...
"I found her."
Aoife heard the voice behind her. She saw the massive shadow loomed in front of her—inhuman and still. She looked back and realized on who it was. The big shadow was the strange man's partner earlier.
She froze as the shadow stepped into the light it was him. Her body quivered from fear, she was startled from the man. She slowly walks backwards trying to keep an keen eye on it but it wouldn't move. For some absolute reason, the man wouldn't move.
Aoife gasped but before she could react, his strike landed. The blow launched her down the hallway, her body crashing into the wall with a scream. Saliva flew from her mouth, blood bubbled up.
She lay there, coughing, before forcing herself to stand. Her bandages lit up, healing her spine with a series of wet, cracking sounds. Aoife rolled her shoulders, eyes now locked on the man in black.
"I fucking HATE beings like YOU...! You cause so many problems in the realities and rifts and make us clean the mess..."
"Wh- What do you mean beings like me...?"
"HUMANS OR SPECTRES I DON'T FUCKING CARE ANYMORE! I WILL SLAUGHTER EVERY AND EACH OF YOU WITH YOUR BLOOD TO FEED OUR FUEL OF TECHNOLOGY AND MAGIC...!"
Aoife's heart pounded. Panic clawed at her chest, her fingers twitching uncontrollably. But then, something surfaced—an echo of a promise she made to herself.
Face your fears.
It was time.
The man screamed in anger and dashed towards Aoife. She closed her eyes from the sudden motion of the individual going straight to her. Before the man could do anything, his body fell to the floor.
She opened her eyes again to see the faltered man on the ground. Her vision was blurry, she couldn't tell if the man was really dead. She rubbed her eyes carefully and blinked a couple of times.
She saw someone behind the man. Aoife was surprised, she ran towards the man that saved her before being killed. It was Mr. Oscar, that killed the man trying to murder her. Aoife gave a big welcoming warm hug to her teacher and dug her face in his chest.
"I came on time right...?"
"Yeah, just right"
Aoife sniffed, from the heroic action of Mr. Oscar. She was very much delighted from him.
"Shhh... They might be more than us."
Mr. Oscar warned Aoife to keep her voice down they couldn't risk revealing their presence near the school. Mr. Oscar slowly walked towards the body of the foes that chased after Aoife. He drags both of the bodies and placed them to a wall where he can inspect both of them.
"Stay put here, I'm going to check them to see what's going on."
Mr. Oscar approached the first body. Aoife remembered about that man, he wore red goggles before she stabbed him and killed him. Mr. Oscar grabs the red goggles and tested it on himself. He suddenly conjured a weapon a standard pistol in his hands.
"Yikes, these people are just low graded goggles. Each color of their goggles represents a hierarchy of each color. Red goggles is the second lowest in the system, although it allows the users of it to make any type of weapon and advancements in it."
Mr. Oscar drops the red goggles on the ground and crushes it with his left foot. He smeared the pieces all across the floor. He goes towards the next body that he had killed. He grabs the black goggles of the second man that nearly killed Aoife.
"This is the worst level of goggle, which is the black goggles. I'm not gonna wear this but I'll explain what it does to you. It allows the user to modify their body and gain superhuman features and abilities."
Aoife absorbed the information in her head trying to memorize each and every statement that her teacher had said. She nods casually trying to understand on what he had said.
"But what about your goggles Sir...?"
Aoife asks Mr. Oscar with curiosity in her face trying to learn more about these special goggles. The teacher grabbed it from his pocket and revealed a gleaming orange goggle in his hands.
"I'll tell you about this when you're ready."
Mr. Oscar grinned and chuckled for a bit and placed back the orange goggles back to his pocket.
"What do you mean by ready...?"
Aoife exclaimed with puzzling thoughts in her brain trying to think why wouldn't her teacher show the power of orange goggles "yet". Mr. Oscar stopped moving and turned around to simply respond to her.
"To be one of us, in the rifts."
"Wait a minute!"
Aoife rushes towards him and gripped his hand tightly trying to restrain her teacher from going in motion forward. He looks back again, and holds her hand gently trying to let go of his left arm.
"What do you mean by one of us...?"
Mr. Oscar sighs in frustration and looks at her face again with seriousness.
"You simply cannot comprehend the rifts yet. That's why you aren't ready to know about these type of stuffs yet."
Aoife grabbed his shirt, her voice trembling with desperation.
"Please I can handle it. I want to understand"
Mr. Oscar's expression grew darker after Aoife begs him to make her understand the truth beyond the reality. He slowly lets go off Aoife's hands off his shirt trying to be polite.
"You will understand soon enough. But we'll meet again probably, soon in those rifts again."
Mr. Oscar was finally released from Aoife's hands and continued to walk away from her. Aoife stood there still reflecting on her efforts to understand what would she have to go through to get Mr. Oscar's acknowledgement.
She moved her head up and noticed Mr. Oscar vanished in the hallway. She wasn't surprised that her teacher suddenly disappear in a second. Aoife sighs and gave up on her conviction on trying to understand what Mr. Oscar truly wanted to say to her.
After her tense exchange with Mr. Oscar, Aoife had formed a plan one that kept replaying in her mind like a broken record. She needed to find Avery, the strange boy who always seemed to know more than he let on. Her thoughts buzzed with unanswered questions as she jogged through the dim hallways of the school, her footsteps echoing off the walls.
Every shadow seemed like it might hide him, every corner turned with a mix of hope and frustration. She wasn't even sure what she'd say when she found him but she had to. Something about him was tied to the rifts… and maybe even to those goggles.
Suddenly, Aoife rounded a sharp corner too fast and slammed straight into someone. Again.
Bodies collided. Books and breath scattered. Both of them crashed to the floor in a tangled heap, deja vu smacking her in the face before she even opened her eyes.
It was him.
Avery.
They blinked at each other, stunned, their faces inches apart. Then, in perfect chaotic harmony, they exploded:
"WHY DID YOU RUN INTO ME?!"
"I SHOULD BE ASKING YOU! WHY ARE YOU EVEN JOGGING?!"
Their voices echoed off the empty corridor walls, sharp and indignant, but not quite loud enough to alert any nearby classrooms. They sat there, locked in mutual frustration, until the yelling finally fizzled into heavy breathing and annoyed glares.
Aoife brushed dust off her sleeves, cheeks still burning with embarrassment. "You really need to stop popping out of nowhere," she muttered, standing up and offering Avery a hand.
He took it.
"So... what were you doing, Avery?" she asked, trying to shift the mood and hide the fact she'd just been looking for him.
Avery glanced around, suddenly guarded. "I saw something. Something weird. Really weird."
Aoife's smile dropped. Instantly alert, her heart skipped. Her mind echoed a single word: Spectre. She knew it.
Her voice lowered. "What did you see?"
Avery leaned closer, eyes wide and flickering with something between fear and awe.
"I saw... monsters."