Klein woke up in pain. Every muscle of his burned with a fire that challenged any flame he had ever seen. It felt like ants crawled along them, like they took hold of the fibres with their mandibles and twisted them in opposite directions.

  He heaved laying on his bed, his vision blurred in a hundred different ways and the up and down became indistinguishable for a moment.

  Suddenly voices appeared around him. Some were panicked, some were calm, some horrified, and he didn’t know which of them was his own voice, or if he even spoke at all.

  He was thankful when all of a sudden the pain vanished like a mirage; replaced by a tranquility he had never experienced. The world moved in that state of mind. He couldn’t think of anything nor could he feel it. It was like being underwater.

  He swam through the air, until a force knocked him back on the ground and he lost consciousness again.

  #

  When the next time he woke up, things were… better. His body still ached, but this time it was one of exhaustion, rather than being burned alive.

  His head still spun a little, but thoughts came to him much easier. He was even more grateful for the non-existent headache. It felt like he had been living with a headache for a year or two. He looked around himself, a recognition of the room flashed in his eyes and he laid down relaxedly.

  He looked out of the open window. It was the afternoon sun; low and meek; and a cold breeze rolled in. There were no clouds outside, which Klein thought was a disappointment. It would have complemented the weather perfectly.

  He stared at the window for long, long until the aches in his muscles eased into something very faint, and long enough for someone to come check up on him.

  Ah, isn’t she..?

  “Hello Klein, I can see that you finally woke up. At least you aren’t thrashing this time,” She smiled brightly as she came to check up on him. He remembered her from the last time.

  It’s weird how I haven’t been to the academy hospital more than twice in the three years here, and now I’ve had two major times in under a week.

  “How long have I been here for?” He asked as she checked his temperature, flashed a torchlight in his ears and eyes.

  “Around 8-9 days, I think. You came to consciousness at least three times in the middle of it, and everytime you had an extremely high fever and aches through your body. We had to use more tranquiliser on you than we use on an elephant. For some reason your mind resists tranquiliser and drugs very effectively,” She said as she continued her checks.

  She removed the blanket off of him, and before the draft of cold wind could take his attention, his sight fell upon the layers of bandages wrapped around him. An especially covered area was his stomach. He remembered it was where he had been shot.

  “You had us use about all the bandages in our ward, Klein,” She chuckled as she said it, and Klein tried to reciprocate it. The sight of it all didn’t fill him with much amusement though.

  “Oh don’t look so grim! It’s all getting removed today. Your body has mostly recovered from the wounds, our healers made sure of it. Although…” She moved towards his hand, and Klein hadn’t noticed it till now, but suddenly he felt it. She took his arm in her hand, and he finally saw his hand. His fingers were there, wrapped around in bandages, but he couldn’t move them, “We have attached the fingers, good think you brought it back. But it’ll be very very sensitive for a while, so don’t stress it, and try to avoid wetting them.”

  Klein tried to twitch them, or just to feel their presence, but it was all very faint. Every small twitch sent pain up his arm, so he let them stay like that for a while. At least they were there. He hadn’t lost them.

  That was good.

  Bringing them around in my pockets was pretty fucked up though.

  “Also you must come here every other day to get a dose of a potion. It’ll help them get better fast,” Nurse said.

  “Will that cost me money?”

  I only recently earned one gold.

  ”Of course not! Especially after you busted the organ trafficking ring, but let it be a reminder that you shouldn’t take such risks alone!” There was a level of sternness to her voice that wasn’t there earlier.

  Klein looked at her in confusion. Organ trafficking? I guess those guys did give the vibe of it.

  “Don’t look at me like that! You might be an adult and all in your mind, but you’re still very much just a student. Next time, leave these adult things to the adult! Do you understand?”

  Klein nodded.

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  “Good. Now rest up, I’ll come back in a few hours and change the bandages. A healer would take a look at you once more, and if everything’s right, you may be able to leave the hospital by tomorrow,” She moved towards the door and just as she was about to leave, she turned and said, “Oh, and a detective would come to take your word on the whole event later. So be ready for it. Rest well!” She left after that.

  She really loves to talk.

  Klein mused, and looked back at his bandaged fingers with a wry smile. They were the middle and the ring finger.

  I won’t be able to flip off someone for a while.

  Maybe it was the drugs in his system, or something within had changed since the fight, he found himself getting lost in his thoughts very easy that day. He stared at his left hand long enough that his arm hurt from keeping it afloat. He let it fall down, and felt like taking another nap. His head still spun a bit, and he felt queasy. Maybe another nap would fix it all.

  His plans were thwarted when a honk resounded through his room. He hurriedly looked at the window, and standing on the window sill was Honker. It honked at him again. It looked angry for some reason.

  Klein stared at it with a mix of elation and worry. He couldn’t help but wish to hug the stupid goose for coming to see him, while being cautious about why it was there.

  “Um… hello,” He tried, but the goose kept staring at him.

  “I… got in a fight I guess. You were pretty right when you said someone was looking for us. I took care of some of it,” He tried to smile. It only made the goose honk even louder. More angrily too.

  “What? Why are you honking at me?” Klein said with a frown, “It wasn’t that dangerous. I know I look like this, but that’s because I was ambushed. And my magic isn’t really good for offensive use! What was I supposed to do, not follow them when they tried to look for me?”

  It honked at him again, and then glowed. Suddenly dust entered through the window, carried by the wind, it neatly arranged itself on the desk beside his bed.

  “More would come.”

  “I know.”

  “You not ready. Look at you.”

  “I know. I am not ready to face the real forces. I only tried because they were non-magical people. Clearly, I’m still too weak to even deal with them.”

  “Yes.”

  “You could’ve at least tried to reassure me,” Klein sighed but he didn’t mean it. He knew he was weak. Very weak even. This fight had shown him that much. Shown him his deficiencies, and his good points

  I need to practice more. To fight more. Only then could I grow stronger.

  He felt a fire burn inside of him at that thought. It wasn’t one of pain, or the aches he felt in his bones, but it was something he couldn’t describe. It was like a sensation of a ticking time bomb, like if he didn’t hurry, then the world would burn to ashes around him, and take him with it.

  Sometime during his musings, Honker seemed to have flown on top of him. He barely weighed anything, such that he didn’t even feel much of it. He let him there, curled in itself sleeping, and he too closed his eyes for some rest.

  He drifted to sleep peacefully this time.

  #

  Klein practiced with his mana shaping on a poor pen while he waited for the detective to come. He was woken up a few minutes ago and had his bandages removed. He was very relieved when he didn’t find many gruesome wounds on him, but there was a stretch of skin where the bullet drilled in him.

  They said he’d be here in ten minutes. I’m very certain that it has been more than ten minutes.

  Not like he had anything else to do at this point but lay there and pretend to rest. The fire inside of him urged him to move, to train himself, to push forward, but he understood the importance of rest.

  If he didn’t pace himself well, he’d only burn out. Mana shaping was his idea to satisfy that part of himself. It wasn’t that tiring, nor in any way drilling. He liked moving objects through the air through pure will of force.

  Honker laid at his feet. He had gone somewhere when the nurse came, but he returned soon after. Klein had a theory that the goose was very shy.

  Suddenly someone knocked on his door. He looked at Honker who had also straightened up to look at the door, but didn’t fly away. It looked at him, and nodded.

  Klein said, “Come in, please,”

  The door opened and two people walked in. Klein’s eyes first fell upon the unknown middle aged man. He was tall and bald. He wore a trench coat over a blazer and white shirt-black pants. He had this self assured measure in his steps, but also a tiredness around him. The black bags under his eyes proved to be the definitive clue of his sleep schedule. He looked normal, with not another outstanding feature.

  But what really surprised Klein was the other person who walked with him. He was a middle-aged man with an unkempt beard, emerald eyes, brown hair, and a squarish face. He wore the standard professor’s robe, but this time he had his badge on him. It depicted a sword. It was his mentor: Tillmann Loch.

  Their gazes fell on the goose on his lap, but none of them commented.

  “Good evening, Mr. Skyla. Our circumstances have changed quite a bit since the last time we met, don’t you think,” His mentor spoke as they came to stand beside him.

  “Good evening, Professor, and uh…,”

  “Zachary. You can call me Detective Zachary,” The detective said as he sat on the chair he cast out of the wind. It looked very stable and solid. He created one more for his mentor, who followed him.

  “Greetings Detective. I must say, I am quite surprised to see you with my mentor,” He said.

  “You and I are both kid. You and I, both,” Zachary sighed as he said it. He flushed a cigarette out of his inner pocket and lit it with a simple spell. He took a long drag and sat there in content for a few moments. When Honked honked at him in irritation, only then did he come back to his senses and spoke, “He ambushed me on the way here. Saying how his pupil needs someone more experienced with him during the questioning and what not bullshit,”

  “Ambush is a very misleading term, Mr. Haur. I merely found you while I was on my way to meet my injured pupil,” Tillmann Loch clarified with a smile.

  “Sure sure, let’s go with that. Anyway, let’s get it done with, should we?” He held the half finished cigarette in one hand, flushed a notepad and a pen with wind magic where they continued to float in front of him, and looked at Klein.

  “So Mr. Skyla, should we start?”

  Honker jumped and kicked the cigarette out of his hands and it clattered on the floor. Detective Zachary looked at his now empty hand, at the goose which still looked annoyed, then at Klein and sighed.

  “Ambushes,”

  Honker honked with pride.

  #