Enchanted High Book I
Chapter Thirty-Six: Captured

The first thing June felt when she appeared in the new destination both assured and disoriented her. The heat. It struck her like a mighty punch the second she touched the ground. For moments, she remained on the floor, feeling the heat suck out every ounce of energy and water she might have had stored in the depths of her body.

Nicole and James landed on either side of her with groans as they adjusted to the surroundings.

Nicole reached out a hand; June grabbed onto it gratefully and rummaged into the backpack on her shoulder. She found the water, filled to the brim with what they had brought from Rain Island. She gulped it down her esophagus hungrily, and then realized that it was the only source of water they had now.

‘Are you okay?’ Nicole asked.

‘Yeah, fine,’ June replied. She scanned the environment. Mount Deep Pozaru. She didn’t know whether she was relieved to be here, their final hope for saving themselves, or worried that if they didn’t find the tree, if they didn’t ... she’d have to go home and tell Audrey that she’d been expelled in her first year. And Xavier – he would get his way.

‘Come on,’ said Nicole, taking the bag from June. ‘I’ll carry it, you need all the energy you can get –’

‘JUNE! NICOLE!’

It was James’s voice, screaming from a distance away, panicked.

And then June felt the white-hot heat, like somebody had placed a giant iron on her. It was hotter than anything she had ever felt; hotter than the time she had once burned her finger while trying to cook, hotter than when she had spilled tea water on herself. She felt it creep into her skin, eat her flesh away, dismantling everything inside –

And something was breathing; Nicole was pulling her away from it, they were running – but not fast enough. The thing – a great monster that only ever appeared in June’s nightmares – she saw it before her eyes. The monster that was made of fire.

And it chased her.

A horrible sensation plunged June into pain and she fell to the ground, her mind spinning, the red world before her tumbling. The monster clawed over her face – and everything disappeared into darkness.

James breathed fast as he ran, taking cover behind the nearest boulder he saw. He slammed his back onto it, his lungs taking in the fire in the air, his face already sweating.

He felt sick to his stomach with guilt; he couldn’t save them. What was stopping him? Nothing. Why didn’t he save them? He was afraid the answer was too poor. He needed to follow them, and he had to think quick about it.

The voices began talking, men. James fought the urge to burst out and take them by surprise; they were probably armed and he had nothing at all.

‘Boss will be surprised,’ said one.

‘Yes,’ said another, ‘and as soon as we get the reward we were promised, we scoot from here, just in case the guy changes his mind and we meet the same fate as the dead one.’

Silence. ‘What do we do with them?’

‘We’ll take them on the dragon with us to boss.’

James heard them grunting as they carried away June and Nicole’s unconscious bodies and placed them on the back of the dragon. James risked a peep and watched them, at the last second, sweep the ground on the dragon. Its giant wings fluttered as it disappeared in the red sky.

James realized he was holding his breath. He exhaled and emerged from behind the boulder, looking into the sky where the dragon was no bigger than a speck of dust.

They were taking June and Nicole to ‘the boss’; a wild guess told him that ‘boss’ was Xavier. And if Xavier was here, then he must have the tree already.

He began to run.

June felt her veins fill with a heavy cold, despite the fact that she knew that a few seconds ago she was literally burning to death.

Blinking several times for her eyes to adjust, she saw a figure, silhouetted by the intensity of the red light from the lava outside. One of the figures was wearing an airy, flowing material over them with a hood. And the other, who stood much closer to her, was more visible, but still covered in shadows.

She heard them talking, mumbling words she could only understand partially.

‘... time ... begin ... no.’

It didn’t make any sense to her. She made a moving gesture with her wrist, but found she couldn’t move a single inch. Her wrists, her legs – even her head, was all being bind downwards by metal clutches.

She was trapped. Imprisoned by the people she least wanted to meet.

But for the moment, she found something that made her feel more anxious. The sight of Dominic, unconscious and in the same position as her.

*

James slammed his palm against the hard of the boulder, breathing rapidly, almost struggling for any source of clean air to satisfy his lungs.

He had been running for almost half an hour. His chest burnt with heat, his body was wet, not with rain this time, but with sweat. He had to keep running, he had to follow the dragon the men had flown on, but he could barely see it now.

Just one more minute, he pleaded, one more –

The growling startled him. He swung around as the boulder behind him rose and turned, revealing slitted, beady eyes and giant teeth.

A dragon.

His immediate instinct was to run. He ran towards the mounding hill of the volcano, following the path of the men that had June and Nicole. The dragon thundered behind him.

He ran for the sake of life. The ground sped beneath him, rumbling with every gigantic step the dragon took behind him. He tilted his head to the side to catch sight of the dragon still chasing him, not even a little bit tired.

Suddenly it all felt very familiar. Almost as if he had lived this moment before ...

James, lost in his thoughts, twisted his ankle and tripped over a stone; he fell flat on his stomach. The dragon took advantage. It swung its giant claws at him – but he rolled over just in time, narrowly avoiding death. He ran faster this time, faster than his legs would ever take him.

He turned his head again to check on the dragon ... but only too late had he caught sight of what was ahead of him.

He fell into the everlasting darkness of the pit. His arms flailed in the air, his feet trying to find land.

Then suddenly, he landed with a thud and a cloud of smoke erupted from underneath him.

Then he heard the scratching sound.

He opened his eyes and stood. His body was very weak, so weak he could have just give up then and there. But he told himself again that he needed to get to the volcano.

To save the precious things that were his friends.

He limped towards the scratching sound; he forced his eyes to stay open. And the blurry image of a giant lizard formed.

Its giant claws banged the ground and it walked and then stopped to halt in front of him.

James looked into the dragon’s beady eye, and saw fear.

Then, without thinking, he held out his hand in front of him in attempt to train it.

The dragon began to growl and opened its mouth wide ... But it didn’t bite James; it licked his fingers as if to say: let’s get out of here together. James jumped onto the back of the dragon and gripped its neck as it flew higher and higher out of the darkness.

This was beginning to feel more familiar, every second of it. And then a thought struck him.

He did live this moment before.

He had dreamt it; the running, the chasing and the dragon. And then he realized something dreadful. If everything in his dream was true then –

He heard an ear splitting crack of sound and the next moment a flash of red lightning swished past his face. He narrowly missed it.

Another crack of sound and another flash of lightning later he felt an extremely sharp pain in his hand. His hand was bleeding, just as expected.

He turned his head and saw what he had feared.

Another dragon was chasing after him. He was just about to speed up when he saw the face of the rider.

And now James found the reason behind the sudden surge of hatred in his dream. But now, there was more shock than anything else.

‘Remember me?’ said the rider.

It was headmaster Salvatore.

I have nothing to say.

--THUG.

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