The Test?

The drunken man walked over to us and took out a form. He started talking in a monotonous and nearly inaudible voice.

"Are you three Serith, Saliza, and Z-Zeigel." We confirmed that those were our names.

"I'm Reizo one the who be will be testing you"

Reizo takes out a key and unlocks the door to the training room.

"I'll be back shrotly after things." Reizo enters the room and closes the door behind him.

I turned my head to Serith. "I thought you said he was a good guy."

Serith stared at the door and compared his savior to the drunk man in his head."Maybe this is a part of his test. I'm sure it's just an act."

A few seconds later, high-pitched screams of agony and sounds of machinery could be heard coming out of the door. Shortly after, Reizo steps out of the room. "Sorry about that. I was screamed because of daken stupid."

The three of us were confused and frightened as to what we just heard. That voice sounded like a little girl, not a drunk man. This was starting to creep me out.

"Follow me, I'll begin your test now." The three of us followed Reizo and entered the training room. The whole room was a mess. There were many cracks on the wall, broken equipment laying on the floor, and the whole room was covered in dust. The place even smells like alcohol. It was clear that it hasn't been cleaned in a very long time.

Reizo led us to the back of the room and took out three sheets of paper and a pen. He wrote something on each sheet of paper and placed them on the floor. It was a math question.

"You have ten minutes to complete this question, if you get the answer wrong, then you fail." Reizo said as he went inside a room in front of us. He was careful not to let us see what was behind the door when entering the room.

"One more thing, do not enter this room under any circumstances or you will immediately fail the test."

Serith kept telling himself that all of this was just an act to test him, while Saliza was frantically trying to figure out the answer to the question.

"Why do we have to do homework? I thought the test would be more exciting." She said.

The question that Reizo wrote was quite hard, but not impossible to do. A quick glance and I already knew what type of question it was. These types of questions have appeared in my finals a few times so it wasn't something new to me.

Saliza and Serith on the other hand were having trouble trying to figure out the answer.

I sat on the floor and watched the two struggle for five minutes just to see how smart they actually were.

Serith nearly got the answer a few times but was stumped at the last few steps and I have no idea what Saliza was trying to write. I don't think even she knows what she's doing.

Eventually, both of them finally wrote their answer, which was wrong, so I decided to write down the correct answer and explain the steps to get to the answer. Saliza was completely uninterested in my explanation and quickly copied my answer.

"Hey Reizo, We're done with your test! Make us ventgards now!"

The door opened, but Reizo was not the one who came out of the room. It was a semi-transparent little girl wearing rags. Her body was covered in bruises and cuts.

We were terrified as we thought that a ghost just came out of the room. Before any of us started screaming, the girl placed her finger on her lips. "Please don't make any noise or he's gonna torture me again."

We were puzzled and didn't know what was going on. "Is this a part of the test?" Serith asked. "The test that Reizo made is that" The girl pointed at the piece of paper with Reizo's question.

"He made the test this way just so it could get approved. The reason why some people cried after the test was because those people entered the room behind me and saw the bodies of children that he has kidnapped and murdered, including me. When that happens, Reizo will use a spell to stop them. The spell floods their memories with nightmares, causing them to forget what they saw but at the same time make him look extremely intimidating towards them. He's currently preparing to use the spell on you three."

We were horrified to hear what she just said and we were about to run away until the girl continued talking. "Even though we have died, Reizo built a special machine around this room that uses fear to trap our souls in this room and make our souls visible and touchable. He made this test so that he could gather more fear using his spell and torture us for as long as he wants."

So that means that those screams we heard were the souls of children that were being tortured.

"But Reizo once saved me, why would he kill and torture children." Serith was trying to hold back tears. He couldn't believe that Reizo went from being a hero to a cold-blooded murderer.

"He enjoys watching people suffer. It's the only thing that entertains him."

I asked the girl if there was any way we could help her. She looked at me with hope in her eyes. "Pulling that lever over there will deactivate the machine that is trapping us here. A forcefield prevents souls from going near the lever so I can't be the one to pull down the lever, someone else has to do it. But if you go anywhere near it, Reizo will kill you."

The three of us looked at each other and agreed that we should quickly deactivate the machine and get out of here.

We ran towards the lever when suddenly, the door slammed opened and a furious Reizo stepped out of the door to stop the three of us from pulling the lever.

He was incredibly fast. He quickly reached us before we got to the lever and knocked away Saliza and Serith with a swing of his arm. He then blocked my path and I panicked. I threw a punch to his face, but it was completely ineffective.

He stared down at me after the punch and intimidated me. I then tried to kick his groin, but he still stood there as if nothing happened before backhanding me away.

We thought we were going to die, but then Reizo turned his attention towards the girl, who started running away from him. He quickly caught the girl and slammed her into the ground before furiously beating her over and over again as she cries and begs for him to stop.

Reizo was so focused on beating up the girl that he paid us no attention. I realized that I had a chance to run away and get out of this place, but this also meant that I could also get to the lever and save the girl.

Saliza and Serith got up. They looked at Reizo beating the girl and wanted to stop him, but that would mean death. It was clear to all of us that we had a choice. We could either escape with our lives or die while saving the girl.

I wanted to escape, I wanted to see my family again, none of this was supposed to happen to me. But I can't just let all those children suffer.

Saliza and Serith were already running towards the lever so I joined them.

We reached the lever and pulled it down as we prepared ourselves to face death.

After pulling the lever, we heard something power down, and the girl slowly disappeared.

Reizo then stood up and looked at us.

Saliza picked up a nearby broken equipment "If we're going to die, we might as well die fighting." Me and Serith agreed with her and used whatever we found on the ground as a weapon.

"You may have saved me, but I won't let you torture anymore people!" Serith yelled as we all charged at Reizo. He stood there and watched as we kept running at him.

We managed to get close to him, but in a blink of an eye, he disarmed all of us and knocked us all back with a swift kick.

He's a monster, there's no way we could beat him. Reizo walked towards us while grabbing something from his pocket.

He took out three cards and threw them on the ground in front of us.

"Congratulations, you three passed. Take this card and show it to the receptionist, she will tell you what to do next."

The three of us were stunned. What kind of test was that? Was he trying to traumatize us!

"Was all of that a part of the test?" Serith asked.

"Yes it was part of the test and you passed. Now get out, I need to clean this place up."

All of us were relieved. We didn't know what exactly was the test or how we passed it, but we passed it and that's all that matters now.