NOVEL NEXT Chapter 13: Scary School Rumors.
The next day at school, Zoey arrived in the student council room with Alexander and Lindsay. The bell to leave has already rung so, it was only them inside. Zoey wondered what the rest of the student council team looked like. Since she knew that Alexander and Lindsay were the magicians, she didn’t bother snooping around for the other members. They were probably normal kids.
“Zoey! Now that you’re here we can finally get started.” Alexander smiled.
“I still don’t think we have any more demons lurking in our school.” Zoey told him.
They were most likely just rumors. Unlike that gym storage room incident where there was an actual death, these other rooms didn’t have anything like that. No injuries or deaths at all. Some strange things were said to have happened in these rooms but no one has ever gotten hurt. Just frightened and spooked.
“I suppose we’ll find out, won’t we?” Lindsay smiled.
“There’s the girl’s bathroom on the 3rd floor that’s said to be haunted. Never enter alone or you will be dragged down in the toilet never to be seen again.” Zoey told them the first one.
“Let’s move!” Alexander quickly got up and headed out the door.
‘Did he get excited because I said girl’s bathroom or is really eager about killing demons?’ Zoey grinned inwardly.
Zoey and Lindsay followed behind the excited Majistar without speaking to each other. Zoey felt awkward trying to talk to Lindsay because it felt like she didn’t like her. She still avoided looking into her eyes and there was always a sort of tense atmosphere around them whenever Alexander wasn’t around. Zoey wasn’t nearly socially competent enough to try and understand Lindsay’s deal with her. If she wanted to be weird around her, she wasn’t going to stop her. She didn’t mind walking in absolute silence up the stairs and down the halls with her.
“Zoey! Lindsay! Are you ready to deal with a daemon?!” Alexander asked.
“Have you even confirmed the presence of a daemon?” Lindsay scoffed.
His eyes darted to the left before making it back on Lindsay’s.
“No, but I'm really confident there’s a daemon in there.” His excitement with this was starting to ring bells in Zoey’s head.
‘I just think he really wants to go in the girl’s bathroom.’ Zoey thought.
Zoey saw Lindsay’s skepticism as well. She wasn’t alone in her suspicions of Alexander at least. He gestured for Zoey to enter inside to reveal the existence of this daemon for them all. Since demons only reveal themselves for normal humans, low ranked majistar grunts have no choice but to rely on Bringers like her to bait out the daemons. Zoey took off her backpack and took out her cursed boxing gloves. She took a few moments to put them on and then slowly made her way inside the girl’s bathroom.
“I’ll call out if I see anything.” Zoey told them.
The 3rd floor girl’s bathroom was exactly identical to the 2nd floor. So there wasn’t much unfamiliarity for Zoey in here. She didn’t feel cold or uncomfortable inside here but maybe that was because she wasn’t in a stall yet. Zoey walked into the first stall and waited for a little bit. Her bladder wasn’t telling her she needed to pee anytime soon, so she didn’t feel any need to sit down on the seat. Plus, it would be harder to punch something if she was squatting like that.
Nothing happened in the first stall, second stall, third stall, or fourth stall. Zoey gave the demon 5 minutes to do anything to her in each stall. Plenty of enough time to try and drag her down a toilet or whatever. Then she made it to the final stall in the bathroom. Her heart started beating a little bit faster when she came to this stall. Usually, in horror movies, the ghosts or killers wait till you investigated every single part of the place you find suspicious before jumping out and spooking you. Deep down, Zoey expected a similar situation to take place here.
“Zoey! Are you alright in there!?” This sudden call out startled her so bad she almost banged the back of her head against the stall’s door.
“Yeah. I’m fine. There’s no daemon.” She responded back, wanting to punch Alexander’s face in.
Zoey walked out of the bathroom without any encounter with the supernatural.
“What’s the next rumor, Zoey?” He asked with the same excitement as before.
‘I guess I was wrong when I was thinking you were a little pervert. He just really wanted to kill a demon.’ Zoey thought.
“There’s the moaning sounds that come from the kitchen in the cafeteria after hours when everyone goes home but I don’t think that’s...” Alexander didn’t even let her finish before making his way towards the cafeteria.
“What other rumors are there?” Lindsay asked with her hand on her face. No doubt embarrassed because of Alexander.
“Music room, track girls’ locker room, boys' basketball locker room, janitor closet on the 1st floor...” Zoey listed off all the rumors she’d heard during her sophomore year.
Much to the disappointment of Alexander, none of these places would hold a daemon for him to exterminate with his magji spells. Zoey was also a bit disappointed. Since there was no demon, there wasn’t any way she could quickly level her skills today. She could try training at home tonight but fights give the most experience to her skills. And because she was grounded, she couldn’t go into the city and find trouble with the scum of society.
“It looks like we’ll have to find daemons to deal with in the local area instead of just the school.” Alexander suddenly spoke.
“I’m grounded so, I can’t do anything out of school for a while.” Zoey said.
“What?! But you’re our most important member!” He exclaimed.
“Sorry. Mom says no outside for me until my grounding is over. Just school and home.”
“That sucks.” Lindsay commented.
“Looks like we’ll have to hunt daemons when Zoey’s punishment is over.” He sighed.
“What’s your numbers?” Zoey suddenly asked. She didn’t want to find herself in another situation like with the Long Face demon.
“Oh, that’s right! We haven’t even added each other on our phones yet!”
“My mom took my phone so, you’ll have to add mine to yours but you can still tell me yours. And don’t text me, I’ll text you first. That’s when my punishment will be over.”
They nodded and Zoey gave them her number before saying goodbye and walking outside to the front of the school. Her mom was waiting in the car. She really didn’t want to talk to her because she was still upset about being grounded. She hoped that she also didn’t want to talk to her. Ignoring her wasn’t going to work unless she wanted to get slapped upside the head or get her grounding extended.
“What took you so long?” She questioned like Zoey was an offender on parole and she was a parole officer.
“Friends...” Zoey spoke through her teeth.
“Why haven’t I ever heard of them?” She dug deeper.
“Just got to know them.” Zoey responded.
“Mhmm...”
The car ride home was long but at least it was silent. After her first few questions, she didn’t ask anything more. Once they made it home, Zoey immediately opened the door with her key and made her way to her room. Everett immediately came in her room behind her after hearing her come home with an excited look on his face. Like she had loads of stories to tell him after coming back from school.
“We looked for demons at school but didn’t find any.” She told him.
“I have the coolest older sister!” He shouted.
“Can you teach me how to box Zoey!?” He asked right after.
“Why?” She was curious.
“I wanna fight daemons too!”
“No way. Demons are too dangerous. I almost died trying to fight a demon.” Zoey immediately shut him down.
“But how am I going to protect myself if a daemon comes after me!?” He brought up a good point.
Zoey couldn’t let her brother not have a way of defending himself against demons. Maybe teaching him how to box wouldn’t be a bad thing. She’d just have to make sure he understood that it was to protect himself and not a way of killing demons. She was teaching him so that he wouldn’t die if he came face to face with a demon not so that he could hunt daemons and teach them a lesson with his awesome cool boxing skills.
“Okay. I’ll teach you how to box. But you will not ever look for demons without me. If you even think there’s a small possibility of encountering a demon, you will run as far away as possible. If I'm not there, don’t even think about sticking around. Demons will kill children.” She seriously warned him.
“I understand...” He nodded.
“Okay. Go change into something more comfortable and we can get started.” She told him.
He ran out of her room like she just told him they were going to a world-famous amusement park. When he came back dressed in shorts, a white tee, and little boxing gloves of his own, Zoey had trouble keeping herself in control. Everett was the cutest little brother. Seeing her little brother gain an interest in boxing because she was into it made her heart warm. The rest of the afternoon was spent teaching Everett the same way Zack taught her when she first started out. And surprisingly, she gained a new skill that wasn’t related to fighting for once: Teaching.