The night was steadily setting in, getting colder and colder by the passing moments. Oliver was in a big panic, as he had just confirmed that the front door was locked. He needed to check the backdoor, and he was not even certain that it was unlocked.
As he was on his way back to the backdoor, with Ugly on his left shoulder, an idea came to his mind, a risky but clever one. He was going to climb up the wall, through the concrete slabs that were lined by the side of each floor, and go in through his window.
Oliver got to the part of the building where his window was. He spotted a familiar object on the floor, in the form of a book. He picked it up, only to find out that it was his diary book. It fell off the window earlier that day.
"Look's like we're gonna have to take a shortcut," he muttered.
There were up to three windows high, before Oliver's own, which was on the fourth floor. Without wasting any more time, Oliver mounted on the first slab. He stood up and stretched for the next slab, but he couldn't reach it. It was about two feet away from his arm's reach.
Oliver jumped twice. The third time, he managed to get a hold of the slab, and then he pulled himself on top of it. He repeated the same action and made it to the third window.
"Hold on tight, Ugly, we're almost there," he grunted.
As he was trying to climb unto the next slab, he mistakingly flicked a glance down at the ground, and at that moment, greater terror took over his entire body, causing him to tremble.
A cold wind had begun to blow by now.
Oliver jumped high and caught the edge of the slab. He began to struggle to pull himself up on top of it, but his hands had suddenly become so sweaty that he couldn't even get a tighter grip.
"Oh, no," he grunted.
He was slipping. The elf quickly climbed through his arm and started struggling to pull him up, but all its efforts were to no avail, Ugly could not even pull him an inch upwards.
Oliver had nothing else to rely on, other than his own physical strength. He summoned the remaining strength he had in the tank and struggled till he eventually pulled himself over.
Hopefully, Oliver's roommate had left the windows open. Oliver peeped through and saw Max lying on his bed. With the posture he was, Oliver didn't need a fortune-teller to tell him that Max was not waking up anytime soon. Oliver quietly lifted the glass slide, and then both he and Ugly went in through the window.
Oliver hid the elf inside his closet, making sure it was closed tightly, and then he immediately reached for his bed, collapsing into the sheets.
There on the bed, Oliver exhaled a long sigh of relief.
"What a night," he whispered to himself in the dark, with a satisfying grin.
♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣
Oliver was woken up very early in the morning, by Max's morning prayer. Today, unlike other days, Max was praying in Russian. Oliver didn't find this quite fancy, he wondered why Max decided to speak Russian that day. He thought it was not so necessary, and Max was only doing that to show off, or rather, try to upset him. He just waited patiently on his bed, for Max to be done with his prayers.
Oliver had been waiting for so long, but Max was still yet to be done with his prayers. Oliver felt Max was actually doing this on purpose, just to annoy him. He was starting to get impatient. Unable to bear it any longer, he immediately reached for the bathroom door.
Oliver exhaled a sigh of relief. The sound produced by the door as he slammed it shut, was like music to his ears. He began to wonder if he would be able to somehow cope with this roommate of his. Living with the boy has been like torture, ever since he turned down his offer of allegiance with Drake Parker and the rest of his bully friends. Oliver feared that Max might soon become a major problem, even now that there was a third roommate.
As Oliver looked at the wall mirror, he remembered that he had slept in his dirty clothes from last night. His black pair of pants was badly stained at both knees, and his white long-sleeved shirt wasn't in a presentable shape. The stains on the shirt were so obvious, he needed to take it off before coming out to change into neat clothes.
When he came out of the bathroom, something immediately came to his realization. He had left a series of brown muddy footprints at the base of the window, and some on the reading desk in front of it, on his cause to sneak back into the hostel. He immediately found a cloth and started to scrub on the dirt, cautious not to draw attention to Max.
"Why the haste?" came a voice from behind.
Oliver quickly covered up the footprints, using the pile of books that were on the desk.
"Not so fast, fellow. I already saw that," Max said.
Oliver slowly turned to him.
"What are you... talking about?" he asked, with a casual expression, like there was nothing serious.
"I'm talking about that, your nightmare," replied Max, pointing at the window behind Oliver.
"You sneaked out last night, didn't you?" he said in an interrogatory stare.
Oliver sighed.
"You know, you can't just bring up accusations from out of the blues," Oliver replied.
He continued scrubbing the window like nothing ever happened.
Max was totally infuriated. He stared at Oliver with scornful eyes, wondering why he was so nonchalant about such a serious matter.
"Why can't I lay accusations, when it's all obvious?" he said to Oliver.
Oliver stared back at him, looking a bit serious.
"You call it obvious, yet you have no proof," he said.
"First, you never saw me pass through the window, second, you have no evidence to prove that the footprints are mine. They could be anyone's, including you," he added.
"What?" Max muttered, in disgust and disbelief.
"You're trying to accuse me of what you did?"
Oliver shrugged nonchalantly.
"Could be anyone," he muttered.
"You idiot, you think you can be so smart, huh? What if I reported you to the principal, what would you say?" Max said to him.
"What if it turns out, I already reported you?" Oliver immediately replied, with a question of his own.
Max's eyes widened in furry.
"You wouldn't do so. You're the one who left the footprints," he said to Oliver, with an intense look of malice.
"Alright, this shit is enough," Oliver said.
"No it's not," Max replied, brusquely.
"You still haven't answered my question. What would you say about this, if I reported you to the principal?"
Oliver thought for a while.
"I don't know," he muttered, "I guess I'll just say the truth."
"Which is...?" Max asked, with expectant eyes.
"I accidentally dropped my diary book down the window, yesterday, so I went to get it back," Oliver said.
"That doesn't make no sense!" Max said.
Oliver gazed away, thoughtfully.
"It does to me," he muttered.
"I don't trust you, Logan, and I don't like you either," Max said to him.
Oliver ignored him and continued scrubbing the window base.
"See you around, Logan," Max said to him, as he went out of the room.
Just a few minutes after Max left the room, the closet door slowly squeaked open. Oliver looked and saw the elf as it walked right out of the open closet.
"Hay, you can't come out of there until you're told to," Oliver whispered.
He went and locked the door.
"Ugly, there's a lot I need to tell you. Like I said yesterday, I'm letting you stay for now, but under no circumstances should you let anyone else know that you're here. No one is meant to see you," he said to the elf.
"Ugly is grateful to stay with Oliver Logan, yet Ugly is still afraid that master may come for Ugly," the elf said.
"No one is ever gonna come for you if you remain unnoticed. And one more thing, I'm letting you stay here, under one condition," Oliver said.
"There would be no further talks about that master of yours. From now onwards, you submit to me, your loyalty lies to me."
"Understood?" Oliver asked.
The elf nodded in response.
"Good."
Oliver made sure that Ugly remained unnoticed. He smuggled extra food to the hostel, during breakfast, and put them in the closet. For the first time in his life, he had craved for himself, a somewhat parental responsibility. He felt that the young elf's care was now his priority since he personally decided to keep it.
♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣♣
After making sure that all the elf needed was made available, and there was no reason it had to leave the closet, Oliver was free to leave the hostel.
It was Saturday. No one was allowed to leave the school compound today, due to the rumors about the alien still at large.
Oliver thought about last night, basically about the students he spotted. He had been trying to figure out who those skulkers were likely to be, ever since the previous night. So far, there was only one suspect he had in mind, yet there wasn't a single piece of evidence, and this made him so much upset.
For now, there was only one thing he could do to get the evidence he required. Hopefully, his suspect was someone who was trying to be friends with him. The only way to get detailed information was to allow Jasper to become a little closer to him.
"There you are," he muttered to himself, as he spotted Jasper on a bench by the side of the path.
Oliver came to Jasper where he sat on the bench and sat beside him.
"So you finally decided to come out," Jasper said.
"I had to arrange a couple of stuff, before coming out," replied Oliver.
"How about Max, how are you two getting along?" Jasper asked.
Oliver sighed.
"I hate that boy," he mumbled.
There was a moment of silence between the two. Behind them, was a basketball pitch. Sounds of bouncing balls, and boys yelling and cheering, kept on going on and on.
Someone bounced a ball off Jasper's lower back. There came a roar of laughter from behind. Oliver turned back, with a cold stare. There were several boys that he could not identify, though, he could easily recognize Drake Parker and about three others. No doubt, it was one of them.
"Ignore them," Jasper said.
Oliver turned front. He felt sorry for Jasper. He knew what it meant to be a major victim of antagonization. However, unlike Jasper, there was a limit to the extent he was bullied, as there was a noticeable speck of fear in the minds of the bullies.
Someone hurdled another ball. This time, Oliver's head was the target. The ball hit him so hard that he fell off the bench, landing face-first on the concrete floor. Oliver's face was entirely covered in blood, as he had sustained an injury on his forehead.
Jasper was stunned by what he had just seen. The boys on the pitch were all shocked too. None of them expected that this would happen.
Jasper knelt over to check on the fallen Oliver, only to find out that he wasn't moving.
"Oh my god," he muttered, with his voice edging with dread.
"Oliver... Oliver... Oliver... Come on buddy, talk to me," he said, tapping him on the side.
Oliver was unconscious.
"Somebody help!!" yelled Jasper.
A little crowd of students had gathered. Suddenly, Oliver's eyes opened so wide, and his chest pushed out. At that moment, he suddenly saw himself, in a dark forest. He started hearing growling sounds, like that of a wild beast. He also heard a familiar voice of a girl, screaming in agony. He quickly looked back and was so spooked by what he saw. There stood a large creature of about eight feet, with furs all over its body. It had fierce sharp teeth protruding from its mouth, and long dagger-like claws on its large digits.
It held a girl on her neck, up against a tree, about to drive its claws through her chest.
"Nooo!!!" yelled Oliver, with raw panic in his voice.
Oliver recognized the girl. At this point, he had no idea what to do. The creature was so terrifying and dangerous, and it looked so eager to voraciously devour its victim. As Oliver was about to charge at the creature, a hand stopped him from behind, and he heard a voice.
"He won't stop until he gets you," echoed the voice throughout the place.
Suddenly, he saw himself on the floor, surrounded by a crowd of students. He saw Jasper there too. They all had this petrified expression like they had just seen a ghost.
He just had a vision, and he knew it wasn't the good kind.
Someone was holding him back from the ground. He was so dizzy, he had no idea where he was.