8 End of Part 1 (#8)

I slowly headed out into the vast field, still occasionally rubbing my head from both the mental and physical torture that Mr. Grey had subjected me to. My eyes darted back and forth before I finally saw that a small group had gathered, one which I recognized a few members of. I squinted and sure enough, the leader was present and in the center.

The group leader was standing there, scanning over the crowd that had gathered, with members still slowly joining it. Suddenly, he spread his arms and greeted me, where I stepped back a small amount.

"Welcome again! I believe you're a part of our group? You do seem familiar."

"I am, as a matter of fact," I replied, bowing slightly. The leader nodded and turned away from me, instead diverting his attention and running over to greet the others that had come. I started to scan over the group members once again while he was talking, my eyes skipping over the one creature that had previously been hostile towards me.

"Alright," the leader suddenly shouted over everyone's casual conversations. "We have everyone! Now, if everyone is ready, we can all group and head out together! How does that sound?"

We all expressed our agreement, but not in ways that would resemble a small crowd of enthusiastic children.

The group leader took this as a sign of approval and a ripple started to form next to him. Within a few seconds, space had ripped open and a view of a luscious forest was visible. "Now, let's hop in, shall we?"

One by one, each of us slowly approached the rip. I went around it, as much as the leader let me of course. My head nearly exploded when I tried to do so, however. It seemed to follow my every move, not slowly flattening as I turned around but instead leading my eyes to still look inside it and view its destination. Severely disoriented and with a quick burst of nausea crawling up my throat, I quickly shook my head and since it was my turn I jumped into the portal.

I opened my eyes inside of the forest, with students coming out of the portal that was behind me. I quickly backed out to give them ample room and investigated what awaited me.

There was a bus, one that would be used to transport students. However, the amounts of seats it had seemed like it would just barely hold all of us.

The leader came through and the rift snapped shut afterwards. "Okay, everyone's here! Welcome to the training grounds! Well, not really. We still need to take this bus to get to the site."

"But sir," a voice questioned somewhere behind me. "Can't you just open one of those things again? Wouldn't that be easier?"

The leader furrowed its semblance of eyebrows. "You got me. My intention for this was to get you all to bond a bit. There seem to be too few seats for all of you to each sit by yourselves. You'll have to buddy up with someone."

My heart slowly started to sink. Would I even get along with these people? What if one of them becomes my enemy or the like? Maybe something about my personality would annoy them?

Students, with emotions ranging from overly nervous to joyful, were starting to climb inside the rusted yellow automobile. Sighing to myself, I started to ascend the steps. It'd be fine, it was only one bus ride.