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Chapter 27 27- Do Not Accept Mystery Tea From Strangers
“I am literally watting here, doing my own thing I’m not bothering you at all fust trave se be.” 1 pay evenly. I’m proud of myself the bow steady my voice wunds No shaking No napping Post firm Mallory nods along solemnly, hands clasped in front of her like she’s been chastised
“You’re right, I’ll just leave you be,” she says sweetly. Too sweet, Lie. Every instinct I have screams it. She turns casually, stepping away from her desk, and for half a heartbeat I think, maybe she actually will. Then the stumbles. At least, that’s what it looks like. Her foot catches nothing. There’s no where s spill. No reason at all for her to lose her balance, except that she suddenly does. Her arms fling outward dramatically, and everything she’s holding goes airborne. Including her container. Time slows in that awful, useless way where I can see exactly what’s about to happen and know i can’t do it. The glass container spins once in the air, still steaming, bits of soggy leaf clinging to the liquid inside, Straight. At. Me. My breath catches as 1 instinctively throw ex arms up, twitting away, but I’m seated, boxed in by the desk, with nowhere to go. Shit.
For half a second, my arm, shoulder, and part of my back burn. It’s sharp and immediate, hot enough to steal the air from my lungs, but it lasts barely a heartbeat. Then… Nothing. Not relief. Not cooling. Nothing. Oh… Well. That wasn’t as bad as I was expecting. Except, wait… That’s not right either. Because I don’t just feel fine. I don’t feel anything. The skin where the potion splashed is completely numb. Not tingling, not fuzzy, just gone. Like that part of my body has been switched off entirely. I stare down at my arm in disbelief, watching pale green liquid drip slowly over skin I can no longer feel. Wow. Thin stuff works fast. And efficiently. A little too efficiently. The realisation hits me a second later as the liquid keeps moving, sliding further down my arm and soaking into the fabric at my shoulder, trailing across my back. Wherever it goes, there’s the same pattern, brief, sharp heat, followed instantly by that eerie emptiness. Burn. Then nothing. I swallow hard. Okay. That’s… Less great. I shift in my chair, suddenly hyper–aware of my body, and that’s when the panic really starts to creep in. The numbness isn’t staying put. It’s spreading, blooming outward in uneven patches. I feel the idea of sensation rather than sensation itself, like my brain knows something should be there but can’t find it. Then my scalp prickles. Or, used to prickle. Now there are odd dead spots across my head, like someone pressed cold coins into my hairline. I can’t feel the weight of my hair properly anymore. I’m pretty sure some of the potion splashed higher than I thought. Yeah. This is definitely a problem. I try to lift my hand to get the professor’s attention. It moves. I can SEE it move. But the sensation lags behind, warped and distant, like I’m controlling someone else’s arm through a bad connection. The disconnect is horrifying in a way I don’t have time to fully process. The detached, clinical part of my brain, the one that’s been cataloging symptoms, just… Disappears. Panic rushes in to fill the
space.
“P- Professor!” I call out, my voice too high, cracking despite my attempt to keep it steady. The room goes quiet. Professor Matthews turns toward me, and the easy grin he’s been wearing all class vanishes instantly. His eyes flick over everything at once, the shattered glass on the floor, the still–steaming liquid dripping from my sleeve, the way I’m frozen halfway out of my chair. He’s moving toward me before I even finish inhaling.
“WHAT, THE HELL, HAPPENED?” He demands, loud enough to echo. I open my mouth to answer. Nothing comes out. I know what happened. I saw what
happened. But my thoughts feel sluggish now, like they’re wading through syrup, and my throat refuses to cooperate. Maybe it’s shock. Maybe it’s adrenaline. Maybe it’s the sudden realisation that I can’t feel a large portion of my own body. Before I can force the words out, Mallory rushes forward.
“It was an accident!” She blurts, voice pitched high and trembling in a way that almost sounds convincing.
“I was just trying to pour it into the jar and I wanted a better angle, so I walked around the table and I tripped and, it just went everywhere!” She says in a
shaky voice. Her hands flutter uselessly as she speaks. I think she even manages to squeeze out a tear. The injustice of it hits me hard enough to cut
through the panic. That’s not… That’s not what happened. I suck in a breath, my heart hammering.
T
“Th- that’s not right.” I manage, my voice shaky but louder this time.
“She did it on purpose.”
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How Not To Fall For A Dragon
