Once again, several days passed full of ordinary events; at this point, Mr. Grey had given me an exam which promoted me to an "intermediate" ranking, which he said was the title that most second-years held. I began to wonder shortly after the class ended just how far I was away from knowing the same amount of or even exceeding Boingo's knowledge of spells. Somewhere I knew that I would never have as much power as he possessed, however; there just seemed to be a gap that would never close in that regard.
I woke up inside of my dormitory room for another day of school and went through my routine as I usually would. It was relieving to finally stop thinking about my previous encounters with Malus and Ittisk and Thrack. They now just seemed to be a distant memory, no more real than the numerous lessons I had to sit through over many days.
I once again encountered Midnight in the corner next to my classroom. This had been occurring every day since he initiated his operations on my labyrinth. He commented that every day I would get stronger and although the walls would get thicker and the light would get sparser as I did so, he could get away with more high-intensity spells without causing me to scream in agony. However, there was something different about Midnight this particular morning. His appearance and clothing appeared unkempt and his expression was unusually dishevelled.
Initially deciding to hold off on inquiring on this stark contrast between how the principal would usually act, I decided to wait until he would say something along the lines of "how's it going"? No matter how long I waited, though, the response never came. It seemed as if Midnight wanted me to initiate our conversation. After anticipating something from Midnight for a few seconds longer, I decided to try a simple "Hello, Midnight!"
My principal grunted, bringing his mug up to his lips and taking a sip of the liquid that was contained inside of it. Over our conversations, he had revealed that the brew was called "coffee". "Good morning."
"What..." I began to start my question but stopped in fear that I would somehow offend Midnight. The conversations of everyone else soon swallowed us.
The principal ceased his eye contact and looked at the ground, then to the swirling liquid in his mug. He said something so quietly that I had to actively strain my ears to decipher his speech. "Long night."
Not wanting to start anything as I was close to doing so before, I began to back away from Midnight and head into the classroom. A seed of concern was planted inside of me, though, as Midnight stared me down until I disappeared from his line of sight. The action made me consider for a brief moment if I were the cause of my principal's deterioration. Regardless, I took my seat next to Boingo.
The small alien seemed to notice my widened eyes quite easily. "What happened?" He asked without any hint of hesitation.
Now startled, I quickly thought up of something that would likely deflect the concern away from recent events. "Just woke up on the wrong side of the bed." Now having dismissed the question, I switched the topic to a better one. "How do you think you did on the worksheet?"
"The work..." Boingo froze, his eyes hinting towards immense fear. I could even see the creature stagger slightly as he struggled to keep his breath. "Worksheet..."
"You didn't do it?" The worksheet that was assigned to us by Day a few days ago was now due. I shook my head, almost certain that Boingo would have made at least some effort to finish it.
Boingo's speech was now haphazard, loud and my friend began to stutter quite a few times. "Well, I didn't finish it, of course! I... I got all the pages done except... except three."
"Three pages?" My eyes fixed themselves onto the small creature. "But there were five in total, weren't there?"
"Yeah..." A few seconds elapsed before Boingo gave in and pulled out the assignment from his new small backpack, furiously working on it with the pencil between his teeth. Like always, I was surprised at his surprising amount of dexterity. I figured that I would begin to help him, too; not enough that it would be considered plagiarism, but I would occasionally offer tips when the alien was stuck on one particularly demanding question.