Humphrey didn’t lie; there was a shop next to the entrance.

  She grabbed everything she could as fast as she could. Slipping on the thick coat, gloves and a hat looked back at the unconscious boy and doubled everything she took, for him.

  The speed of her actions squished some food from her frantic shoving. His staff was heavy and she stabbed it through the sack in her panic. The end of the crystal was sharp.

  She then put the coat on the boy, realizing it was too small got a larger size but then her fingers brushed something in his pocket and found a heavy iron key. She left it in his pocket. He could put on the rest once awake. Feeling snug shoved a roll of bread into her jaws. She was just about to hoist the boy onto her back but her eyes caught on the window. An army was coming over the hill with the setting sun. Her chest tightened painfully.

  With the boy unconscious on her back she looked to the velvet rope with a plaque which read . ‘Perfect.’ She grabbed it and tugged downwards. Loud, echoing bangs rung out across the mountain side. Chatter echoing down corridors she felt much lighter, she did all she could. She had warned them, helped these people live instead of dying with them like when in the Tunnels. She gave them a fighting chance. Perhaps only a few extra minutes but she could now say from experience, even one minute could’ve saved so many lives.

  He was going to protect her through the uncharted forests. He could handle it as a trained psychic mage and take her to the library where she could get her hands on that powerful, magical force, revenge her family and finally end this coming genocide! Isadora shoved some of the boys’ new clothes into her sack for him.

  Hurrying tried to open the heavy doors but they were still locked! Mind an alarm looked wildly for something- anything! She saw silver keys hang on the wall. Unlocking the front gates she hurried across the grounds as fast as she could as had to drag the fatty. Shoving another key in the lock jiggled it around, She screamed at herself, fumbling to find another. This one clicked in and the gates opened.

  No longer trying to contain her panic she picked up the heavy boy and managed to slide him onto her back, crushing her and the sack slightly, and sprinted as fast as her little legs could carry her (which turned into more of a stumbling run).

  The alarms kept blaring as only the few dots of the army turned into many, spotting catapults and weapons. Sprinting, Humphrey was slipping from her grasp but her legs still pounded. She was already tiring, her arms were weakening with every passing second, and her breath began to burn her lungs. Once she got onto the natural ground she slowed down having to rest, but only felt sick as her heartbeat pounded loudly. Gasping her lungs felt like she had just breathed in fire. The army was getting closer.

  Heart beating in her throat she speedily tried to sneak away.    ‘Wha…’ Humphrey’s eyes opened like slits, soaking in the surroundings he suddenly thrashed around, smacking her in the face. ‘What are you doing?!’ He dragged himself away from her, head shooting with pain.

  ‘We have to go!’ She tried to grab him but he elbowed her in the jaw. Stumbling, landed on her side as she was far too tired to fight back. ‘See that?!’ She pointed to the army getting closer and closer and even able to makes out each individual spear in starlight. ‘The Red King sent them to destroy your school! saving your life!’

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  ‘N-no.’ he stammered, shaking. ‘I’m their best student! I can help.’ Weakly he rose to his feet, ‘I-I’m going to h-help. Where’s my staff?’

  ‘No you’re not!’ She jumped onto his back and his legs gave out. As she grabbed his arms suddenly a deafening blast pressing on their eardrums, like a gunshot, silenced the kids! It echoed through the mountains. Blue arced through the sky like a shooting star, away from the black mass of the army.

  Cutting through clouds revealed white twinkling stars behind a void of black. Isadora hated that colour blue, images of it burning through her, killing everyone, flickered behind her eyes. Humphrey had never read about such a thing nor read about anything to it.

  Both fixated on the lightening it smashed into a school tower and exploded in a red, fiery inferno with an echoing , rumbling the ground!

  Stone dropped into the fog below silently as Humphrey’s eyes watered in shock. A large, bubble-like shield began to grow upwards. ‘NO!’ Humphrey’s voice was manic as he was getting locked out of his own school. Isadora would not let the potentially last magic user for miles go off to die! So with all her might she pinned his arms at his sides and lifted him up, legs flailing as tears began to stream down his face.

  ‘I’m not letting you kill yourself- you wouldn’t have made a difference!’ She yelled and tried to walk backwards, glancing back to try and move safely. He heard the warning bell faintly. The knight turned and saw him as Isadora’s foot touched nothing as she stepped and the pair toppled over a side onto a steep decline, vanishing from the blue-eyed knight’s view. Humphrey was too fearful and overcome with emotion to scream as Isadora scrambled wildly to try and stop herself but the ground was speeding up!

  She was barely able to keep up with her own momentum. Every roll felt like a kick as she repeatedly smashed into the ground. She desperately scrambled at the snow in pointless effort to halt, grabbing the boys hand, too. She began to slow down. Isadora looked over to see Humphrey whose eyes were clamped shut. She managed to get the rolling into a slide and could feel the snow build up in front of her. At least she was making great time in getting down the mountain. Strengthening her grip on the boys arm looked if she was being followed but saw nothing but white snow. Yet it turned out she was on a ledge. Her stomach was in her throat when the ground ran out.

  She smashed into the ground! It was so thick with snow she was completely unharmed but in too much shock to release it.

  Eyes going into focus saw something fall towards her- ‘ahh-!’ Humphrey landed on her. She flung him off. Shaking she stood and brushed the snow off while dazed she looked around. A sharp, almost stabbing pain shot through her left side when she tried to walk, biting her lip stumbled but regained her footing. But she couldn’t stand for long; her body was ruined from the earlier events and gratefully relaxed on the snowy ground, noticeably warmer now closer to ground level. She turned her head to see the sack still swollen with her steals.