Hell Shaker

“It will be just like changing schools,” he said.

“We need to go home, our place of origin,” he said. It would be good for me to know where I am from.

I just decided that my father is suffering from a lot of things, but I should add one more to the list: memory loss.

There is absolutely nothing similar between the human school I was attending and this glorified prison yard with a lot of criminals. In here, the Faery, an alternate realm not on Earth, it was deemed as a very good way to best your opponent. It makes children strong.

Welcome to Arcanes Training Institute, ATI for short. It is the best school that exists in Faery and does not discriminate among the top five species that live here. It did not matter that I am crossbred because a lot of halflings come here too. Oh, sorry—half and half. Halflings referred to children who have one human parent. This happens when their fae parent goes to the human world and somehow creates an unintended baby, as my dad explained to me. Although, I wonder how someone could create a new life unintendedly.

I hated this, and I have a very strong dislike for my father right now. I mean, why, just why, would he uproot the last fifteen years of our lives, where he taught fairytales and folklore in one of the universities in the city I grew up in, just to come back to this realm and help someone who abandoned us when I was two.

His explanation about me being the heir of her throne and that I was not ready to rule came to mind, but I brushed it off. I needed to be angry at him. It would take my mind off this clusterfuck situation that I found myself in.

I’m the new kid in the final year, with no idea of how school is here. Don’t get me wrong, my father did his best to fill me in on this world of ours, but high school, regardless of the world it exists in, always changes.

“Don’t worry, Iristendale. You will fit in in no time,” my father said beside me as we sat at the principal office. We had to come in through a back entrance because, apparently, there was some test I needed to perform on the school stairs, but no one would tell me what it was.

“You are not allowed to talk to me. I am still very pissed off at you,” I replied to my dad, ignoring him as much as I could. This looked like how I imagined a fictional headmaster's office would be, which was insane since this was my life and certainly not fiction.

When someone sucked in their breath, I remembered that we were outside, and I was supposed to be respectful to my father, not just because he gave birth to me, but also because he happened to be one of the rulers of the prominent five species.

My mother was the leader of her sector too, and although the Dad and Mom’s side of the family usually don’t interact, I was a product of my father’s one-night loneliness and my mother’s power-hungry schemes. This is something I have always known, no matter how much my father tried to hide it from me. What does it say when your mother abandoned you at the age of two and your father was the go-to parent for any injury or issue.

“Ignore my daughter's words. I have raised her to freely express herself, a quality which I believe the Folks need in their next leader,” my father answered smoothly, covering my faux pas.

“But Your Majesty, she was being downright disrespectful. Heir or not, she should be disciplined,” the man said.

I was supposed to be on my best behavior, I mean, I was going to try, but his words rubbed me the wrong way. “I would like to see you try,” I scoffed. And I meant it. Through all my years in school, my father never once allowed someone else to discipline me. Every slight I did was taken care of by him, but when I pushed the envelope too much, I suffered heavily for it.

My father shot me a glare, and I shut my mouth, aware that I was heading towards dangerous territory. I did not want to offend this man more.

“Speaking of disciplining, my daughter is not to be disciplined by anybody other than me, not even her mother.”

The man nodded. “Of course, as it is with the case of every high-ranking heir that we teach here. All reports go to you, and you tell us the acceptable behavior that you are grooming in your heir, so we do not undermine your efforts,” he stated, and my father nodded.

“Good,” my father replied before turning to me. “Iris, why don’t you get started on school.”

I opened my mouth to argue, but his brows furrowed, the universal sign that I have pushed too much today, and I should not even think of it again. I hugged him tightly, knowing this would be the longest time I would spend away from him.

“You will visit, right?” I asked.

“Every chance that I get, and when it is safe, we will see if you can continue attending from home,” he replied before he kissed my hair.

Tears gathered in my eyes, but he shook his head at me. That would not set a good example. I was a future queen; I should not be going about crying about the separation from the only face that I knew after being spirited away to another realm. I sucked the tears in and turned to the principal.

“Where should I go and what should I do?” I asked him.

“Take the tunnel back. You will come out before a huge building, and you might not see a lot of people on the stairs, but people milling around it or sitting on the lowest ones if they are brave. I want you to take the stairs… you will eventually get tired before you reach the top, but when you do get tired, I want you to come down. Someone will be waiting for you at the bottom,” he explained.

“If I am not going to finish climbing the stairs, why do I need to try at all?” I asked. When no reply came, I sighed. “That is the test somehow, isn’t it?” I asked, two nods came my way. I stood up and waved bye to my father, knowing that if this were some sort of test, he was right behind me to see how I would do even if I wouldn’t see him.

I did follow the instruction carefully and I found myself at the place where the headmaster said, before the stairs. They were labeled; the highest was thirty-five, which was strange because the way he was going on about me not being able to finish climbing was as if the highest was in hundreds or something. But it was just thirty-five. People were milling about. Some were sitting on the stairs and laughing while others stared at them with envy. I drew my conclusion that those sitting on the stairs were regarded as cool kids.

I was tempted, seriously tempted to ask one of the others milling about what the stairs were for, but something told me that I would incur the wrath of my dad who was watching.

With a sigh, I started the journey, with my first step on the stairs, I understood why the principal did what he did. This was indeed a test. A test to see if I would survive I assumed because the shock that went through me was freezing, I was stuck. I could not step down, something kept pushing me to go forward and I knew that I would be receiving another shock just like the first.

The noise calmed down and I realized that everybody was looking at me. The new kid taking the test. I sighed and I placed my leg on the second stair and the shock came once more. I breathed through it, seriously thinking of pushing against the force taking me forward and go back down until I heard a peal of laughter from the clique of the three girls sitting on the second stairs. They were higher than others sitting on the first.

“She is not worth our attention; I think she will reach ten before passing out with the way she is going.” One said as the other two laughed again.

I frowned at the words and laughter, hearing the dismissal in their tone. I never backed down from a challenge, that was what my father taught me and with the way they dismissed me like I was unimportant, I felt challenged to prove them wrong. It felt like shackles were coming off as I shrugged off my discomfort and stepped on the third stair, I shrugged off the shock the minute it started, and to distract myself from feeling it too much, I placed my foot on the next one. And that was how I progressed, one step at a time, never dwelling long on one. The whispers and cheers increased when I passed the twenty-fifth one but that was when I started to sweat. I tried my best to continue going. Gasps sounded when I stepped on another milestone but all my energy was focused on taking the next step forward so I could not check which. Three steps to go when I felt an extremely high pressure on me. I had lifted one leg to step on the thirty-third step but instead, the leg landed on the same step as my other leg. I spun around when I started to get dizzy, trying to push the pressure. Me taking another step was not worth fainting in front of everybody watching. I would never be able to live it down, no matter if I reached the very first step, after all, this is high school, and teenagers were the worst set of people to make a mistake in front of.

I turned to see everybody cheering me, except the three girls who were standing on the floor, staring at me slack-jawed, it was a good look on them. I walked down the stairs, bracing myself for another torturous shocking but it didn’t come. Thinking that I would have a few minutes of reprieve before it started once more, I quickly rush down the stairs before it would change its mind to shock the hell out of me.

As I stepped off the deathtrap, the cheering reduced as people waved at me with smiles while the three girls glared at me then stomped off, swearing angrily. I already knew that they would be a problem.

“H-hi.” A girl, a little shorter than me, stuttered. “I am your guide, but I am sure they made a mistake, please follow me Miss as I take you to someone more appropriate to show you around.”

I frowned at her words but still followed her as she started moving, knowing that it was best I kept my mouth shut and hoped that I would understand everything that was happening in time.

She took me to an office by the side of the building which I discovered was not really an office but rather an elevator. The stairs were just for that stupid test and nothing more I believed.

When the elevator stopped at the top floor, she smiled at me tentatively. “Welcome to ATI. We would stop first and the Student guide office and then you will be given someone better.” She stated.

“Why are you not enough?” I asked, unable to hold my curiosity much longer.

She jerked at my question, frowning before her expression cleared. “I guess, you cannot feel others' power levels yet. Most schools teach that first but a few schools around Faery still believe that ignorance is bliss. I guess you must have attended one of those.” She stated with a scrunch of her nose like she did not like the idea. She seemed funny and interesting, and I knew that she was one of those people who were real.

“Anyway.” She continued. “I am one of the lowest leveled powered individuals around, I could only get up to eight, but it is okay though. I guess Cirdan saw you struggling on step two and thought that I was more of your level, but he is known to make mistakes, especially since he has been distracted lately. Don’t think that he was being an asshole on purpose, he usually is but not when it comes to guiding new students. He takes that seriously.”

I nodded like I was following her words when I did not know anything that she meant.

She took me to a room where someone was making a call, the person was alone inside. She wanted to knock when the person let out a growl of anger like he was a shifter, one of the five prominent groups. He wasn’t. He had that glow around him that reminded me of my father and that told me that he was a Folk.

“How would you know how they would treat me like when you are not even here? They already treat me like some kind of king which is annoying since all I want to do is to be left alone.” He said into the phone. The person on the other end seemed to say something that made him more incensed. “No, don’t make a public announcement that would make things worse.”

My guide cleared her throat and the boy stiffened before he let out a sigh. “I have to go, father, someone is at the door. Yeah. One of my guides, I feel like a mistake has been made again. Just don’t do anything about the situation. I have a feeling that I would have more time to myself than if you do, do anything, Okay bye Old Folk.”

He let the phone down before he turned to look at us, already berating the girl I was with, but he stopped when he saw me, just like I did when I saw him.

And I kid you not, I am not making anything up, but it felt like the world stopped when I stared into his eyes.

And I knew that he felt it too.