Crystals- Chapter Two: Inner Strength by Benjamin Hampton

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You and I. Immediately."

Master Dyob grabbed her by the forearm and hauled her off, repeating a motion that he had probably gone through hundreds if not thousands of times in his life. Juiloq had never personally been to detention, but she heard that it was truly horrible—life altering, in fact. Plus, since Master Dyob was assigning the time, she was going to be down there for quite a bit of time. Their footsteps softly echoed and after what seemed like an eternity they were at the door that led to detention: the absolute last place that she ever wanted to be.

She had heard stories from other people in the Academy, and they made her shudder just from remembering the stories that pale-faced classmates told to an anxious circle of children, all taking it as some ghoul story told at a campfire.

In detention, she would be standing against a stone wall while hundreds of stitches of Strength wrapped around her, leaving her frozen, powerless and just hoping with every bit of her heart that the pain and loneliness would end soon. The pain was there because even the low rate of Strength that was being used in each individual stitch, it was still enough to be potentially deadly to anyone; Academy trained or not. The loneliness was there because when the Strength was put into use in detention, the Strength the person had in them got sucked away, turned into nothing until the person was released from detention, thus released from the Strength put on them. But, as anybody who had used Strength and went to detention would say that Strength gave them a superb feeling inside anytime they consciously used it, and when they weren't it became like a third leg, making life easier. When it was taken away, it left the body feeling empty, as if that large piece had suddenly gone missing. They were empty. They were miserable.

Somehow it always managed to work out like that; the last place on the face of the planet Juiloq wanted to be was exactly where she was going.
Master Dyob opened the door slowly, and when Juiloq looked up she could swear the Master had a small, nearly undetectable but still existent smirk on his old, rapidly more wrinkled face. He twisted a creaky doorknob and shouldered a door open with surprising force, and then pulled Juiloq into a circular room.

There was no ceiling, and a cool, refreshing breeze came from seemingly nowhere and everywhere at once. It brushed his hair around, and filled his lungs—making him feel as if all was right with the world. The roof was covered by two large trees that had wide green leaves which blocked most of the sunlight, but still allowed some to slip through the cracks. She could hear birds, and longed to go and look at them, and other animals around also made noises. The entire thing was very enticing to her, but apparently not to Master Dyob, who pulled her with a bit more force than usual. "Keep your feet moving girl." Juiloq had not been aware hat her feet were not moving; she had become very wrapped up in the environment.

She was forced to look down, and that was the first time she got a chance to look at the room itself.