Our world is not the only world, there are others outside of it. Some of these worlds are physical planes such as our own. Others are worlds of thought or a single force. And some of those other worlds want nothing else but to destroy us. -A passage from Introduction to the Planes, by Roldolf Grunsier

Adrian

The modern era is great, technology does most of our work for us. Though I do at time wish it was a little more like it was in the middle ages. If the journals of my ancestors are to be believed, you used to be able to get away with far more than today.

“. . . Adrian doesn’t pay attention, he's reading a book.”

I look up from the book I had been reading before I wandered off in thought. I’m in social studies, and it looks like we’re are still going over the test from last week. Mr. Gibbons, the teacher, must have just called someone out for something.

“Adrian scored 110 on the last test and is not distracting others. He can read all he wants. You however scored a 17, and need to pay attention or won’t be passing this class.”

I nod towards Mr. Gibbons and Doug as some of the students laugh at Doug's misfortune, before returning to my book. Which line was I on? I can’t remember, not that it matters this is my third time reading this book. I feel my phone vibrate in my pocket.

Odd, nobody ever texts or calls me during school. I suppose I should check it. I’ll wait for a few minutes though, Doug probably was messing around on his phone and got caught. I would like to keep my privileges in this class so I am not coerced to listen to the lectures, seriously how many years are they going to spend saying ‘remember Hitler is bad?'

The laughter dies down and Mr. Gibbons returns to the next most missed question on his test. At least the laughter covered up my phone's noise, Mr. Gibbons like most of the teachers, has a policy that phones must be turned off in class. While the policy is to confiscate, he usually just does public embarrassment.

I’ll just shift around in the seat as I pull the phone from my left pocket, and there I have it. Nobody seems to have noticed. Tap the screen and the picture for texts.

Something big is going down. Magic of some sort. I’ll make sure your stuff is where I showed you I would keep it. -Crazy Grandpa

Well, I’ll probably get to hear a newer crazy story in a few days. So, he's leaving some firearms and ammunition on my desk in the guest room. I doubt that I’ll need them here at school, nobody has messed with me since I beat up that football jock last year after he picked a fight. Some magic thing is going down. Well Grandpa will be fine, I doubt there is anyone better than him left in the world.

I pocket my phone and turn the page of my book even though I didn't finish it. A loud explosion happens outside the window just as I start to reading the next page. Startled I turn to look out the window, as does everyone else, to see green midgets flooding out of a discolored cloud of air. How is there purple fog? That’s not important, green midgets wearing loincloths with crude weaponry. They also appear to be starved.

Several of the girls in the room start screaming, and most others seem to be asking what the ‘green midgets’ are, but I can’t hear 30 people at once. Mr. Gibbons shouts over everyone’s questions.

“Get away from the windows, and shut up!”

A good sugestion, but there is not much of the room not close to a window. A few of the students run out the open door into the hall screaming as I begin talking. “Mr. Gibbons, they don’t seem friendly could you pass out you bat collection?”

“Good idea” he replies as he moves towards the room’s closet, and starts tossing bats to the members of the sports teams in the class. Of course he passes the improvised weapons to his players.

I hear breaking glass from behind me and turn to see a green midget charging towards me with a spear. I move the book in my hand so that the spear will strike it rather than my side. It’s a paperback so the spear should pierce the cover and get caught.

My sacrifice of reading material works and the midget's spear strikes it rather than me. I grab my bookbag from under my desk as I shove it, the desk, into the midget. As I was doing so, more of the windows were broken and there are now six of the green midgets in the room. More of the students run into the hallway but all save one of the boys who were given a bat stayed.

I back up as one of the bat wielding students swings at the midget that stabbed at me. I check to make sure no one is looking as I reach into my book bag. I hope Grandpa already placed the guns on that desk, and I perform the magic trick he taught me, Translocation Grasp I think he calls it, and pull the pistol from my book bag.

It’s loaded, one in the chamber and a magazine of 15. As I switch off the safety, Carter the student who swung at the green midget who charged me gets skewered by another midget. There are now nine of them in the room. A few dozen are charging towards the windows to this room. I raise the pistol and take aim at the midget who just skewered Carter, it’s also the closest one to me, and fire.

Its skull ruptures as a bullet passes through. The few students still in the room and Mr. Gibbons turn towards me. They are probably wondering how I got a gun past the metal detectors in front of the school, I’m going to have some trouble over this later. First though I have another 15 bullets to unleash on these creatures, better to be in trouble than dead.

“Ask later, retreat into the hall towards the Spanish teacher.” I tell them as I back up towards the door. I hold another in my sight for a fraction of a second before it too lacks a chuck of its head. Bryan and Tomas have Spanish class this period, it’s also an interior classroom so it will be a good place to hold a defense.

The seven living midgets begin to charge me as I back up through the doorway, shooting another as it stumbles over one of the desks. I slam the door shut on another of the midgets, and shoot the handle to destroy the locking mechanism. That should keep those creatures busy for a bit. I hear a scream from a midget on my right, I turn to see it flying backwards a few feet from a swing of a baseball bat. There are more midgets coming from that direction, but everything that way has windows so I don’t care.

I turn around to see three midgets skewering another of the baseball team in the locker linned hallway. I have twelve bullets still, so I shoot the three in the right side of their respective chests as I move in that direction. The midgets that were charging towards me from behind start shouting, but they aren’t moving towards me. Mr. Gibbons is running through the hall, striking only the midgets in his way. The jocks he gave bats to are clustered with him except for the one behind me.

“Tell me if the midgets charge, I’ll clear us a way behind the others.”

“I want a gun" my impromptu ally responds.

“I only have this one.”

I start walking down the hall, as three more midgets come out of a classroom. They are covered in blood, and it doesn’t seem to be their own. I aim and shoot one before they notice me, his blood splashes onto the other two. They turn towards me and charge, shouting in some tongue I don’t speak.

I fire and strike another in its knee, not dead but it is no longer dangerous. The other gets close enough to me to swing at me with its crude club. I step inside his reach, place the gun against his head and fire. My shirt is now wet, there is probably gore stuck on it now, its club hit my back but there was little force behind it. My heart beat rising as I am for once thankfull of what little physical training grandpa makes me do during the summer.

“Holy shit!”

“Watch behind me, not what I’m doing.”

Mr. Gibbons and his crew pass turn left at the intersection ahead. I hear some screams coming from the room to my left as I move towards the intersection. Looking into the room I see four of the midgets holding down a fat kid as they take bites out of him. I empty the last six bullets of the magazine into the room. The screams of the midgets let me know I at least hit them a few times. I probably shot the fat kid too, a bullet was probably less painful than being eaten alive.

The student with the bat behind me must have seen it as he asks “why did you shoot him?”

“To close to the midgets, I can’t hit them and not him.”

“Then why did you fire?”

“The midgets were easy targets; besides I’ll have to shoot them at some point and he was already dead.” I respond as I pull a magazine from my bookbag using my grandpa’s Translocation Grasp. I reload the pistol, and drop the spent magazine into my bag. We arrive at the intersection. To my right there are three students fighting with five of the midgets, they hold crude blades. To my left are classrooms without windows, there are several students and a few teachers yelling at each other.

“Tell them the kid with the gun wants everyone to form a defensive line.”

“Why me?”

“I’ll be shooting rapid midgets, be glad you have the safer job.”

The baseball player then runs over to the arguing group. I turn towards the brawl and shout “Down!” The students comply, and I fire a few rounds into the now confused midgets. One of the students takes a knife to the gut as he fell, but the five midgets are dead. One of the boys drags back the injured. His friend? While the other grabs the weapons from the corpses of the midgets.

The argument behind me has gone silent. There are no midgets in sight though I can hear breaking glass ahead of me. I turn around, to see several students peeking out of the classrooms.

“That guy wants us to build a wall.”

Not what I told you baseball guy, but close enough.

“He isn’t in charge!” shouts the guidance counselor, I forget her name.

“Doesn’t matter, he’s right we need a wall to defend ourselves. This is the only hallway without conecting classrooms with exterior windows. We should defend ourselves here” interrupts Mr. Gibbons.

“You aren’t in charge either! I am unless the principle or vice principle is here!”

“Then you tell the students to set one up.”

“We are not to fight at all!”

I hear something running at me from behind, and turn to see a dozen midgets moving towards me. I begin firing into their crowd. The first bullet strikes the front most midget in the torso, the next one the head. I fire four more shots before they reached striking distance.

Three stay near me, while the other four continue towards the arguing teachers. Of the three fighting me, one holds a rusty short sword the other two with clubs. The four that ran past me all held spears. I step forwards to dodge the sword blow, the two clubs striking my waist. I fire the pistol into the head of the midget and grab the rusted blade with my left as he loses his grasp in death.

I hear screams from the counselor behind me. The sound of a something hitting a locker follows. I pivot and swing the short sword at the neck of one of the midgets, he bocks it with his club. The other midget strikes my side with its club. I kick it and shoot the midget whose club my sword is stuck in.

The last midget near me starts to run away from me, back in the direction it came in. I fire at it and managed to hit its lower back. I turn to see two of the four midgets with split heads from bats while the other two have skewered one of the English teachers. I fire two bullets into the rather stationary midgets. The counselor is still screaming in terror at the blood that managed to splash onto her. Some of the male students have come out of the classrooms.

I see my friend Bryan run up towards me. He is a tall boy, like me, being just over six foot tall and has brown hair and blue eyes.

“Adrian! You’re alive. What’s going on? Nice gun.”

Tomas another friend starts walking towards us, stops to grab some spears from the fallen midgets. He is shorter than either of us, like Bryan he has brown hair and blue eyes however his glasses make him look like far more like a nerd than me, at least before the fact I almost always am carrying a book around.

“Fighting midgets. Thanks. How about we get some walls set up, can you get other students to help?”

“Sure, is it just me or do the midgets look like goblins?”

“They do, not sure which variation they could be. Fight first questions later.”