10 - 10 -

I lazily opened my eyes and rubbed them, hoisting myself off of the worn mattress. I decided to take advantage of the current situation and sleep further in the room, even though my ration mind considered it a bad idea. Still, I knew that whatever the leader was going to tell us to do would most likely require all of us to pay extreme attention to him.

I nodded to Endora and she sat back down on the mattress. She had already spent her share of rest, which we approximated was around ten minutes. We started to wait around, looking over at the other classmates. Some were merely chatting with each other, picking up subjects that they were discussing back on the bus, while others were huddled up together, afraid of the teacher that they had foolishly trusted. Nobody was at fault, though. I knew that everyone was merely a victim of this whole ordeal. We had all been cleverly roped into something that was meant to give us an edge on our academics.

All of our heads turned as the leader emerged in the doorway, which had been left open but nobody had attempted to escape through. Somehow, his face had once again contorted into another shape; this facade was supposed to be friendly and polite. "Okay, we're all set up! Sorry, I just had to have a little nap myself. A long bus ride and an all-nighter can do some seriously strange things to someone's psyche, wouldn't you all agree?"

I stared at him, my opinion not changing in the slightest. I felt like my emotions wouldn't have changed no matter the attitude he came in with. One by one though, we started to stand up. To my surprise, some students had begun to trust the leader after that small justification. Endora and I seemed to have the same mentality as before in that we aimed to be as far away from the leader as we possibly could be.

The leader, equipped with a sheet of notes, led us all through an intricate route towards a small field. When we all arrived, he peered up and turned around, the same fake expression plastered on his face. "We're here! Everyone spread out a little bit and I'll split you all into groups. We'll proceed from there." He said the last word with his seemingly artificial smile pushing his eyes up.

I cringed but complied. Endora and I both maintained our distance from the leader, positioning ourselves both at the edge of the field but also close to the doors if there ever was a situation in which we need to quickly flee.

The leader rose his voice. "The test will now begin!" He looked over everyone, a bit of his past aggression shining through. "I'll give each of you a series of questions and I want you to tell me whether you've learned the topic or not." He started with the creature closest to him.

The test was dreadfully slow. In the end, though, it had been all done and over with. As he examined everyone in the group one by one, he most likely noticed the flame of distrust that everyone possessed. From there, he split us up into five groups that he thought had the same level of knowledge. Sadly, this meant that I had to separate from Endora. I half-waved goodbye as we parted. At least that was for the time being.

At first, the training was exquisite. It planets the idea that perhaps the teacher actually did want to train us in the end, and I had to force myself to think otherwise on more than one occasion. Still, I ended learning at least three days' worth of spells within the hours that we trained together as a group.

Well, that was for the first portion of the session. As time passed, I started to notice my other group members getting exhausted. I too found myself out of breath. When we all confronted the leader about this, asking him to delay moving on from one topic to the next for us to have a break instead, he simply ignored us and kept talking. Afraid of awakening the fire that we had lot once before, we kept obeying him. I watched the sunset and still the leader had no intention of stopping us for the night. All the restlessness and desperation piled up into I too requested that our training be over.

"What? You all want to stop? Don't you know that you only get to do this once every week?" He had shrugged off our cries once again. "And you'll all be ahead in the curriculum because of me! All of this, and you want to stop?"

We started to back up a few steps. We had pushed him too far. Meanwhile, his mental state continued to decline. He rambled on our ungratefulness, even mentioning how threats may emerge that would require us to work even if we feel as though we couldn't fight anymore. I gritted my teeth, electing to bunker down and conserve every drop of my energy.