Crawling was an annoyance in light of the fact that the air duct was excessively small for him, making it impossible to sit up. The air channel itself was barely wide enough for him to move. Eddie precisely listened to Cassandra’s directions. Every one of the twists and turns put a ton of strain on his elbows and knees. The air pipe led him to a janitor’s room. Cassandra instructed him to the pipe’s end and he did just that. Peering through the grate, he could hear a ton of activity yet no indication of the fiend.

The sound of Cassandra’s fast breathing came to a silent over the Bluetooth mic made Eddie recoil. The room abruptly got too quiet. His heart almost bounced out of his mouth when the vent cover popped open and the prickly head of the goblin erected up to look at Eddie straight without flinching. Eddie felt the oxygen deplete from his lungs, and his muscles tensed to the point that he couldn’t shout. He was petrified for a brief moment when the goblin reached out to get him. His senses instructed him to get up and keep running for his life, but he discovered the brutal fact that he couldn’t escape as he hit his head on the iron dividers of the air duct.

He became light-headed. His vision was blurry. He could vaguely hear his mom’s shouting over the Bluetooth. He had no clue to what extent he was dazed; however, he felt his shirt being pulled at and being moved ahead. With his heart hammering, a wave of new fearlessness gave Eddie an adrenaline surge, and he was looked the goblin straight in the eye. He got a decent look of the fiend’s face. The goblin had yellow, beady eyes and war scars over its face. It had teeth. Snot hung from the side of its jaw as it snarled at Eddie, resolved to draw him down to the janitor’s room.

Being sufficiently cognizant, Eddie stuck both his thumbs into the goblin’s eyes, gouging them. The creature hollered in misery but kept hold of Eddie’s shirt and the weight of its falling body was all that was needed to pull Eddie down from the ventilation duct. Eddie was blessed with landing on the goblin’s body, as it gave enough padding against the impact to prevent harm. Otherwise, he could have harmed himself with broken appendages or more terrible, a fall on his head, and snapped his neck like a twig. Eddie took a minute to clean himself before taking a gander at his environment. There was no chance he could return and move further down the air duct.

“Change of arrangements. Exit the janitor’s room while you have the shot.”

Eddie’s lower leg was grabbed by the injured goblin, keeping him from leaving the room. The fiend growled at him. Eddie equipped himself with a broom, which was the closest blunt object, and duly smacked the goblin in the back of its cranium. “Get off of me, you stupid goblin!” The goblin soon lost consciousness and Eddie left the janitor’s room with no trouble.

Outside, Jacob was anticipating him, yet he had his back to Eddie. Eddie was worried as he drew closer to him. Jacob spun around with such fury that it caught Eddie off-guard. Jacob’s eyes sparkled blue and Eddie knew his companion was mesmerized. Gradually, Eddie move at a slow as his companion’s frightening gleaming eyes looked at his movements. Jacob then reached for a whistle, attached around his neck like a jewel, and blew it. The silence was broken with a horrendous ruckus that reverberated through the hallway.

“Leave! Go!”

Groups of entranced children came spilling out from the classrooms. Eddie ran and did his best to listen to his mom’s headings, which led him to the staircase. He could hear the entranced children shouting. He smashed himself into the push lever that opened the entryway. Going down the stairwell was impossible since he could see shadows spiraling up and cries and loud strides reverberating. Eddie gasped as he ran up to the rooftop. He was caught. There was no chance he could descend without taking a chance on his life.

The youngsters followed and rapidly enclosed Eddie. Presently he had no spot to keep running, but the rooftop . Eddie sweated as a cool chill kept running down his spine. Such a fiendish sensation made him need to upchuck. His Bluetooth became static and he couldn’t hear his mom. In the blink of an eye, a stately shrouded figure made its presence known. Underneath the shroud was a good looking man with dark raven hair that seemed all too familiar to Eddie. Still, he had never seen this man before. Eddie deflected his eyes when the man’s eyes flashed red. It was just a brief moment, but Eddie saw tribal markings carved around the iris.

He didn’t realize what came over him. Eddie’s senses had let him know not to look at the man without flinching. It resembled a scene out of the Ramen Ninja Boy manga where individuals of a specific ninja clan were conceived with red eyes with Japanese tomoe markings, which looked like tadpoles; the eyes had energy to cast illusions on individuals in a brief instant. Eddie realized that he was considerably more off-guard when confronting an enemy or foe in battle without looking at them straight in the eye.

Eddie was caught.

There was no escape.