Flynn was in motion without a wasted breath, an arrow flying before he’d taken a single step. Predictably, this monster was way more agile than the last. It twisted its body with the grace of a dancer at the very last second, and the arrow just grazed past its arm.

  Flynn frowned as he turned away. He didn’t like that. Not at all.

  He preferred his monsters as stupid as a bag of bricks and just as easy to hit. Like Corey. This one was sleek, and way more challenging. Not that he minded a challenge. He wondered if it could match his speed, as its body suggested it could. Time to find out.

  The archer was a blur of motion as he cut a line down the classroom. Ahead, he spied the other end of the room, and far more importantly, a large oddly shaped door – it was triangular - inset into a shadowed crack in the wall. Sparing a second, he swept his eyes along the length of wall, searching for any other doors or exits. He found none.

  He made a mental note of its location for later use. No telling what worse monstrosities lurked beyond it. At least the apes could be dealt with a little patience and careful aim.

  To that end, Flynn stopped, twirled on his heels, lined his shot and loosed. The arrow flew straight at the monster’s head, and expectation swelled in Flynn. Unfortunately, the monster ducked and again dodged his shot. Worse still, it had already almost closed the gap between them. He could see his reflection in its eyes, and the stench of death that came from it in waves.

  Cold surged through his veins, and Flynn found himself running before the thought had even travelled down his spine, all plans to pepper it with shots abandoned as quickly as it’d come. He’d expected fast, but this thing was almost Olympian in its speed! He glanced backwards. It was almost on him. Scarcely a few feet separated him from the grasping hands of certain death. Looking ahead again, Flynn thought that, suddenly, the door seemed like an extremely attractive option.

  Fuck whatever possible danger lay beyond when a very real, very angry danger hounded his steps.

  He belted towards it, every bit of his being dedicated to keeping ahead of the monster as much as he could. Behind him, he could hear its raspy grunts as it inched closer and closer. The door was only a few feet away by then.

  He reached it with maybe seconds to spare and prayed that it would open. He pulled on the handle, his heart in his throat, and elation swept through him when he felt it turn.

  The door swung open. A corridor laid beyond, and that was all he had the time to see. He dove through, turned on his heels and sped down its length. A second later, the monster crashed through, its momentum carrying it onto the wall with a thunderous crash. Flynn glanced back, saw the monster stagger but recover quickly, and fired a shot. It still dodged. He swore and kept on running.

  That misstep had still bought him a few precious seconds of leeway if nothing else, but he wasn’t stupid enough to think that the chase was over, and just as expected, the sound of the monster’s heavy steps once again took to the air.

  Flynn grit his teeth. His stamina was starting to flag from the unexpected and unwanted exertion. He needed to find somewhere to hide from the fucking thing because the game of speed and stamina was both rigged in its favour.

  Scanning the length of the corridor, Flynn thought that fortune was his side when he noticed another strange-shaped door come into view. This one was shaped like an octagon, but it could’ve been shaped like a recessed butthole for all he cared. No matter what, he was ploughing inside.

  Arriving before it, he jerked the handle down. It turned.

  You have discovered an AP Examination Room!

  Now wasn’t the time for reading! Flynn swatted away the unwanted page and shoulder-slammed the door open before swinging it shut behind him equally as quickly. His every muscle tensed; he braced against the cool wood for an impact. He didn’t think a simple door in its way would convince the relentless thing to give up its chase. Not even close.

  But it was fast, not strong. He hoped. Maybe he could hold out against its attempts to get inside.

  But as one second turned into two, and then four and then ten and more, the expected impact never came. Flynn’s brow furrowed with questions. Why hadn’t it attacked the door yet? It’d been right on his heels, and its hate had been so focused, so thick, that it’d been an almost palpable prickling against the back of his neck. Flynn was a hundred percent certain that it wouldn’t have given up just because of the door.

  So why?

  “Because it cannot.” came a voice from his back. Flynn swerved on his heels.

  There, stood to the back of what he realized was a large, featureless white room, was another monster, though this one looked nothing like the ape-like things that’d given him hell thus far.

  It was instead a creature of roiling flesh and protruding growths that loomed at least seven feet tall, though it was far wider than it was tall. Its bulbous, pockmarked mass, was shaped like a triangle, starting wide at the bottom and then narrowing into an almost laughably small head, most of which was taken up by two black eyes that stared at him calmly. Its thick, grotesquely wide lips were spread in an even line.

  “You are unexpected.” it said, its voice surprisingly soft for something of such girth, before it sighed in an eerily human-like manner. Flynn raised his bow towards it. It didn’t look like a runner. Not like the second ape-thing. He was tired, but if his arrows could do some damage, and if it didn’t possess any kind of ranged ability, then he could win.

  The creature studied him for a moment, its eyes trawling over his bow, before it shook its head. “The System wills as it wills. This can only be fate.” it mumbled to itself before it returned its eerie gaze onto him. “No more of that, now. I mean you no harm.”

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  The fact that it spoke put him on edge. Intelligence only meant a greater, keener danger.

  “Sorry if I don’t believe you.” he replied dryly.

  “Mhm. Perhaps a demonstration, then?”

  Flynn tensed, but his bow never fell. Not that it did him any good, as he soon found out. A force – and that was the only way he could describe it – wrapped around his body like the fingers of some massive ghost. Flynn flinched when he felt it brush against his arms, and he immediately tried to resist, tried to run, but it was of little use. Its grip was vice-like, and it held him so thoroughly that he could barely even wiggle his toes.

  Defying gravity, the force lifted him into the air and then gently floated him towards the monster until he was well within its reach. Up close, the detailing of its grotesque features become unpleasantly evident. Every boil, every wart, every crease in its fleshy face loomed before him like a map of horror.

  In great contrast to its horrifying visage was its smell. It... actually smelt pretty nice. The monster carried a faint floral scent, like lavender or an evergreen forest. The disconnect between its sight and smell threw him for a loop, but not as much as proximity to its massive mouth did.

  A mouth that could so easily swallow him whole.

  For some reason, the quote from Red Riding Hood echoed within his thoughts as he inched towards it.

  All the better to eat you with, my dear.

  The creature lowered him until he was eye-to-eye with it.

  “Do you understand now? Killing you would be as easy as simply wishing you dead. There is nothing you can do to slay me, stop me, or avoid me. Do you require further proof?”

  Flynn didn’t answer. Couldn’t answer, he realized. It was all he could do to watch as the force plucked his bow from his hand and raised it up to his face. The drawstring bent upon an invisible will and an arrow came into being. Flynn winced as the glistening arrowhead aimed for his head, though his worries faded as it turned to face the monster instead.

  With a quiet thwang, the arrow was released at near point-blank range. The arrow slammed into one of its eyes and... and... plinked off, as if it’d struck metal instead of flesh.

  The creature blinked. There was no blood. No harm. It hadn’t even flinched. It drew again and shot again, this time at its head. There was a meaty thud, and the arrow again bounced off with no harm done. It continued this routine thrice more, with the arrow aimed each time for a different part of its form until finally it lowered him back to the ground. His bow came floating gently back into his arm.

  “Are you satisfied?” it asked.

  “Yes.” he said curtly. After that thoroughly convincing display, he’d have to be an idiot, or Corey, to not be. Not that he trusted the thing, but he was at least sure that it meant him no physical harm. Not immediately, anyway.

  “Good. Are you prepared then?”

  “Prepared for what?” he asked warily.

  “The AP Examination. Were you not warned?”

  AP Examination? Wait. The page that’d popped up before the door had mentioned something about that, hadn’t it? He shifted uneasily. He knew what AP Exams were. He’d even planned to take them once upon a time, when his life had been meant for a different road. But Flynn had a sneaking suspicion that the exam that he knew of was not the same as whatever the monster had in mind.

  “Well, I was running for my life, so, you know, I didn’t really have the time to stop and read.” he answered honestly.

  The monster didn’t look all too surprised by that. It even nodded as if it’d been expected.

  “Unfortunate, but such is how it often is during trying times. However, now that you've entered the Examination Hall, you may no longer leave until the exam is completed.”

  “And what exactly do I have to do for the exam?” he asked, braced for whatever ridiculous thing the answer may be.

  “That will depend on the topic of examination. Let us see.”

  The monster started to vibrate, bits and parts of it convulsing and writhing as if something was clawing its way out from within its thick skin. Flynn grimaced at the icky, fleshy sounds that echoed within the room. Ugh. He wanted no part of that. The youth quickly backtracked until several feet of distance stood between him and whatever the monster was doing. Or becoming.

  Fortunately for Flynn, the experience didn’t last long, and the convulsions stopped as soon as the monster threw up a perfectly spherical metal ball from its mouth. The sphere flew up like a projectile, arcing through the air, indescribable fluids flicking off its surface until it just stopped in mid-air, as if paused by God’s own remote.

  It stayed there for a bare second, just a wet metal ball defying gravity, before it popped with a loud clang and an explosion of pink fumes gushed from it in every direction. The fumes spread far, though nowhere close to Flynn, but congealing into what he quickly recognized were smoky letters.

  “The topic shall be... biology!” exclaimed the monster cheerily. “Ah, yes. That does explain this form.” it remarked.

  Flynn eyed the word painted in pink smoke across the air, its form already dissolving as the smoke faded, and wondered what the hell it was that he’d just witnessed. And more importantly, what it meant.

  “A biology exam?” he repeated, his eyebrows raised so far up his head they threatened to launch off his face.

  “Indeed. A most fascinating subject, is it not?”

  It was, he agreed. It was one of his favourite classes in school, and the hot teacher only had a small part to do with that. But that had been in normal, sane school. Not this school, and most definitely not this teacher.

  “And, uh, what do I have to do for this AP Biology exam?”

  The creature smiled, and Flynn felt goosebumps sweep across his skin. “Survive.”

  Oh. Just that, then. Just survive? Well, that wasn't ominous. Not ominous at all.

  “Survive what?”

  “Whatever the test may be.”

  Great. Cool. Super helpful. He sighed.

  “And if I do survive? What do I get? My name in a newsletter?”

  The creature chuckled and shook its head. The gesture reminded him of his grandfather, oddly enough. “The gifts of an examination are many. I cannot say what exactly it will be, but it will most definitely be worthwhile. Greatly so.”

  The monster paused before it hmm’d.

  “It is ready. Best prepare yourself, student. You will be leaving in twenty seconds.”

  Flynn startled. “Leaving? Leaving how? Where?”

  “You will be teleported to the examination arena.”

  Fuck. “And there’s way for me to opt out of this?”

  “You have started on the path. You must reach its end to leave. Or die.”

  Wonderful. Just like living with his parents, or a school talent show. Do, or die. No biggie. Flynn swallowed thickly before a question sprang to mind with the immediacy of a lightning bolt. “How do I cast spells?” he asked urgently, every passing second suddenly a palpable sensation brushing against the surface of his mind.

  The monster regarded the question slowly, much to Flynn’s frustration. It felt like hours before it finally deigned to speak again. “Intent and will are the cornerstones of magic.” it said simply. “I advise you to find your magic swiftly once you awake, because danger will not wait until you are ready.”

  It was the last thing Flynn heard before the dark whisked him away.