9 Start of Part 2 (#9)

I looked above all the heads of the passengers of the bus, slowly walking through and selecting seats that only had one person seated inside of them. Out of all the ones that were already full, I decided to sit next to a creature that was looking out of the window. They stared back at me for a second, their eerie amount of eyes leading me to quickly redirect mine. I briefly considered switching seats, but I thought that it would just be insulting to whoever was next to me. I gulped and decided to stay for the time being.

The leader was at the front of the bus, his hands on the frontmost seats. He glanced over everyone and hooted. "Everyone's made it on!" His smile briefly disappeared. "I hope that you all will get along with each other. If I catch any of you misbehaving, you will run the risk of being sent back to school. We don't want that, do we?"

The leader looked over and said something to the driver of the bus before swinging around and sitting next to a nervous-looking alien. The bus started to hum and within a few seconds it lurched forward, everyone being pulled back slightly.

As the bus turned and made its way onto the dirt road that lay ahead, I was suddenly being pushed against the creature. I pulled away an instant later, but they were now peering over at me. I used this short amount of time to inspect the alien more thoroughly. Its body structure seemed to be feminine, her orange skin feeling like leather. I rubbed my arm and ripped my two eyes away from her six. While I did this though, I reviewed what details I could pull out of that small interaction. She had horns that were similar to mine, and her face was also a tad flat. That was all I could make of her before I elected to instead look ahead, avoiding eye contact at all costs.

The journey consisted mostly of this, with only a few bumps against her shoulder. Somewhere in the endless forest, however, I caught her looking at me. Her lips started moving, words being formed and directed at me. "Hey."

I froze somewhat. "Hello?"

"The leader probably wants us to bond so he can prove it later."

The creature had each of her eyes trained on me. My heartbeat started to pick up.

I remained silent, several thoughts flowing rapidly through my head.

The creature seemed to notice that the conversation was dying and started to talk again. "What's your name?"

"Feste," I stammered. "It's Feste."

The creature nodded. "Well, mine's Endora."

"I... I think that's a good name. It s-suits you well." My nervousness was starting to dwindle, but Endora's appearance still rose some of the emotion within me.

Endora turned and looked out of the window. Part of me began to feel uneasy once more when she started to revive the conversation I thought had died. "Hey, look outside."

I complied. "When do you think it'll end?"

Endora peered back at me before looking back. "Well, I don't know about that. But these trees, I think they're beautiful, don't you? They're so tall, and sometimes you can see one that's fallen down."

I decided to reply and nodded my head. "I never lived around those when I was young, but sometimes my family would be taken to them."

Endora's head turned back around towards mine. "Well, that's one thing we have in common then! Still, even if I've seen them before, I think they're nice."

After a short pause, Endora decided to switch the topic. She examined everyone else that was on the bus. "I don't think I'm doing well enough to compete with everyone else at school."

I nodded. "Yeah. That's why we're all here in the first place." Endora also nodded before yet another halt in the conversation ensued. She grinned, her small teeth poking through her lips. "Well, that's most likely more than enough bonding for the leader to gobble up, don't you think?"

I agreed, relieved, before I started to look past the numerous rows of seats, our small chitchat falling silent, for a much longer period this time.

"Hey, Feste." Endora's shoulder bumped against mine and I woke up. "Look outside. I think we're here."

Still a bit groggy, I quickly raised my head that was on Endora's shoulder and I swivelled my head towards the window. Outside was a large factory-looking building. As I squinted my eyes, I started to realize that it didn't look at all like the type of training grounds that I was picturing, but I thought that as long as they provided quality training here for all of us, it didn't matter where we did it. Besides, I assumed that they might have just taken over a factory that had been abandoned long ago. Still, it seemed like the entire thing was fairly clean.

Before I could finish my train of thought, the leader had raised his voice. In one motion, he hoisted himself up and stretched his legs. "Alright, everyone! We're here!"

I heard the hushed groans of everyone else on the bus that had just woken up. The leader seemed to pay no attention to this in the slightest. I also started to notice that his enthusiastic grin from before had dissolved. "When everyone's ready, I'll give a tour of this entire place."

The second the leader had started to get off the bus, everyone followed suit. When I stood, Endora also started to follow me. I pushed through the line of creatures until we both hopped off the vehicle.

I noticed that even when I had ventured fairly far away from the bus, Endora still insisted on staying next to me. "I just thought that I would stay with the only person that I had actually talked to," she justified.

"Yeah, sure," I replied. After all, I should also be next to her for the same reasons. Even if we had only talked for a few minutes at best, I still felt that I wouldn't have developed a bond with any of the other beings that had gathered here as quickly.

The leader quickly caught up to everyone after helping the last of the stragglers exit the bus. "Let's go!" We both somewhat reacted with shock when the leader wore a deep frown. It seemed as if his entire attitude had flipped throughout the trip. Still, we reluctantly followed him. As we started to approach the abandoned factory, Endora and I slowly drifted towards the back end. As I expected, the larger, more headstrong students drifted more towards the front. I couldn't help but feel a faint smile spread across my face as I started to respect them.

As we made progress through the tour, I slowly began to notice that the leader's attitude was descending towards mainly aggravation and exasperation. if we had already been towards the back end of the tour group at the start of the session, we were now dead last. Even the larger members had started to drift away from him as he started to command for everyone to move from one room to the other.

Besides the leader, although he was the main point of interest for many of us, Endora started to point out several things that I had taken mental notes of. At one point, she had almost got the attention of the hostile force that was at the front. We both froze when he abruptly turned around seconds after Endora had said something in my ear. I feel like it may have been something else, but that was the only possible link that I felt could have made.

"Alright, get some rest. Training starts in twenty minutes." The leader suddenly showed us our sleeping quarters, almost shoving everyone in. He glared at Endora as she walked past, which triggered her to grasp my arm. I stifled my surprise until we were in the clear.

Endora suddenly let her hand unclasp. "I'm sorry," she apologized. "I just can't believe I actually trusted him before."

I rubbed my arm and nodded. There were bunk beds haphazardly thrown on top of rusty metal frames that looked like they wouldn't survive a night with the heavier students. The room itself was small as well, with a quick glance showing that not everyone would be able to even have their own mattress to sleep on.