Fridays were considered by Simon to be the best day of the week, excluding Saturday and Sunday. There was only one final push to get through to the weekend, and once the last bell rang that day, you were finally allowed to sigh off all the pressure of the week. One of the best parts was that, even though you were exhausted from the past four days of work, so was everyone else, which meant that only putting in half the effort on Friday was a bit more acceptable to most Professors. Most professors.

  “Alright folks, it might be Friday but that’s no excuse for being lazy. Let’s ride!” called out Instructor Harwood.

  The class sighed as they mounted their respective horses and followed Harwood out of the stables, across the school field, and into the forest. To keep up with Harwood, most everyone had to ride at a brisk gallop. Roots and tree branches would often come in the way, and the only options were to dodge out of them or take the hit, which was easier for the horses to walk off than the squires riding them. Ethan, despite doing everything in his power to avoid such hazards, found himself eating leaves more than a few times before reaching the clearing of the riding grounds.

  Instructor Harwood dismounted and pushed open the gates. “Today we’re going to be working on stamina. The only objective is to keep your horse moving and to not fall off. You can practice fence leaps if you want, I left those up in case any of you were interested in going the extra mile.”

  Each squire of the class rode in through the gate past Harwood, none with the intent of trying any more fence leaps than they had to. Everyone went their separate ways in the field, Simon and Ethan falling in with a small group that decided to ride laps around the perimeter. Riding next to one another as usual, no topic of conversation came to mind. They just focused on keeping up with the others. About ten minutes passed, simply riding on the dirt track in silence, before one of the guys they were riding with turned to the girl riding next to him.

  “Hey, wanna race?”

  The girl looked at him. “No.”

  “C’mon, it’d beat just walking in circles the whole two hours we’re stuck in here.”

  “Stamina, Peter,” she reminded him. “We’re working on stamina.”

  “You’re no fun,” said Peter. He turned to Simon and Ethan. “Either of you interested?”

  Both shook their heads.

  “I’ll race you,” said another boy who had overheard and was now riding alongside them. He had messy brown hair and a pale complexion.

  Peter turned to look at the guy. “Now we’re talking!”

  Simon, Ethan, and the girl rode off the track as Peter and the other boy lined themselves up at a partly-broken fencepost. They counted themselves down, and then both shot off like arrows, kicking up dust behind them as they went. The intense galloping of hooves seemed to have caught the attention of a large number of squires in the field. For a moment, it looked like Peter was going to win, until his horse began to tucker out halfway through the lap, and the other boy gained some ground on him. A few students cheered for them as they rode past, careful to not idle too long so Harwood didn’t catch them. Simon glanced at Harwood, who was clearly seeing the events unfold before her from outside the fence, but didn’t seem to care.

  Finally, the boy passed Peter in their race, and the students who were watching began to cheer a bit louder. They rounded the final turn of the track, and approached their starting point at a full sprint. Peter gained a bit of ground back, but not enough to change the outcome. The boy crossed the finish line right before Peter, and the squires in the field gave a small applaud for them.

  The brown-haired boy raised his hands in the air victorious, making sure to keep his horse moving as slow as possible. Peter patted his on the neck, murmuring something about ‘getting them next time’. The boy wandered through the crowd a bit, giddy with joy. He reminded Ethan of the guy that both he and Simon completely spaced the entire morning.

  “Where’s Arthur?” asked Ethan.

  Simon scrunched his face a little. “I… don’t know. Did you see him in the commons during breakfast this morning?”

  “No. Did you?”

  “Nope.”

  Simon and Ethan paused for a second, riding slowly through the field.

  “He has the same schedule as us, right?” asked Simon.

  “Well he was in all our classes yesterday so you’d think he did,” said Ethan.

  “Do you think he might have just slept-in?”

  “Not like it’s never happened to anyone before,” said Ethan.

  “Are you talking about that new kid?” asked the girl they hadn’t noticed was still riding next to them.

  “Oh, yeah,” said Simon. “Did you see him at all this morning?”

  “Pretty sure I saw him in the stables before we rode out, but that’s about it,” she said.

  Simon turned to Ethan. “Do you think he might have gotten lost on the way here?”

  Ethan didn’t get a chance to respond. The air was struck with a high-pitch startled cry of a girl off to a far corner of the grounds, and everyone’s head shot around to see what the big deal was. Riding closer with the rest of the class, Simon and Ethan caught a glimpse of what the girl had seen, crawling out from the underbrush of the woods just past the fence. It was the skeletal remains of a human arm, slowly crawling towards the fence. Instructor Harwood ran up to it and struck it with her shortsword in an underhand swing, knocking it back into the woods, hitting against a tree and out of sight.

  “Was that a skeleton arm?” asked one student in the crowd.

  “It was moving on its own,” said another.

  The underbrush beyond began to rustle again, and birds flew out from the trees. Instructor Harwood held her shortsword at the ready and the entire class stopped their horses to watch, eyes fixed. Then, a fully-animated skeleton, an assembly white bones wearing a coat of moss and spiderwebs, moved from the brush. It was followed by another, and another, and the moment their dark eye sockets noticed Harwood, they broke into a dash towards her and the class.

  “Get back!” Harwood cried out. “Everyone head back to the castle! Tell Headmaster Smith that skeletons are in the riding grounds! Now!”

  Harwood knocked back the first skeleton with a horizontal slash and kicked a second away before she was removed from Simon and Ethan’s vision. They turned and rode their horses towards the gate, already having been opened by another student, moving with the crowd into the woods, in the opposite direction of Harwood and the skeletons. Allowing their horses to break into a full gallop, Ethan ducked low to avoid getting hit off by a large branch, holding on to the reins as tight as he could. After a short minute, the light of the sun became visible at the edge of the woods, and the class broke out into the school field at full speed, heading straight into the stables. Rather than take the time to tie up their horses, the first squires in the stable slid from their horses and dashed straight through the door to the headmaster. Those who came after took their time riding their horses into their proper places and quickly tying them up before following the others back inside the main castle. But then, just after he finished tying up Chai, Simon noticed that one of the spare horses was missing, and a chilling dread hit him.

  “Ethan,” said Simon, grabbing his friend by the shoulder. “A spare horse is gone.”

  “And?”

  “Arthur!”

  Ethan looked at Simon briefly, then glanced back outside to the woods.

  “We can’t just leave him,” said Simon.

  “We can’t exactly just go in there either,” said Ethan.

  “Here,” Simon dropped his satchel on the ground of the stables beside Chai. “I’ll run out there and try to find Arthur. You run back to the weapons storage and get your longsword and my swallow.”

  “I don’t think we’re allowed to take those just whenever we feel-” started Ethan, but Simon had already dashed out the stables back to the woods.

  Simon took each three steps as a long breath in and a long breath out, trying to beat his lack of decent stamina. Reaching the woods, he jumped over a large root that was sticking out from the earth and brought himself to a speed walk. Rotating as he walked, he saw the same shaded area of trees all around him, like an endless museum of statues. Keeping his wits about him, he made sure to keep any eye out for any signs of movement. He brought himself to a stop beside a rock, and turned, peering through the darkness of the shade, searching for any sign of life.

  A twig snapped, and he bolted around just in time to see the rotting teeth of a gaping skull’s mouth jump at him. Knocked to the ground, Simon forced his hands onto the creature’s head, pushing it back and away from his own. He found a chance to kick it to the side and off of him, jumping back onto his feet and making a dash. The clanking of the skeleton’s rusted armor let Simon know it was chasing him without having to risk a glance backward. He leaped over another tree root, sliding beneath another one, scraping his arm against a rock on the ground which most certainly left it scarred. Not that he had the time to check it or anything. Pain in the lungs over pain in the arm, Simon pushed himself to beat the creature behind him, but felt himself falling back, his chest beginning to heave in a plea to slow down. The adrenaline that got him going wasn’t enough to keep him going.

  Skeletal fingers then clasped around his shin and pulled him off his feet, falling to the ground with a facefull of dirt and grass. Simon turned around again as he saw a crawling, legless creature at his legs, accompanied by three others who were running towards them from a distance. Simon tried kicking the skeleton that had held him away, but only knocked its skull off, which didn’t seem to bother it much as the circular object rolled away into the brush. Finally, the other three skeletons reached him and dogpiled, which was a bit heavier than expected seeing their lack of body mass. A sharp pain sunk into his arm as he tried pushing the skeletons off of him, a few drops of his own blood falling onto his face from the bite. He let out a cry of anguish briefly just as a force struck two of the skeletons off of him, allowing Simon to pull away from the other two at his feet in reflex.

  Ethan followed through with his next attack, swinging his longsword at one of the two skeletons he struck, blood dripped from its teeth. A quick strike to the rib cage broke several ribs, knocking the creature to a disembodied pile of bones, returning to the other two Simon had abandoned to deal with them.

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  Simon’s swallow had been tossed onto the ground right beside him, which he reached for as he weakly brought himself again to his feet. Fingers clasped around the leather handle of the weapon, he turned quickly and spun it, striking away the second skeleton Ethan had knocked off of him. The skeleton’s head was hit directly and began comically spinning around before its hands came up and stopped it, just in time for Simon to strike once again, this time hitting the legs. Its torso remained in place as the legs flung off to the side, and Simon rotated his swallow to slash off the skeleton’s remaining limbs. Simon raised an end of his swallow directly above the remaining skull, and stabbed the undead directly in its empty eye socket, shattering the decayed bone completely.

  Turning around to Ethan, who had just finished off the skeleton that was already at a lack for legs, Simon’s attention fell back to his injured left arm, which seared in agony. Taking off his overshirt, he threw it on the ground, firmly stepped on it, and ripped off its sleeve. Ethan walked over to tie the piece of fabric around Simon’s upper arm to stop the bleeding.

  “Damn things caught up to me,” Simon said out of breath.

  “Any sign of Arthur?” asked Ethan.

  “No,” replied Simon. “Just the skeletons.”

  “We shouldn’t be out here,” said Ethan.

  “Then go back to the castle,” said Simon, secretly begging Ethan to stay.

  “And let you get torn to pieces without me?” said Ethan. “Dueling was never your strong suit.”

  More rustling came up on them from behind, and both turned quickly to meet it. A skeleton was running, but not towards them. It ran from a darker portion of the woods, obscured by the density of the trees, in the direction Simon and Ethan had come from. As it ran out of sight, Ethan checked to make sure it was gone before the duo made their way to see where it was running from. They were met with the sight of a drastic change in the forest. Where the green grass and strong standing trees stood ended at an interrupted line, where dark violet grass began, accompanied by twisted thorny bushes and silvery barked trees. A chill ran down Simon’s spine peering into it, and he shifted his weight slightly.

  “What is this?” asked Simon.

  “Like you think I’d know,” said Ethan.

  Simon brushed his hand against the bark of one of the silvery trees. It felt damp with some unknown warm liquid.

  “It’s like the forest is being corrupted,” he noted. “Come to think of it, yesterday while we were discussing elements in Gee’s class, she said that negative mana often disturbed the nature surrounding it.”

  “You were paying attention yesterday?”

  “Maybe a little,” said Simon, almost ashamed.

  Then a voice called out a distance behind them. “Ethan?! Simon?!”

  Arthur came into view as the duo turned to see their classmate running up to them, meeting him halfway. He was a bit out-of-breath, and he had bags under his eyes. Sweat dripped from his shortly cut hair.

  “What are you two doing in here?” asked Arthur in a panic.

  “Looking for you, dummy!” said Simon.

  “Where’s your horse?” asked Ethan.

  Arthur glanced back for a second before looking at Ethan. “Not sure. Got spooked by some skeletons when I was trying to catch up with the class. There were hordes of them. After I fell off, the thing ran for the bloody hills.”

  “And the skeletons?” pressed Simon.

  Arthur hesitated. “I’m a fast runner.”

  “That means there’s still a buttload out there,” said Simon, glancing worrily at Ethan.

  “Let’s just get back to the school,” said Ethan.

  The trio rushed back in the direction of the castle, checking the mountains and the morning sun to make sure they were headed the right way. Simon gave a quick glance back to the corrupted woods before joining back with the other two. It wasn’t long before the boys reached the edge of the woods and broke out into the field surrounding the academy, having avoided any more skeleton attacks. Beside the stables, there was a small group of knights on horseback speaking with a dismounted Instructor Harwood and Headmaster Smith. Before either of the three could make an effort to avoid being caught, the headmaster called out to them.

  “You boys!” he shouted. “Get over here! Now!”

  He didn’t exactly sound angry, but he sure wasn’t happy either. Most squires at the academy feared any interaction with the Headmaster. If you saw him in the hallway, you’d generally do whatever it took to avoid catching his eye. Nobody knew much about him, but his very presence brought a weight to any scene. Even some of the knights who graduated from the school continued to dislike being in his presence. The two who had shown up to help with the skeleton situation clearly were among that some, avoiding eye contact with him at all costs.

  Simon, Ethan, and Arthur ran up, somewhat reluctantly, to meet with the knights and staff of the academy. Harwood saw them and placed her hands on her hips.

  “What were you three doing in the forest?” asked Harwood angrily.

  Simon and Ethan exchanged a glance, silently deciding that Simon was going to be the explainer in the situation.

  “We were looking for Arthur,” he said. “He wasn’t with the rest of the class in the riding grounds, nor when we got back to the stables. I was worried he could have been in danger.”

  “More worried than putting yourselves in danger, apparently,” said Harwood.

  “And yet you boldly ran in there to look for him?” asked Headmaster Smith. He seemed more curious than angry.

  “Yes,” replied Simon.

  “Did you happen to run into the skeletons that were reported?” asked one of the knights on horseback.

  Arthur spoke up. “Sure did. There were at least a hundred of them. Things were fast as hell too. We were lucky to make it out in one piece.”

  The man looked back to the rest of his group of knights, nodded at them, before gripping the reins of his horse and charging into the woods. The whole group followed closely behind him, vanishing into the brush. A moment of silence passed that Ethan and Simon secretly hoped would be stretched out a bit longer before they got themselves told off.

  “I wouldn’t be too sure about ‘one piece’,” said Harwood, gesturing to Simon’s arm, which still throbbed with mild pain. Half of his forearm was covered in dried blood, and being reminded of the injury didn't help with his efforts of trying to ignore the pain.

  Harwood opened her mouth to scold them but was stopped by the Headmaster’s raised hand and the clearing of his throat.

  “The knights we called over can take the situation from here, and these boys were only looking out for another student. Let them be.”

  The trio’s faces lit up slightly with the newfound knowledge that they weren’t going to be told off by their horseback professor.

  “With that said,” began Headmaster Smith. “Smith should accompany Wilson down to the hospital wing to get that bite cleaned out and properly treated. Worthington has classes he needs to attend once the bell rings, which shouldn’t be much longer now. You are all dismissed.”

  Ethan, Simon, and Arthur took no delay in leaving. No more than five seconds passed before they had already passed by their horses and made their way back inside the cool hallways of the academy. Arthur walked in the same direction as Ethan and Simon, heading towards their dueling class and the hospital wing respectively. Neither said much for a moment. They just smiled with the joy of getting off scot-free for doing something that most definitely should have landed them in detention.

  “Talk about getting it easy, am I right?” said Arthur.

  “Yeah,” said Ethan.

  “I was expecting a week of detention or luncheon clean-up duty or something like that,” said Simon. “Never thought Headmaster Smith would be that chill.”

  “No one really talks to him much, so it’s not like we had any reason to think he wasn’t,” said Ethan.

  Arthur paused for a moment and then glanced at Ethan. “So wait, if your last name is Smith, then are you and the Headmaster related?”

  Ethan scoffed. “There’s got to be at least five-hundred families with the last name ‘Smith’ in this kingdom. Even if we were related, it ain’t like I’d know.”

  “Right,” said Arthur.

  Simon paused for a moment as well.

  “You never mentioned your last name was Worthington, Arthur,” said Simon.

  Arthur’s expression dropped slightly. “Well… I suppose it just never came up. Only been here a day. Haven’t had that much time to share details, you know?”

  “True,” said Simon.

  The group reached the equipment room door. Simon and Ethan gave Arthur their borrowed weapons before parting ways, as the other two kept walking down the hall to the hospital wing.

  “I’ve heard that last name before,” said Simon.

  “‘Worthington’?” clarified Ethan.

  “Yeah. I could’ve sworn I’ve heard it somewhere.”

  “There’s probably a few Worthington’s around here,” said Ethan. “Might just be thinking of them.”

  “Maybe,” said Simon, uncertain.

  Entering the hospital wing, Ethan and Simon saw among a vast sea of white beds and shelves full of medical supplies were several seniors with mild cuts, burns, and bruises on their bodies. Some were in a worse state than others, but it didn’t appear like anyone was fairing too poorly. Nurse Mags was a younger woman who always wore the same violet dress with her white apron over it, and was attending to a boy who’s beard-in-progress had been slightly singed by fire. She turned around and saw Simon and Ethan, moving past their faces and straight down to the injured arm covered in dried blood. Standing up from her patient’s bed, she adjusted her nurse hat before moving over to the duo and pointing at a nearby empty bed for Simon to sit on. She sat down on a nearby stool and grabbed his arm a bit harder than he would have liked, inspecting it carefully. The area around the bite marks was a grayish green.

  “That’s quite the bite,” said Nurse Mags. “How’d you get it?”

  “Skeleton,” said Ethan.

  Simon winced as Mags poked at the wound. “They showed up in the middle of-”

  Mags raised her finger to her lips, bringing the two to a silence. After a few seconds she stood up.

  “All it needs is some rubbing alcohol and bandages,” she said. “I’ll write out a note to give to the physical activity professors if you want to get out of doing stuff for a few days.”

  “You’d love that, wouldn’t you?” said Ethan, mockingly.

  Simon had sworn Ethan to secrecy regarding the more-than-a-few-times he faked being sick to get out of going to classes for a day or two. Skipping class, even over some legit minor illnesses or injuries, was something he took advantage of whenever he got the chance. Mags returned after snatching a bottle of alcohol from a drawer, applying some to a rag and giving it to Simon.

  “Hold that on it for a minute, I’ll get some bandages.”

  Simon did as instructed and recoiled from the stinging of the medicine, which felt like a few dozen toothpicks were stabbing into his skin.

  “Why are there so many seniors here today?” asked Ethan.

  The boy with a singed beard overheard him and spoke with sharp frustration on his lips. “Professor Banks thought a practical lesson involving uncontained fires would be a good idea.”

  “And the cuts and bruises?” asked Simon.

  “Who knows,” said the boy. “Banks is a nutjob.”

  Simon and Ethan certainly didn’t think so, but also didn’t think too highly of sharing their own opinions of the teacher. Mags returned with some bandages, dabbing some more of the burning alcohol onto Simon’s arm, before wrapping it up.

  “Good work with the shirt knot,” she noted.

  “Thanks,” said Simon.

  After wrapping up the bandage around his arm tightly several times, Mags took a pin and used it to hold the bandage together, careful to not stab her patient. She then stood up and waved her hand at the door.

  “You’re good to go. The dismissal note is on my desk if you want it.”

  Nurse Mags then left the two boys to return to her business with other students, not another word said. Simon stood, walked over to the desk and snatched the small piece of parchment, before joining Ethan as they headed towards dueling.

  “You know,” said Simon. “I think I’ve had my fill fighting things today.”

  “Really? It’s still just the morning.”

  “Hey, what can I say? An unscheduled training session with a horde of skeletons takes a lot out of you.”

  “Not me,” said Ethan. “I could fight for days on end and never even break a sweat.”

  “I know you could,” said Simon.

  They pushed through the doors of the equipment room and found their weapons waiting for them, leaning against the wall, right where Arthur must have put them. Ethan casually grabbed his longsword and headed out into the training grounds to meet with the rest of the class. Simon grabbed the leather hilt of his swallow, staring at it for just a moment. A sliver of decayed bone was wedged into its larger blade. The corrupted forest came back to mind for a brief moment, but he then pushed the thought out of his head and stepped out to his class. He’d been overthinking things a bit too much lately.

  Little did he know that at that very moment, the squadron of knights who were fighting off the skeletons in the forest just beyond the academy would find themselves staring at those very same discolored woods. Staring into the darkness of an encroaching and hidden threat that had spread further than originally anticipated. Unfortunately for them, that darkness would be the last thing they’d ever see.