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“You can’t run properly? That’s your fucking excuse? Why the hell are you here then?! Endurance is KEY at N.M.U. You can’t fucking run when you’re attending an academy that focuses on survival.”
“Kali...” Now, Professor North is the one to warn him to stop.
“WHY ARE YOU TRYING TO PROTECT HER WHEN GUINEVERE IS DEAD!” Kali screams at the top of his lungs. He’s huffing and puffing while all of us are silent.
I can’t keep watching this madness.
Watching how easy it is to turn on each other in such a desperate situation.
Turning around once more, I stare at the waters, all while Blair’s quiet voice reaches my ears.
“My brother broke my legs so I wouldn’t be able to run away from him whenever he wanted to rape me.”
For a moment, I can’t get an inhale into my lungs.
“I… thought… after therapy and using my magic to cover my joints with gold… I thought it would help with my endurance… but… then the magic… cut off… and… I…couldn’t…” She can’t even finish as sobs leave her.
“Fuck,” Azrael curses, and I hear his footsteps. “Blair, don’t cry. It’s… it may not be alright, but you don’t need to say another word.”
“But… it’s my fault,” she weeps, and I can only imagine how her body shakes in defeat. “O-Ophelia… is my first friend. She didn’t even question my strength… even though she had to save me during the trials. Without her, I wouldn’t have made it. Without her… I wouldn’t have the confidence to do any of this! I’m just… a broken… doll to the world. A discarded… used… waste to everyone I’m supposed to cherish, but Ophelia… Ophelia didn’t care. Ophelia… didn’t mock me for being raped like everyone else calling me a prostitute! So… so why? Why does she have to die? Why does she have to suffer? It’s my fucking fault.”
“Blair…” Hades struggles to say her name.
I don’t blame him for getting emotional. I’m shedding tears as I stare at the one barrier that’s in my way.
The single culprit that’s putting the difference between me and Ophelia.
“I…” Kali tries to speak, but he can’t find the words.
“There are two major rules no professor can bend,” Professor North announces. “One: we cannot physically or magically interfere during a trial unless a significant piece in the trial will be damaged or destroyed upon impact. This includes third-party manipulation that may be involved and interfering in the trial at hand.”
That would explain him interfering when Ophelia could have obliterated Larkin during our face-off.
“Two,” Professor Blackbird carries on. “We can only interfere when we witness one student attempt to intentionally kill another. Meaning, if one attempts to stab, slice, or burn a student and the action is happening in our line of vision, we have an obligation to stop it.”
“If we don’t see it,” Professor North grumbles. “It’s none of our concern.”
“Those are the rules we abide by,” Professor Blackbird concludes. “In this case, any interference from either of us would not only disqualify all of you, including Ophelia, if she does survive, but we’d lose our positions as professors.”
From the way he says that last part so nonchalantly, I don’t think either of them cares about their positions.
The problem is, we’d be disqualified, kicked out of N.M.U., and have no future ahead of us.
We’d be better off dead.
“So… we just leave her?” Kali’s voice breaks. “Abandon her? Isn’t she only here because of her sister abandoning her family, which forced her to attend? I hear all the rumors. All the shit talk. She really… is going to suffer in those waters for an entire year…”
There’s no point in him finishing.
We can all envision what Ophelia and the rest of the students whose bodies still survived before the tsunami are going to experience.
Continuous drowning for an entire year.
Biting my bottom lip, I zone the world out while my eyes are clued on that spot that’s pitch black like the shadows we seem to worship in this world.
I can’t leave Ophelia behind.
No matter what anyone says, that’s the truth rooted in my very soul.
