Meandering passages of off-white painted concrete and pipes gave Agatha the impression of moving through the digestive tract of some kind of liminal whale. She did feel as if she had been digested, but not by any one leviathan. The entire mixed grade class of 2nd period P.E. had tasted the humility of one Agatha Price, marinated in fear and seared over burning eyes. The footsteps of the banquet partakers had long since lost their way around the corner by the time Agatha came to her senses and realized she had no idea where she was.

The corridors under the school were not normally this hard to navigate. They served as a means to join the gymnasium, exercise center, and locker rooms to a field entrance. The intersection she stopped to regain her senses within had no relation to any of these places. Surely the stairs to the main floor were up ahead, somewhere. The further in she got, the more unsure of that she was. The thought of turning back had occurred to her, but by now she was more concerned with running into another student, or god forbid, Erik.

Where does this lead? The boiler room, the Janitor’s Office, a service tunnel?  Every guess seemed equally likely and obviously improbable. A single light bulb dangled in the stale air, serving to contrast the paths ahead from the path behind her. Seeking solace above all else, Agatha took a left and her shadow stayed behind.. Some light source must have been responsible for the dull glare in the distance, but just out of visible grasp. Her thoughts began to drift towards the incident earlier, with Erik.

What, precisely did he see? Did he relay this to Todd? Did he believe him? What will he do now, stalk me until I explain what he saw? Agatha had answers to these questions, and she didn’t like them. The kid almost certainly saw her, possibly the burning book, but what broke the charm?

Oh.

Agatha felt like an idiot, believing that a class she shared with the neighbor that had begun spying on her, was a safe place to use an illusion charm. One simply broken by the mere act of deliberate observation. The charm could dissuade people from, for example, picking on her at random for a pop quiz or homework question. Should someone be focused and intent on observing her beforehand, then the spell was over before it even started for that individual. An amateur mistake for the alleged prodigious practitioner. The weight of her hubris sank, pulling down her hopes of discovering an exit with them.

 

The walls were significantly closer together now, the hot pipes brushing against her bare skin at times, causing her to recoil. She swapped shoulders for her bag strap, fearing it could get caught in the jagged edges. Pops and breaths of steam could be heard churning in the iron, rattling in rasps that sounded like warnings. Sssssssssssrunnnnnnnn. The pipes in the distance seemed to bend to another left turn at a dutch angle. She hastened. 

 

I need to get out of here and solve this Erik situation. What will I do… to fix this? These words festered into something ugly. What started as an innocent gesture to take responsibility became… suggestive. Threats. Violence.

Erik was just some kid who saw something strange, anyone else would have reacted the same way.

Precisely why it doesn’t matter who it was. You fucked up. Now someone has to suffer for it.

The walls stopped pretending to make sense at this point, gleefully twisting to sneer at Agatha. She stood accused of incompetence, and the evidence was mounting.

There have to be alternatives! I could attempt to wipe his memories—

You’ll lobotomize him. You never finished learning that properly.

 

I‘ll practice.

On what? Another pet store bunny? How many innocents will you allow to be caught in the crossfire for your inadequacies?

In frustration she pounded the wall, cursing both sides of the court . The walls responded with an echo, and a moan. She did not like that. A full stop and a deep breath was necessary to gather her strength. Clarity followed soon after.

The world is at stake… and you’re losing your mind in a basement, Agatha.

A pipe jettisoned scalding air just two steps ahead of her. As she recoiled from the blast, she could swear another set of cheap sneakers was pounding the concrete around the corner. More heavy breathing. By the time she realized it was getting closer, she could make out the shape. 

 

It was her shape, running towards her, arms outstretched and screaming.

 

Something primal within her snapped, and she returned the guttural warcry like a cornered animal. Arms spread and fingers danced in the air as she unleashed a flurry of astral signs that ripped the plumbing from the dead husk of the wall. Steam and water discharged the unnaturally still air and consumed her would-be doppelganger. 

 

When the steam cleared, there was no body, just a contorted, jagged mess of lead and paint flakes spread out like the roots of a lightning-struck tree. She was still screaming when her body slumped to the floor and she held her head in her hands. 

Am I having a panic attack…?

 

SURELY YOU TASTE THEM

 

THE MALIGNANCE IS PALPABLE

 

“What are—” she started, caught by the sudden realization that she was not truly alone here. “Explain, Wanzewan. What should I be sensing?” She said aloud, feeling her mind was far too delicate to invite another . The adrenaline of the encounter hadn’t quite left her, and the loss of composure in front of her lesser left her feeling bruised.

IT IS AMUSING

 

YOU HAVE FORGED SUCH PLACES

 

SO SURE THAT OTHERS WOULD LEAVE

 

YET YOU REFUSE TO HEED THIS ONE

Somewhere between hyperventilating and standing up, Wanzewan’s strange choice of words clicked into place.

A fear ward. Someone composed a fear ward in the school basement and… I’m being fucked with right now? The icicles solidified and sharpened to a point on the horizon, somewhere down that cold dead hallway. 

 

Sometime during her recovery the pipes had resumed their normal shape. There was no doubt to Agatha that these halls were ecclectimized in some way. But why imbue fear into a place like this? Surely others must have been lost here… But perhaps not. Perhaps, Agatha thought, this place was attuned to her magic. It may have sought her.

Wanzewan sensed her suspicions, and rather brazenly saw it fit to confirm them, like a patron at a diner contributing to an eavesdropped conversation. Agatha didn’t Mind.

 

MORSELS COMPOSED THEM HERE

 

LITTERED WITH SYMPHONIES

 

LEFT BEHIND

 

BUT NOT ABANDONED

Despite still being in a cold sweat in drenched gym clothes, she found her natural confidence returning to her stride. Magic was her domain, and her would-be challengers would soon see their funhouse torn asunder.

A seemingly random wall was chosen to be decimated by her righteous fury. She didn’t bother with chalk, she had enough focus now to transpose the runes without visual aid. In her mind’s eye, they came together in a lovely red hue, then burned into the concrete beast with a sizzling roar. It quivered in response to the branding and yielded to her demands. The walls parted without hesitation, revealing a small chamber. 

 

“Fucking. Amateurs.” She said aloud in vicious delight, hoping her righteous denunciation would echo here for a millenia. Her first inclination proved to be correct: the center of this place was covered in profane symbology, runes, and hexes from floor to ceiling. The Illusion must have had her running in circles around the source. Now the question remained: what purpose did this place truly serve?

Before she could begin to decipher the arcane scrawlings, several other details became apparent. Three sides of the room had what looked like doorways, but they were merely sunken reliefs of concrete. The center of the floor had a perfectly square hole, and some light was shining distantly from it. Approaching equal measures carefully and confidently, she peered over the side. 

 

The familiar Halogen lighting of the school’s hallways was some ten feet below. It was as though she was peering down from the square cutouts in the ceiling. Faintly, voices could be heard. The carpeting was the final clue: this must be the east wing of the third floor. 

 

The perplexing nature of being in a simulacrum of the basement— under the opposite side of the school— on the other end of this portal was not beyond Agatha’s understanding of temporal magic, but it was suspiciously advanced for a room defeated by merely instructing the walls to part. The methodology was clear to her, but the motivation was not. Why trap practitioners in a maze? Why would the rune-work and exit be so much more advanced than the security?

 

This… must have been a test. Am I being monitored? A cold chill ran down her spine, reminding her how exposed to the elements she was. She didn’t dare change here, not when any of these runes could be reporting to anyone. The thought disgusted her. She put it aside for the two concerns at hand: marking this place to return for an investigation, and getting out of these sweat drenched clothes. 

 

There was no guarantee that she could find this place again, so leaving without a mark or trail would be foolish. After a short investigation, Agatha found an unoccupied place sufficiently large enough for her beacon. On her command, it emerged from the wall as an obsidian mound of jagged, black edges and hazy etchings. 

 

The walls of the mimic basement throbbed in protest, but it was unable to expel her meddling creation. As it reached its final size, it began to harmonize with the air. She hummed back, memorizing the frequency. Feeling as if she’d effectively broken this place's defenses, she saw fit to leave. 

 

Just as she suspected, the area below was the third floor, and as she predicted, the ceiling above held no hint of extraplanar travel. The coast was clear, and the women’s restroom was just around the corner. She locked a stall, and with great alleviation, changed back into her normal clothes without any further disturbances.

A new sense of determination came over her as she left the restroom and spied the clock on the wall. Lunch was over in three minutes, and despite a growling stomach and a layer of grime under her outfit, she felt empowered to keep her perfect attendance. That tenacity, she believed, came from her Father. What she didn’t suspect at the time, was that the same could be said of her impulsivity. It was a side of the man that was kept hidden away with great purpose. But something darker lay there still, hinted at only in some quiet moments where his gaze seemed to be etching confessions into the sky. 

 

She didn’t dare ask what those confessions may be about. But she could clearly remember the days he was making them. That look was almost as ingrained as the lessons she was taught. While she did cherish those days, something about them didn’t sit right with her now. Perhaps the key was obscured somewhere in those lessons.