A Life Beyond by Mark Church (ebook reader web TXT) 📕

she was expecting, everyone was interacting with her as she was allowed time to get to know her new classmates, they were swapping stories about the school and their families and how they had always wanted to be in the class they had been out in as it was the same one either their mother or father had been in many years before,

'So Lillie, tell us about your family and where you grew up then, we don't really know that much about you other than you turned up suddenly at the castle' said one girl who was sitting next to Lillie,

'Excellent question Daisy' smiled Mr Flora as he had overheard her question 'Would you like to tell us all about your family Lillie?, there's a space right at the front of the class for you, I mean you don't have to do it if you're unsure, no pressure at all', Lillie thought about it for a few seconds, knowing where they had actually come from might make her sound like she was making it up so she decided to bend the truth a little but keep it as close to her real life as she could,

'Err, ok Mr Flora' she said as she rose to her feet and was given a round of applause by her new friend's as she made her way past each desk which made her slightly embarrassed,

'Well...err' she started 'the thing is…'

'It's ok, don't be embarrassed, we have all been where you are' smiled Mr Flora as he put his hand on her shoulder, Lillie let out a deep breath, which gave her a few seconds of thinking time,

'You see. As you all know I'm not from here, sorry, WE aren't from here. I mean my brother Daniel, his friend Harvey and myself. We came from a place far away from here, on a journey that seems to have taken us a lifetime…' each child in her class was listening intently at their desk, all leaning forwards trying to take in every word Lillie was saying,

'...we didn't want to leave our town but we didn't really have a choice, we just sort of appeared here' she said as she could feel a thousand eyes staring at her,

'So what's the town called you are from Lillie?' asked Mr Flora, wanting to know as much detail as he could get from her which would help her integration into the class,

'I..err. It’s quite a small town quite a way from here' she replied, looking for inspiration from anywhere in the room when she spotted a huge map of Vaymia on the wall to her left, right next to where she was standing, she quickly noticed a small looking town on the other side of the world from where Erwin was, 'It's called...err...Netherbrook...just here' she pointed directly to the town on the map. Mr Flora suddenly perked up a bit when he heard the name of the town,

'Oh that's interesting' he said ' I have friends around that part of the world Lillie, maybe about four or five towns away from there', panic seemed to set in across Lillies face as he said that,

'Oh...really, that's nice s..sir' she bumbled out a reply, now worrying she might be found out,

'Unfortunately, since the start of the wars I haven't heard anything from them or that area in fact, I believe evil forces have flattened the towns by now' replied Mr Flora seemingly lost in thought, 'Ahhhh. Yes where were we' he muttered 'do go on please my girl', Lillie seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at his reply,

'Well as I was saying we lived with our mother in the town...and we had a pet do…' she stopped herself as she knew they wouldn't have heard of a dog before and didn't want to have to explain herself again, so once again she scoured the wall looking for inspiration,

'A Dobbler….' she exclaimed, and with that everyone in the class gasped as they heard her say that name,

'A Dobbler Lillie??...' remarked Mr Flora 'are you sure it was one of those' a puzzled look spread across his face which didn't go unnoticed by Lillie,

'Y.y..yes sir, it definitely was a Dobbler' she replied nervously noticing the mood changing in the room with the children whispering to each other, then she caught sight of what a Dobbler actually looked like as there were pictures across the far wall showing this huge scaly two headed beast attacking what looked like a huge castle somewhere, it's steely ivory eyes sit buried within the creature's bony, hard skull, which gives the creature a rather intimidating looking appearance.

Several enormous horns sit atop its head, just above its thick, dog-like ears. A row of small horns runs down the sides of each of its jaw lines.

Its two noses are flat and have two tiny, slitted nostrils on each head, there are horns running around its chin too. Rows of sharp teeth poke out from the side of its mouth showing the terror hiding inside if anyone were to be unlucky enough to get taken by this huge beast.

A short neck runs down from both its heads and into a huge body. The top is covered in wide scales and a row of smaller scales run down its spine.

Its underbelly is covered in narrow scales and is coloured slightly darker than the rest of its body. Six muscular limbs carry its body and allow the creature to stand up straight as well as walk on all it's limbs. Each limb has 6 digits, each of which has razor sharp claws digging into whatever it decides to stand on.

Freakish wings growing from its shoulders and end at the middle of its back. The wings are almost angel-like in their appearance, One of the heads is shooting fire like nothing she had seen before while the other head was breathing ice from its mouth, and part of the beast was invisible.

'So this is the ‘pet’ you kept then Lillie?' asked Mr Flora as he walked up the drawings which adorned the walls like wallpaper and pointed at one of the pictures 'This destroyer of cities and towns, this unimaginable evil, this….just horrible, horrible creature was a pet of yours?',

'Uh-huh..yep' she replied, her voice quivering slightly as she desperately though of something to come back with, 'well it was a lot smaller when we had him around!!'.

Some of the children sniggered at her answer but she knew she had to keep going with it,

'My brother and I found him out in our woods near where we lived' she started 'we were playing in them one day when we came across Edgar, that's what we called him, he was injured quite badly so we decided to help him. We nursed him back to health over the next few weeks, he was no bigger than us at the time so we took him home and our mother helped up to look after him', once again the children fell silent as Lillies mind ventured off into a different world

'Please do go on Lillie' said Mr Flora 'This sounds fascinating', Lillie didn't know if he was being sarcastic or just enjoying the story,

'Well as I was saying sir when Edgar was almost better mum realised that he was growing very fast and there would come a time when he couldn't stay with us otherwise we would be crushed as he was getting so much bigger now!!' she put in a little snigger to try and make it more light hearted,

'One day when we were outside with him mum made us say our goodbyes, he was almost as tall as our house now so we knew it was the right time to let him go' she lowered her head, pretending to be upset about her ‘pet’ having to leave, 'Edgar seemed to know it too, he lowered his heads to me and I held his huge head gently and left a kiss on his scaly mouth, then done the same to Edgar two, he whimpered softly as if to say goodbye…',

'Then what happened Lillie?' one child shouted excitedly, wanting to hear the rest of the story,

'Well...as Daniel leaned in to say goodbye Edgars heads came together and Daniel was caught between them, they were only being friendly towards him but Daniel was now struggling to breathe, they moved their heads apart and Daniel flopped to the ground gasping for air,

then as Edgar turned to go his body turned sort of….invisible and then he was gone, we never saw him again' Lillies story seemed to have them all mesmerised now, Mr Flora just seemed to sit there as if trying to process her story,

'Wow Lillie…' replied a child at the back 'I bet you miss Edgar don't you!',

'Yes and no I'd say' she replied 'if these drawings are anything to go by then I'm glad he went away!!',

'Ok Lillie go and take your seat again please...and thank you for that amazing ‘story’ of yours' said Mr Flora 'Now we can get back on with the first days lesson, please open your books at page three children ‘The Fourteen Bells Of Peace’..' Mr Floras voice trailed off as Lillie sat at her desk hoping that she had got away with her story, she sat there not really concentrating on anything as her mind wandered off again, small memories kept filling her head of her real past and the life they had come away from, ‘Mum’ she said in her head as blurry images filled her mind like a tap being turned on, but for some reason she was struggling to remember her old life now, one image began to become clearer in her head as she sat there daydreaming, then just as the image cleared she heard a lot of shouting coming from outside in the Arena which broke her concentration. ‘GET HIM….TAKE HIM DOWN…’ came the shouts, the whole class rose to look out of the windows to see what was happening, including Mr Flora.

Just along the corridor stood Daniel's new class, a picture hung on the wall of the teacher, Lady Willo, a very happy looking teacher who always looked for the best in everything, her picture radiated with love and kindness, she was the sort of teacher who everyone wanted to be taught by, inside the class Lady Willo was telling the story of ‘The Fourteen Bells of Peace’ and how they are still guarded to this very day after hundreds of years,

'So children as you now know The Fourteen Bells of Peace are invaluable to the safety and security of our land and their location can never be known for fear of them falling into the wrong hands' she shut her teaching book gently 'Now any questions?',

Not one child raised their hand as most of them had been told their own version about the Bells and their importance by their own parents, Daniel looked round slowly then he raised his hand ever so slowly,

'Err Miss Willo…' he asked

'It's Lady Willo, Daniel and yes do you have a question?' she replied with a smile,

'Well...you see, I don't really know too much about the Bells apart from I know that if they all fall then it will mean a lot of trouble for us..' Daniel said as the children in the class started whispering to each other, something that Lady Willo had noticed,

'Quieten down children please, it's only right that we answer this for Daniel' she said calmly 'It's really a myth that ‘if the Bells fall’ ,as you put it, then it will lead to an evil being unleashed over the land, a mere fictional tale passed down through many generations to keep children away from harm,'

'I..I didn't ask about any of that Lady Willo, I was only told it would mean that the land would be unprotected for a while' Daniel's eyes shut slightly as if he had picked up on something totally different,

'Oh. Err, yes that's what I meant Daniel, you see there have been many