Shadow Author

In the end, the event wrapped up easily with Mr. Griffin taking charge and shouldering most of the responsibility.

It ended with the situation being labeled the Dorm Tragedy where eighteen were confirmed dead and over thirty injured.

The nurse that came over to help Paul ended up taking him away to monitor his health. Thankfully he managed to pull through and survive everything that happened.

However, he isn't free yet as his injuries were quite extensive. His condition turned critical when they were transporting him to the infirmary.

As a result, he fell into a coma and the nurses were unable to tell when he would wake up.

As for Evelyn she had light injuries and was in dire need of rest.

There was no threat to her life but she was extremely disoriented when she awoke and they had to sedate her in order to calm her down and prevent her from harming herself.

As for the other students who got caught up in the destruction I didn't bother to check up on them as their lives were of no importance to what I was trying to achieve.

Charlotte texted me to make sure I was okay because she heard the explosion when the elevator crashed.

Unfortunately due to the elevator being broken down and the debris filling the bottom floor, the teachers asked that the students remain in their dorm rooms.

Since Charlotte was stuck upstairs and unable to come down I could only reassure her that I was fine.

News about the incident spread quickly throughout the school and the fact that people died from such a thing caused it to spread like wildfire.

I had to tell Charlotte close to a hundred times over that I was healthy and that I was just lucky to not get hurt.

She seemed to calm down after I explained it but I didn't have any more time to chat with her as soon after Mr. Griffin came up with some of the other administrators to get my perspective on what happened.

Due to Evelyn and I being the sole survivors he wanted to hear about it from us but Evelyn was currently unavailable as she was knocked out from the medication.

I agreed to explain my stance and that's how I ended up in the administrative room for the second time under trial.

Mr. Griffin already placed the lie detection spell on me and was about to ask his first question.

"Do you know what caused the elevator to collapse?"

I nodded.

"The max capacity of people allowed was exceeded and the weight was too much for the machine to handle."

He remained silent before one of the professors asked a follow-up question.

"Are you positive that was the only reason?"

"What do you mean?"

"That there wasn't any outside force. Take for example a part being faulty or something breaking which might have caused the elevator to crash?"

"If you are asking if it was a manufacturing error I'd have to say no, the elevator simply couldn't support all of us."

Once the professor was reassured that the problem resulted from the students he let out a sigh of relief.

I could only assume that he had some part in engineering the elevator so my testimony would put him in the clear.

After this Mr. Griffin began asking the questions again.

"At what point did you get on the elevator?"

"I was the first to get on."

"Then that means you were there the entire time from start to finish?"

"That's correct."

"I see."

I was relatively calm as I knew nothing was my fault but I did what to keep the red mist a secret if possible which is why I wanted the trial to end as soon as it could.

"Can you list out the order in which the students entered?"

"I can but I don't know their names. You would have to give me a picture so I can identify them."

Mr. Griffin nodded as he called for one of the other people in the room to go get them.

Surprisingly it only took a few moments before a stack of images was placed in front of me.

I was easily able to label who entered when and at what time thanks to the pictures.

The administrators looked over the photos before taking note of the information I provided so far.

Then some other member spoke up and started grilling me about how I handled the situation.

"If you were the first person to get on the elevator why didn't you stop any of the other people from joining later?"

I stared blankly at the woman who asked it.

"Well, I wasn't particularly interested in telling a group of girls that they aren't allowed to get on the elevator in their own dormitory."

"If even doing could have saved their lives?"

Now all eyes fell on me as I had to make my stance clear. I could simply say that I didn't care about this which would cause them to look at me with disgust but they wouldn't suspect me of anything.

However, I didn't want to share some of my feelings unnecessarily so I decided to go the ignorant route.

"How was I supposed to know the elevator would break down? Do you expect me to know the future?"

"No, but-"

"Plus, just before I got on the elevator a group of over fifteen girls came out of it which is why I didn't think too much of the weight limit being exceeded."

Hearing my response Mr. Griffin cut the woman short from asking another question to determine if what I was saying was the truth.

"Are you positive that there was such a large group of girls who came out prior to you entering?"

"I'm not red am I?"

Shifting the blame elsewhere Mr. Griffin wanted to focus on the new lead yet before he allowed me to leave he had one last question.

"Do you know anything about a red mist?"

'Fuck.'

I knew I needed to choose my next couple of words carefully.

"What do you mean by a red mist?"

Mr. Griffin shrugged.

"I'm not so sure myself but during the brief moment Evelyn was conscious she was muttering about the red mist."