Damian waved his hand, as they all quieted down to listen and tune in.
“Listen,” Damian sighed, “I know this seems hard, but we’ll have to wait it out a few days.” He was immediately met with a number of protests, so he silenced them with a finger to his lips and continued, “We can’t rush this. Do you want to be caught by her ?” Damian was quickly relieved when they all shook their heads and muttered, “No”.
Damian then raised his voice a little more, in hopes of rallying them. “Well then, we’ll see. For now, let’s just make it through the day, yeah?”
He looked around. He could see some frowns and wrinkled eyebrows begin to fade away from their grim faces.
The breakfast bell rang just a few seconds later and signaled the end of the break. Damian dumped his untouched oatmeal into the trash can, hungry but hopeful nonetheless.
It was time for history class. As Damian entered the classroom, he noticed the visible cracks in the ceiling and some ants milling around in a deserted corner. After he approached his assigned seat and desk, Damian began the familiar routine of pulling out the heavy textbook with the big bolded words The Founding Fathers of Akarthia .
Resting his chin on his hand, Damian barely paid attention as he was being spoon-fed lesson after lesson by a middle-aged nobleman. The nobleman was dressed up in a royal uniform that looked more like a clown suit than anything with its weird variation of violet and yellow. He travelled here from within a wealthy city in Akarthia to teach Damian and his students about the “glorious” history of witches.
And from what Damian could tell, this supposed history about how the oppressed witches who endured hardships, how they came to power after a successful rebellion against the sorcerers, was just a propaganda scheme to empower the Akarthia government.
As days rolled by, everything continued normally. Until one day at lunch, Damian spotted a few swollen bruises, shaded in violet, hiding underneath a Roamer’s short sleeves of his shirt.
“Hey,” Damian grabbed his arm from across the table, “What’s that?”
The Roamer winced as Damian accidentally pressed his fingers down on one of his bruises. “I-its nothing,” He pulled his arm out of Damian’s grasp, “It’s just a little scratch, that’s all.”
“That’s Bierner’s doing, isn’t it?” Damian hissed out. The little Roamer turned his face away as it grew red from shame. He nodded.
Damian’s anger boiled as he turned towards the rest of the Roamers, who were listening in to this conversation.
“Has this happened to anyone else?” Damian boldly asked.
They ducked their heads down, but a few shy hands slowly came up, mostly belonging to the younger members of the group.
“This...I won’t stand for this!” Damian slammed his hand on the table.
The bell rang. The Roamers quickly placed their trays on the tables and left for class, leaving me in silence.
Damian wanted to get out -- fast. And so, the very next day, he decided to finalize their escape plan.
Chapter 1.4
The sun was setting as the Roamers were dismissed from class, their very last at that. Damian and the Roamers and walked out of the classroom. They were done being disciplined -- and tonight, they wanted out. The night set on the Roamers as they walked across campus. Those harsh white lights from the security towers stood as a constant reminder of their entrapment.
Damian stayed up very late that night, holding an empty glass bottle of alcohol he had managed to snatch from one of Bierner’s drawers a few days ago. He then smashed the bottle, which shattered and landed all over the floor. Damian was answered with annoyed and confused groans from neighbouring bunkmates and a slap from the silent room manager, which left his right cheek stinging. After Damian cleaned up the bottle, he put the shards in a plastic bag, while the manager wasn’t looking, and pretended to go back to bed.
A few hours later, when the manager had gone to sleep and all the lights were off, Damian knocked his knuckles against the ground, not loud enough to wake anyone, but enough to get the attention of the ones who were awake. The walls were very thin, allowing the sound to be heard in other rooms.
He heard a knock on the wall response… pause… two knocks… another pause...then three. All the scattered Roamers residing in other rooms were ready.
Carefully, Damian crawled out of the camera views from two opposing corners of the room. Armed with the glass shard, he cut the wires dangling below the camera, and quietly snuck out of the room.
Damian was the first to poke his head out into the hallway. He squinted his eyes in an attempt to see, but it was too dark. In the depths of midnight, with no lights. His surroundings were pitch black.
“Hey! You guys there? ” Damian loudly whispered.
A moment later, Damian was met with a quiet chorus of affirmations from the other Roamers. After everyone had gathered, they opened the door and saw the crescent moon high above them, shining blue light onto the Roamers as they took deep breaths, preparing for the last part of their plan. Not wasting any time, the Roamers quietly sneaked out, further and further away from that wretched shelter until they came to the edge of the campus.
Standing in front of the barbed fence -- their last hindrance from liberty -- the Roamers took out stashed tools and went straight to work. Like alarmed prey, their heads ducked down every time a guard’s flashlight was nearby. They continued to saw, breaking through dozens of assorted tools, mostly broken knick-knacks they’ve stashed away these past few months.
It took longer than Damian had thought, but they had finally done it. It was their first sight of victory: the metal wires succumbed to their prolonged protests and fell down before their knees. Without further hesitation, they walked across the smooth, white concrete, where no student dared to trespass, and onto the coarse dirt, littered with trash and rubble.
The Roamers were about to sneak away further, until they felt something on them - something warm, like sunlight. They slowly turned our panicked heads and saw the harsh, white spotlights from the guard towers all directly aiming down at them. From a distance, Damian saw guards sprinting towards them, all carrying some sort of rifles in their arms.
“Run!” he shouted. The Roamers ran at full speed out of campus grounds.
Bzzt.
Damian glanced behind -- the guards fired at them, and Roamers began to fall limply to the ground one-by-one with tasers sticking out of their backs. The guards filed out of the crevice, and in no time, they caught up and surrounded the Roamers with their better physique as trained security. The hopelessness dawned in the Roamers’ eyes as they became prey in the trap.
“Well I really can’t say that this wasn’t expected.”
A shadow emerged behind the wall of guards and transformed into Bierner’s silhouette. Plastering a cruel sneer on her face, Bierner walked up and grabbed Damian by his hair and stepped on his face until he fell to the ground. She then looked at the other guards.
“Should’ve just followed the rules,” She said, “Rough them up a bit.”
Damian watched in horror as more fell to the ground, twitching and convulsing with tasers attached to their bodies.
Out of nowhere, a feeling churned. A flame lit inside Damian and began to burn brightly, surging energy and warmth throughout his body. It grew fiercer