Placido spins a key with his finger as he roams in front of a house; a house with brown and white combo of colors; a house with numerous plants on the front space before its black gate Placido had purely black hair. The town was filled with such similar houses having white.
Placido had purely black hair, the ordinary hair color, ordinary just as his height. Sweat fell from his cheeks, confused as the wind chilled through his skin.
"Eight years ago… tsk", he mumbled.
A girl wearing a white uniform and a long blue skirt came out of the brown house's door, his sister, Deborah. She's one with black hair with a hint of blue, her eyebrows normally lifted, opposing his brother's lowered brows. Placido came in through the gate and locked the door. Deborah rushed out of the gate holding her shoes so as to completely wear them.
"Think we could walk?", he said
She peered at him, frowning.
"You want to save money… right?"
"Right…", she said sighing as she looked away, and continued, "Technically that's what you want"
"Oh really?"
They walked on the road ahead. They came further, having passed by their street. They've gone through the river, skipped on the rocks, and they've neared the lower city of Una. A farm beside the road, with its wheat and pond. Such a vast farm-side gave them a fresh breeze. Such that she could hear her own footsteps, her own breathing and the wind drifting along them. She closed her eyes walking as she faced slightly upward, to feel the air.
"You know our teacher the other day… told us..."
Deborah softly breathes with her eyes still closed before she continues,
"That magic was not, until about a hundred years ago"
He looked away sighing, his common response to hearing another witty story from her little sister. She opened her eyes, looking down, and continues,
"Monsters appeared at that time and still… no one knows where they're from but, she mentioned… That one man could have been behind it all"
"Somehow you're interested"
"Not really, it's more like… I'm a bit scared, well it's probably the way she told us about it… but didn't what happened eight years ago similar?"
Placido contracting his eyes glazed over at the school as they were coming closer, and breathes heavily as he looked on the road straight ahead.
"Yeah probably, only that it was much less compared to that of a hundred years ago"
She looked up onto her brother with a slight grin on her face, "Are you still quite depressed?"
"heh?"
"or even… traumatized?"
"You know that doesn't help at all"
"You should get a psychiatrist, it's serious!"
"You sure? A psychiatrist?"
"yeah"
"Then go ahead to your school already"
She then went on to her school waving her hand at his older brother while he continued to walk to his. The main building of Deborah's school was huge with its red color.
In 1999, something similar happened, so as to that in the 18th century. Monsters appeared and have destroyed lands, but that of eight years ago, it only hit the land of Una. This land, where the siblings currently live on.
"She really had to do that", Placido whispered to himself.
Enberga, the school Deborah goes to, was the first building to encounter on the lower city of Una. Placido walks on the road towards his school, Galayan. The higher buildings reflect the occluded sunlight, but the little houses beside the road abutted by wastes.
Sweat fell from his brows and the air tingled him through his skin.
A wide yellow building, Galayan's main building was beside him. Placido went in, wearing but t-shirt and jeans. The school was less spacious to that of Enberga. Placido held a small piece of paper in his hand where the classroom's number was written. He roamed about, looking for the classroom. He found the classroom.
The mumblings became clear as Placido opened the door, The room was sizeable, having 32 seats. The bulletin boards on the wall were completely empty. "Guess I'll always be late", he said, for there was only one seat left for him though the teacher wasn't there yet either.
The last seat was on the middle-end of the room, beside a girl chattering to the other students, one who was not familiar to him. Her slightly thin voice made her seem raucous with her eyes openly faced at the student beside her. Students took a glimpse at Placido as he walked towards her.
"Oh Platsi!", a student, knowing who he was.
After he seated, she immediately talked to him.
"What magic can you do?"
"Well, disappointingly, it's wind", he said
"Disappointingly? Why?"
"Fire would be great for battle, wouldn't it?"
"Yeah? but with wind… you can fly right?" She smiles
"Oh, guess I have a new dream"
She chuckled saying, "No seriously, it is difficult but still possible, with wind you can be like superman! you have a really cool magic"
"meh", Placido looked away with raised eyebrows.
"hmmm… I mean yeah honestly, I thought you seemed strong"
Their teacher came in and everyone was quiet, not like they were any noisier before. He introduced himself and asked everyone to do the same. One by one the students came in front of the class.
"Hello everyone… I'm Riggs and I'm 16 years old…"
Riggs introduces himself but the proceeding words out of his mouth became vague. Placido's skin tingled, but there was no wind to hit him and no frigid air from the breeze, only that from the air conditioner of the classroom. He lowered his eyebrows looking down straight to the floor and thought to himself, "just a normal day… focus, now?".
He looked outside the window and thought, "this third floor is actually up high, I could see. But everything is oddly calm today... odd? Why would it be odd".
His eyes cleared out as the girl beside her stood up; it was her turn to introduce herself. Placido lifted up his eyebrows with his eyes shaking. His eyes frowned, widened, and frowned again, until he vigorously shut them.
She never told him her name, not until she stood up in front of the class. "Hi everyone, my name is Nina, you can call me… just Nina. I'm sixteen years old…", but her voice blurred. Placido squinted at the window; his pupils shrunk as everything dulled out and the ruckus from the classroom was gone.
His ears started to ring as there was something in front of him, outside the windows. A dark furred creature of what seems a werewolf towering in between buildings, expanding as it stands taller and taller with dark fumes encompassing. The high buildings slowly bended as these neared the wolf's arms. Placido lowered his brows squinting deep into the dimmed city as the wisps of smoke broaden and the monster itself enlarging before finally widening his eyes.
"Uh sir!?", A student near the window at the very edge, spoke while his hand raised. Everyone looked at the windows as he pointed his hands outside, "You guys see that?"
Their bodies shivered as the ground shook and a large ball of fire engulfed the unknown creature's body. The resulting smoke of the shockwave encompassing the creature expands, as the air seemingly vibrated through the buildings ahead, closing on to them. The student near the windows shouted, "Everyone duck!". He ducked down and hid under the window.
Placido hid beneath his chair while Nina hid under the teachers' table but there was a short delay before everyone in the room did the same. The ground shook, the windows shattered and the students near the windows blown to the other side with the chairs. Everyone's ears rang with a few stuck in the chairs unable to stand. The others slowly stood up but more blasts occurred, shaking the ground; the walls cracked as dusts fell on the room.
"What happened a hundred years ago was in a very large scale. The powerful magician conquered the whole world. But eight years ago, no such magician appeared", he said to Deborah while they were walking together.
Everyone shivered, shaking as the unknown creature bellowed in anger. Its roar shook the earth itself, ripping across the air. Their ears rang more as the vibrating air shrieked out of the creature's voice. Outside the shattered windows, howls of pain, people screaming out of their lungs for help, such blurred voices hit to them.
A few in their room bawled, holding onto their ringing ears, while others touched their blooded glass-pierced face, but all coughed as dusts dimmed the room. A student let out a quivering wail, echoing through the dusts with her hands shaking as she covers her face. And another palpitated as he touches his feet, "o… OY!", the chair's end pierced his leg.
"Oh… Oh my god! Your leg", a girl said.
"I know! Damn it… Help me here". The girl shivered, wavering her eyes as she looked around, "guys?", no one answered. Blasts echoed outside, ones far from the school's street. Clashes of metals and flames, howls of the people outside, not any voice in their room hit the two.
"I'm sorry… I don't know what to do" she said as the guy breathes heavily, coughing. Foot-steps drew near, Riggs and Nina came to the two, "Everyone!", Nina shouted. A student drew a radiating dark shard off his palm and cut off the end of the chair to lift the guy's pierced leg, he bawled in pain. Placido threw the chairs away from him as he stood up, coughing unto his arms, he drew his hand forward and sprinted out of the classroom.
"Hey!", Nina shouted, everyone with their brows pulled up together and looked at Placido as he ran out of the classroom.
"Everyone! it is much safer here for now! So don't any of you guys dare run out!", the teacher said.
Nina ran towards the door on the other side but the teacher stopped her as she drew near, "you heard what I'd just said?"
"But he…", Nina with her opened eyes.
"Let him be for now"
The ground shook again as Nina and the teacher held onto the walls. The teacher grabbed the doorknob so as to close it but it flew away from him and the wind pulls him out of the room. Nina grabbed him by his waist, fire blasted from her feet and flew away from the snatching wind. Saving their teacher, they both landed on the classroom.
Placido ran down the building's stairs while his surroundings' shook as he goes. He coughs as the dusts shades the way and rocks fall from the holes above. He came to the second floor but the blasts shook the ground and pushed him back and forth, crossing his feet as he rushes. "Not again... Damn it, focus, focus, don't get hit by just pebbles.", this he reminded himself on his rush, undaunted of the blood gushing out from his scratches of slips and hits of debris.
He neared the first floor's stairs as the building kept shaking. His hands wandered in front of him, holding onto the walls and handles as he went down. Placido would slip if he'd run down the stairs but he jumped over them, hitting the wall with his upper back as he landed and jumped to next downfall. He slipped and rolled down the stairs.
As he neared the first floor's hallway, a blast close to the front of the building blew him away, slipping him as his hands slid across the floor; the wind carried him off all the way to the end of the hall. "DAMN IT! PLEASE!", this he screamed, all while his face is stretched out of the gale, his teeth shown separated from his lips and his whole body slammed at the very end's wall.