Chapter 4

Max shouted as he sat bolt upright on the mat, breathing furiously. He looked around, finding himself safe and sound back in the Academy. He squeezed the sides of his head tightly and stared at the ground, trying to stop the shaking that wracked his whole body. Trying to make himself believe that he wasn't dead. That he was safe.

The world around his slowly permeated into his mind as he gathered his wits again, and he looked up upon hearing curious noises, his hands falling to the ground. The room was filled with a cacophony of anguish, a good portion of the initiates breaking out into uncontrollable sobs as they came out of their Focal stupor. Some, like Max, looked around the room with the haunted look of someone who had just come back from Hell. The guards were spread out among the students, holding some of them still as they thrashed in the guard's grip, some screaming in utter terror, others bawling uncontrollably. Blair made his way around the classroom to each restrained student, giving each crazed student the light blue contents of a different small vial, or forcing them to drink it if they weren't willing, each one going limp in the guard's arms mere minutes afterwards. Then the guards carried the person away and out the session room door. He looked to his right, and found Alva was on their side, eyes still closed. Figuring they were still under the effects of Focal, he sat back on his mat. Not three seconds later, he caught movement to his right, and he saw Alva sitting up, panting as they clutched their chest.

"Welcome back." Max said.

They rubbed their eyes, shuddering. "Thanks." They squeaked. "Gods, that was..." They trailed off, lost for words.

Max nodded. "Yeah."

They were both quiet, Alva sitting still. Once the room had quieted somewhat, as much from the manic initiates being carried away as anything, Blair cleared his throat loudly to bring everyone to subdued silence.

"Welcome back y'all. You've survived your first run-in with the Alius."

The room was deathly silent, most on the verge of tears again, though some shot daggers at Blair with their eyes.

"I know some of y'all are feeling angry. Hurt. Betrayed, even. I know you didn't believe me before your first session about how bad it could be, but now you've experienced it firsthand. I'm not gonna lie to you, it's not gonna get any easier from here, and there's at least 17 more sessions ahead of you. Some of you it'll be past 20. I'm not saying that to discourage you. I want to see every single person here graduate to novice, but I just want to make it clear what you're facing here, 'cause it's not gonna get any better for a while. It's up to you to decide if you're up to the task."

Blair clasped his hands behind his back. "One last thing before y'all head to dinner. I don't know what particular form your dreams took, but I want you all to know that every magician here today has been in your place. As hard as it seems now, it's possible to make it through this. If you need someone to talk to, I'll be staying after class and your dorm captains can put you in touch with someone. You're dismissed to go to dinner."

With that final word, people began to stand slowly, most shaky on their feet. Max understood why as soon as he started to move. He could hardly remember a time when he'd felt so stiff, even the nights he had to stay up with the livestock for one reason or another. Even after he'd stretched the worst of the soreness out, and most of the students had filed away, Alva hadn't moved from their seated position, their eyes still closed.

"Uh, Alva...?"

They seemed to start, looking up at Max. "Oh, my apologies." They came to their feet, looking as stiff as Max felt. "Gods, that hurts. Laying on that mat all day is going to get old pretty quickly."

"I guess." Max didn't think it was that bad. It beat sitting on the bare floor.

"Would you hold on a second, Max? I really must do something about my stiffness." They said. They began methodically stretching, going through the graceful motions with a precision and sureness that only came from lots of practice. It took them only a couple minutes, Max watching them with fascination, but when they were done, they moved as fluidly as they had that morning.

"Ah, that's better. Shall we?" They said, gesturing towards the door.

The two of them joined the last of the stragglers filing out of the room, Max struggling to walk normally, wishing he knew how to do those stretches Alva had done. When they'd found a seat, Alva scooted up against Max, close enough that their shoulders were practically touching. Max glanced at Alva, trying to figure out why they'd scooted so close to him when there was ample room on their other side. It was far closer than Max would've liked, but he knew better than to scoot closer to the Draagen on his right for fear of provoking him.

Alva caught Max's looking at them, and their eyebrows furrowed together. "Is everything okay?"

Max nodded, returning his eyes to his empty plate. "Yeah, I'm fine." He said, not wanting to make a big deal of it. Not wanting to meet Alva's eyes again, he looked around the table. It didn't take him long to realize that the mood around the table had been thoroughly quashed by their first experience under Focal, at least in the initiate's group. Most of the folks picked at their food, deep in their own minds. A few talked fearfully in hushed tones with their neighbors, and a some were openly bawling into their roasted potatoes. Max chanced a glance at Alva and found they seemed surprisingly unperturbed as they ate from a plate full of salad greens.

Max ate too, though it was no pleasure. Truthfully, he didn't want to eat, but he knew it was a bad idea to turn down food whenever it was offered, so he made himself eat anyways, though his stomach roiled. By the time he'd given up even the pretense of eating, most of the initiate's table was empty, others having filtered away.

Max pushed his empty plate away, wanting nothing more than to go back to his bed. "Ready to head back?"

Alva delicately wiped their mouth with a napkin before throwing it on top of their mostly empty plate. "I suppose so."

Max stood, following Alva out of the dining hall and into the cooling night air. They walked in silence for a bit, until Alva broke the silence. "So, where are you from, Max?"

"The Anthem Mountains, to the north."

"Mountains? That sounds far too cold for my taste."

Max shrugged. "It is what it is. Summer's not so cold."

"I'm sure even your summer would be much too cold. Where I come from, this would be a chilly evening."

Max glanced at Alva. The night was hardly cool, Max would probably sleep tonight wearing only the lightest pants he owned. "Yeah?"

Alva shivered. "Yes. Tonight would be a good night for a fire." They looked at him, running their eyes down the length of his body. "Of course, dressed as warmly as you are, it's no wonder you seem to not be feeling the cold."

He could've said the opposite about their skimpy clothing. The two of them arrived at the house, Max following Alva inside. He paused just inside the door when he saw that a fire was blazing merrily in the fireplace. "Who lit the fire?" Max asked, before he could even think.

Alva turned and gave him a strange look. "The servants did, I'm sure."

Max blinked, chastising himself. "Right, yeah."

Alva scrutinized Max for a second before deciding to take a seat on the couch. Max started to head for his room, when Alva spoke. "The first session was horrible, wasn't it?"

Max stopped. He didn't really want to talk about it, but it would've been rude to say so. "Yeah?"

"I drowned, you know."

Max turned to look at them. "Really?"

"Well, not really of course, but it felt like I was drowning. Would you believe it, I took that horrible Focal, and I found myself in the middle of the ocean. No land around, not even a piece of flotsam to cling to. Had I not started swimming, I would've drowned immediately. Have you ever tried to swim in the middle of the ocean?"

Max shook his head.

"It's quite hard. You see, the ocean is quite choppy once you're away from the shore, so not only does one have to do enough to keep afloat, one has to endure being constantly battered by the waves. Even the best swimmers struggle. You know, it's funny." Alva said, smiling at Max. "Though Aven are avid seafarers, we are terrible swimmers. Our feathers get in the way, you see. But I found I was able to keep myself just above the water, and I didn't feel any hint of bodily exhaustion. I thought I would be fine once I swam for far longer than I should've been able to." Their smile faded. "Then, a storm kicked up. A very bad one, the sort that would mean a long night for any crew. Well, even as strong as I seemed to be, it was a challenge to keep my head above water. It seemed like every other second I was fighting to get back to the surface. More than once I sucked up water, making me feel like I was drowning. Well, finally a tremendous wave hit me, pushed me down in the dark water. I'd just managed to get a breath, thank goodness, but I'd lost my sense of which way was up. I swam towards what I thought was up, but as I swam, I could feel my body giving out from the lack of air, even as I didn't feel like I was drowning. I panicked, and I accidentally took in a lungful of water, which made me cough and lose what air I did have, making me suck in more water. I felt like I was going to die as I could no longer swim and I could feel my lungs full of water. It was then that I woke up."

Max nodded, looking down at the ground.

"What about you? What happened to you?"

An image of the undead bear flashed into Max's mind. "I was, uh, chased by an undead bear through the forest."

"Gods above, that sounds terrifying. How big was it?"

"Big. Very big. Taller than me even on four legs."

"Did it...catch you?" Alva asked tentatively.

"Kind of. It drove me off the edge of a cliff. It...laughed at me too when it did it."

Alva shuddered. "Terrible thing that is, falling to one's death. I assume it ended there?"

"Yeah."

Alva shook their head in disbelief. "You know, with experiences like ours, they really ought to give us a day off between each session. It was bad enough having to endure history lessons many days in a row, but things like this? We should have every other day off, I think."

"But we can't, you heard Blair. We won't make novice in time if we do."

Alva sighed. "I suppose. It's a shame I need to get through this as quickly as possible, or else I would consider trying the longer, but easier method."

Max nodded. He needed to get through school quickly too. "Yeah. Well, I'm off to bed."

"So soon? The night's still young, and you can't tell me you wish to sleep so soon after that experience."

"I'm just tired. I'll see you in the morning."

Alva seemed disappointed by Max's answer, though they tried to hide it under a false cheeriness. "Well, sleep well then."

Max stepped into his room and closed the door behind himself. He took the time to get undressed, but he didn't bother to change into other, less nice clothes. He crawled under his freshly made bed, and though he was, somehow, exhausted from a day of laying on a mat and doing nothing, sleep did not come easily, his mind plagued by images of the bear's glowing eyes. Thankfully, when he did sleep, his dreams weren't troubled by them.

Max awoke the next morning before dawn. He lay in bed for a few moments, blearily happy until his mind wandered to what was likely waiting for him again today. To fight the growing anxiety, he got up and got dressed, stepping out into the central room to find it empty. He took a seat, but found he couldn't get comfortable, even though the stools were far softer than anything he had ever sat on. He tried a lounge chair next, but even on those he couldn't find any spot to stretch out that allowed him to relax. Giving up, he stood and went to the door. He guessed Alva was still asleep, so he slipped quietly out of the house and made his way to the dining hall, the grounds already starting to lighten. He was pleased to find that breakfast had started, though while most of the other tables had quite a few people already sitting at them, where the initiates sat was largely empty. He took a seat a comfortable distance away from the other initiates and began helping himself to breakfast, including a clementine.

Having something to do helped assuage the anxiety, but once he had finished eating, he had nothing to do but watch people slowly fill the tables, other initiates generally keeping some distance from him again. It became clear to him as the flow of people into the dining hall slowed to a trickle that there was distinctly fewer people at the initiate's table than there had been the night before. He started to wonder where Alva was when he spotted them winding through the tables towards him. Their outfit was the same style as yesterday's, but this one was a deep purple instead. Their eyes met Max's, and they took a seat next to him, sitting uncomfortably close again.

"There you are, I was wondering if you'd make it." Max said.

"I must admit, I strongly considered staying in bed. But, I didn't come here to lay about, so I drug myself out of bed at this early hour." They looked at Max's empty bowl. "You certainly seem to be well-suited to waking at such an hour."

"Oh, yeah. I'm used to it, I guess."

"Well, it seems that will serve you well around here."

Their conversation lapsed. Alva looked to the person in front of them, a pudgy Kainer with a squashed muzzle who seemed to be totally focused on his bowl of porridge. He had dark fur and relatively simple clothing, a simple sage green shirt under a dark overcoat with simple frills on the cuffs.

"What about you?" Alva asked, looking directly at the Kainer. "Are you coping well with having to wake up early too?"

The Kainer's eyes glanced up at Alva before looking back down at their bowl and deliberately taking another mouthful of porridge. Alva waited for them to finish, watching expectantly. He swallowed, his eyes darting up to find Alva still waiting for an answer. Max couldn't fail to notice he sighed with resignation. "Yes, I guess."

"Really? Wow, you all are far more industrious than I am it seems." They said, giving him a smile. "What's your name?"

"Roger."

"Nice to meet you, Roger. I'm Alva Kay."

"Yeah, same." His eyes went back to his bowl.

Max thought he saw the corner of Alva's mouth twitch. "Where are you from, Roger?"

"Here, in Ash." He said, after he'd swallowed again.

"Well, that's good. Perhaps you could show me around town sometime. I'm not too familiar with the area, you see."

Roger merely grunted in response. Alva opened their mouth to say something else, but Blair appeared at the end of the table, yelling over the din for the initiates to make their way to the training room. Max couldn't fail to notice that Roger seemed relieved, hurrying away from the table without a glance back at Max or Alva. Now Max was certain he saw the corners of Alva's mouth turn down.

When they took their seats in the training room, it was even more obvious to Max that the number of initiates had dwindled quite a bit since the first session. At least half of the mats were now empty, and there were subsequently much fewer guards along the walls.

Blair came in, closing the door behind him. "Welcome back. I bet y'all noticed that there's a lot fewer of y'all. There were a decent number of initiates who left either last night, or early this morning. We won't be seeing them again, of course. After what I heard from a few of them, can't say I blame them for leaving." He sniffed and stood a little straighter, giving the group a faint smile. "Still, I'm glad y'all are sticking with it."

Blair picked up the crate of vials sitting on the desk and began to pass them out. Max took his, hesitating a moment before downing the contents as fast as possible to avoid the worst of the taste. Coughing, He settled down on the mat and waited for the next nightmare to begin.

Like the day before, Max found himself in the middle of the forest, the world around him draped in the pitch blackness of a moonless night. He immediately stood and scanned the area around him, seeing no sign of the bear. That didn't mean much, considering he could barely see ten feet in front of him, but it was something.

"You should've taken my advice." A distorted voice said from behind Max.

Max whirled around to find himself, again, staring right into that grotesque mask. He leapt back. "You." Max said, unable to keep the fear out of his voice.

"Coming back was a stupid idea." It said, turning to look off into the darkness. "It's close by. I wouldn't be around when it gets here if I were you."

The masked figure strode past Max, disappearing behind a tree before Max thought to react. He went around the back of the tree, but there was no sign of the figure, nor where he could have possibly gone.

He looked around himself again, deciding that the stranger was probably right. Though in the real world, he knew better than to try and wander around the woods at night, especially with no idea where he was, here in the dream world it'd be better to at least be doing something than to wait for it to find him. There were no landmarks of any kind that Max could see, so he headed off in a random direction. As they were last time, the woods were deathly quiet, making the crunching sounds of his hooves on the pine needle-strewn ground seem far louder than they should have been. His ears strained to listen for any sign of the bear, since he couldn't hope to see it in the near total darkness before it was already on top of him. He stopped, shaking his head. It wasn't real, nothing could hurt him here. Blair had been crystal clear about that. He continued walking, but he forced himself to walk more slowly, trying to walk more casually. A few steps later, one of his ears pivoted to catch the sharp crack of a branch snapping behind him. He froze, his slowing heart immediately speeding up again. Afraid to look, but unable to help himself, he turned around towards the source of the sound, and was relieved to find there was no sign of anything there.

Until he felt hot breath on the back of his neck.

Instinct kicked in, and Max took off in sprint, crashing through the brush as he heard a tremendous roar behind him. Even over the thunder of rushing blood in his ears, he could hear the thing tearing through the underbrush, not far behind him. He didn't dare to attempt to peek behind him, he had to give where he was going all of his attention, lest he trip and fall. The underbrush was thick, and since he couldn't see very far ahead, he stumbled on a few occasions over unseen obstacles, just barely managing to catch himself before losing his balance completely.

He wasn't sure how long he ran for, those thundering footsteps close behind, but surprisingly he didn't feel winded by the long run. He came upon a fallen log and tried to vault it, but to his surprise his legs didn't clear the log, his knees slamming into it and sending him face-first into the forest floor, making him taste dirt. He pressed himself against the log, squeezing his eyes closed and covering his head, waiting for the deadly blows to come.

The thundering footsteps passed right over him, followed by a wash of air reeking of its dead smell. To his surprise, and great relief, the blows didn't come. Instead, the footsteps receded, becoming fainter and fainter as the thing charged off into the woods away from him, though he barely dared to breathe, for fear of bringing it back. Only once the footsteps had faded completely did he dare to open an eye, disbelieving that it had somehow missed him after chasing him for so long. He slowly uncurled his body, propping himself up against the fallen log as he took a moment to catch his breath and give himself a few moments to rest. His mind wandered on its own, and as it did, it occurred to him that the rules of this world made no sense to him. How did it 'see' him? Was it blind, and could only hear him? Smell him? Surely it would have heard him hit the ground and had known where he was, having hounded him so far already. What he really wanted to know was how he could avoid that thing, but no ideas seemed to occur to him.

He shook his head. Though he didn't know what to do about it, or if there was anything he could even do about it, it still seemed like a good idea to keep moving, back the way he'd come and away from where the bear had gone. He got to his feet, using the mossy log to steady himself. He walked around the log and set off at a slow walk back the way he'd came.

When the treeline ended abruptly at the edge of a bottomless chasm, he barely managed to stop himself from falling into the void below him. His mind reeled. How could he already be at a cliff edge? He hadn't been walking for more than a quarter hour, and it was back in roughly the same direction he'd just come as far as he could tell. With a new rush of fear borne out of horrifying understanding, he turned away from the chasm to find the beast standing there, only a couple feet away. It took him a heartbeat before his brain started to make his feet move, but the things large paw was already moving. It smashed into him, knocking the wind out of him as it threw him off the edge of the cliff, sending him careening into the black abyss, unable to scream as the cliff face rushed past practically in slow motion. He closed his eyes, waiting for the end to come.