Adien

Amber ran through the cobbled alleys of the Academy, avoiding the crowded main streets and the sight of the inspectors. Her footsteps echoed loudly through the buildings, but she knew no one would hear them. The students were busy rushing to their classes, and the inspectors were far busier making sure they did. No one was paying attention to those darkened narrow streets between the tall structures.

The sunless sky made her search a bit harder, but she eventually spotted the building she was looking for. Grabbing the metal handrail of the fire escape stair, she threw her body up in a single swift move. The sound of her shoes hitting the metal step echoed much louder on the silent path.

She didn’t even bother to look around when starting to climb the stairs. She knew well enough that on that specific quarter of the Academy the inspectors were rare as students were forbidden so far into the military research quarter.

Amber quickly reached the top of the four stories building, expertly jumping to the flat surface of the terrace. She was immediately hit by the cold and sharp wind of the cloudy afternoon.

The buildings, streets, and squares of the Academy unfolded before her eyes as soon as she reached the edge of the terrace. The day was gloomy and windy, grey clouds stubbornly covering the sun and leaving the day cold and dreary.

“Uh, where is the hall?” Amber mumbled to herself, eyes carefully scanning the area below.

In front of the building, she now was atop of, a beautiful green plaza laid in the intersection of four large streets. High trees covered the grassy ground in refreshing shadows during sunny days while stony pathways flanked by benches crossed the plaza from all sides. In the middle, a monument rose as tall as the trees, with a majestic bird statue on top of it, its wings spread open.

There were several buildings around the plaza, their architecture stern and imposing. Those buildings of red bricks and grey cement were part of the research quarters of the Academy and were the source of many of the urban legends that terrorized the nights of the students at the dormitories.

Amber was not there to wonder about tales and gossips, she was interested in seeing the real thing.

Looking attentively, Amber searched for the person she knew would be there. Thankfully, it didn’t take much time to spot the dark-haired woman she had been following.

Mrs. Eir sat near one of the farthest buildings from Amber, on a bench next to its front stairs. There were a few other higher education students with her, with whom she seemed happy to talk to.

Amber watched patiently, knowing that soon enough they would move, enduring the cold wind and droplets of icy rain that hurt her face. That was not the first time she had sneaked all her way to that place, but this time she wasn’t going to back down.

It didn’t take much time for the group to walk away from the building and move toward one of the streets that surrounded the plaza area. They skirted the plaza until reaching a point that was right behind the bird monument.

Moving along the rooftop to keep her eye on them, Amber could see where the group was going. The street they took went straight to a distant building, much shorter and dilapidated than the others. It’s almost windowless walls were gray and lifeless, and a fence separated it from the other buildings.

Amber saw the group go straight into the street and walk toward the open gate in the fence. She took notice of the fence length and quickly found a blind spot from where she could jump through.

“Turn left at the beginning of the street, go behind the bushes and jump!” Amber chanted to herself while running through the rooftop and jumping to the metal stairs. “Turn left at the beginning of the street, go behind the bushes and jump!”

Running so desperately she almost fell, Amber reached the ground and dashed towards the plaza, keeping to the sides to avoid being seen.

From above Amber assumed the plaza was empty, but she couldn’t be sure. She contoured the pathway around it, trying to remain hidden by shadows. She managed to traverse the area with remarkable speed, reaching the street that led to the building.

“Turn left at the beginning of the street, go behind the bushes and jump!” The girl repeated her mantra while doing the quick turn to the right, diving into the bushes that bordered the street.

As sneakily as she could, Amber moved from her spot to the farthest point of the fence.

That fence had not been always there. It was put into place when students kept doing “Tests of Courage” by invading that building, and many of them ended up hurting themselves while doing so.

Amber never got to do a test of courage, but she always wished to enter the area herself. With that in mind, she often slipped through inspectors to eye the research quarter and the ominous building she now was so close to.

She effortlessly climbed the fence, falling with a thud on the stony ground on the other side. Keeping low, Amber ran towards the building and crouched away from the main entrance.

Keeping her eyes on the entrance and paying attention to any sound, the girl watched as more people calmly entered the building. As she thought, something was going to happen there that required the presence of many veterans like Mrs. Eir.

Her heartbeats were loud on her ears. The anxiety of being there was killing her, but she didn’t move and kept watching. That event had to start sometime soon and then she would try to spy from one of the windows. Either way, she wasn’t going to back off now.

Soon after asserting her determination to herself, she saw a small truck approaching the entrance. They were bringing something to the event, she just knew it.

From her spot, she couldn’t see the truck as it approached but could hear the humming of the engine and the wires over the gravel.

And it was getting closer to her.

“No” Her heart beat even faster than before. Struck by a sudden wave of despair she weighed her options. “No, no, no!”

The punishment she would receive would be three times harder than usual. Probably a beating followed by running during the night. Or maybe even worse, she couldn’t tell. Students of the Academy were under a severe set of rules that if not followed would lead to harsh punishment, but Amber was not a usual student. The Academy staff had a certain level of liberty when teaching or punishing her, and they surely would use that liberty.

She only hoped it wouldn’t hurt for too long, whatever they did to her.

Suddenly horrified at her lack of control of her mind, she tried to focus back on the horrible, horrible situation she had at hand.

But at this point, the humming had stopped.

Like a statue, she remained immobile, not daring to turn her head in any direction and looking fixedly to the dirt. The sound of doors opening and closing, followed by footsteps over the gravel, made her heart skip a beat.

“The sedatives will lose their effect soon.” A woman’s voice said. “Carry it inside before they wear off.”

A loud creak accompanied the sound of the metal doors opening. Someone made a heavy sigh.

“Damn...”

“Ma’am, this is big, you sure this ain’t gonna wake up?” A male voice said, a tinge of precaution evident in every word.

The sound of a heavy cloth moving came to Amber’s ears, dangerously close. Whoever “ma’am” was, she was just a few steps from the girl’s hiding spot.

“Sure it won’t, as long as you are quick to move it and, I assure you, you don’t want to see it awake.”

The way the woman spoke gave Amber goosebumps, her words sounding almost like a threat. Amber assumed that “it” could only be a dangerous wild animal.

“Yes, ma’am!” The male voices said, obedient to the woman words.

Creaks and thumps indicated the man had started to work. She wanted to turn her head ever so slightly to look at them, but her fear kept her frozen in place, eyes fixated on the ground.

That’s when she heard the bloodcurdling scream.

Fast and terrifying, at first Amber didn’t quite grasp what was happening until she heard the heavy sound of something falling on the gravel.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING?” The woman shouted in absolute dismay.

“MA’AM, IT’S AWAKE!” One of the male voices screamed with horror and dread. “DO SOMETHING, MA’AM!”

Amber was hit by a sudden wave of panic, her body trembling and her heart beating faster than ever before. She knew she had to move, she knew something could happen.

But when she gathered the self-control and courage to move as much as an inch to the side, a hideous image came into view. Panicked screams filled the air.

A metal crate was on the floor. It had several small holes on its sides, with a small rectangular opening on the side closer to Amber. The box was immobile, so much that she wondered if there was anything at all inside of it.

“Back off, all of you!” The woman said in an angry voice, a tone higher than the screams of agony around her.

Undoubtedly, there was something alive inside of it, and it was something vicious, taking into consideration the amount of darkened blood all around the crate. After the woman’s words, the cries of the men subdued.

There was some wicked, dangerous animal inside of that box. Amber kept to the wall, trying to sneak away as quickly as possible, all the while hating her stupid idea of going there. She swore to herself that she would never do something like that again only to satisfy her curiosity.

“You! You idiot!” The woman growled with disgust. “You go inside and try to see if someone can put that back into place! You, help him!”

If the men responded, Amber didn’t hear, she was focused on leaving that place. A few feet away from where she was, the building ended. She would be able to stop crouching and just run for the fence at full speed.

Right now she wasn’t too worried about being caught by someone and having some sort of punishment delivered to her.

Staying with all her limbs attached to her body was her top priority.

But regardless of how hard she tried, she just couldn’t avoid stretching her neck to try and see what happened behind her. She couldn't help but curse her own curiosity.

Amber was almost there, at the end of the building from where she could just sprint to safety, when she decided to take a last look at whatever was happening at that place.

A feeling of dread engulfed her body as she stared at something.

A white thing tried to crawl out of the box. Its furless body looked pasty and flabby, layers of skin on top of its head. If there were eyes on the thing's face she couldn't find them.

Amber stared at the sickening thing trying to figure out what on earth it was. The head was a shapeless blob with black markings, a humongous mouth stretching side to side. From her position, Amber could only assume it had way more teeth than it should be expected.

Although unable to move her eyes away from it, Amber tried to keep going to the fence. The creature made no sounds and barely moved its arms, probably still sedated, something she was ridiculously glad for.

Stop looking at it! Her mind was racing. She had to focus on reaching the fence, on reaching safety, away from that thing. Just STOP!

But she just couldn’t stop looking at it.

She was enchanted by the horror the creature exhaled. She knew it was stupid but Amber had a feeling that she was going to be dead as soon as she stopped looking at the thing.

Then the creature’s head turned directly to her.

It took Amber a few seconds to realize what was going on. She thought at first that those completely black holes were just markings of some sort, but when they blinked her heart sank.

The thing was staring back at her.

Amber kept looking back at it, bewitched. Her trance ended when the creature’s mouth opened in what seemed to be the most otherworldly and terrifying smile she had ever seen in her life.

Pointy teeth filled the monstrous mouth in a humanlike smile that sent chills down her spine. Amber felt panic creep into her body like a fever. She wanted to scream, she wanted to run away as fast as she could, but her body was not listening.

She felt that if she ever turned her back to that thing, it would follow her forever.

“...help...” The words came out lifeless from her mouth.

With an almost sadistic smile, the creature let out a shriek that Amber never heard before. It made her crouch again, her hands covering her ears. She could feel warmness down her face, tears of despair and fear, she assumed.

Her vision now blurred, she could hardly see anything. The critter started to try and crawl out of the crate in such frenzy that it looked insane. The bizarre noise it made kept coming out of its disgusting mouth.

Then it suddenly stopped.

Amber dried the tears from her eyes but didn’t dare to open them. She could hear voices, but could not distinguish the words they were saying. She just remained there, at the very end of the building, hiding from all and with her hands pressed against her tightly shut eyes.

And there she remained until hours into the night.