[ WP ] There 's a school that kills all of its students at the end of their senior year . Everyone knows this , but you 're the only one who has a problem with it .

Two hundred thousand pairs of eyes watched as the three of us walked on stage. `` And now,'' said the Headmaster as he gestured to us, `` your Faustus Academy of Deep Arcana graduating class of 2016!'' The crowd erupted in a chorus of cheers, applause, shouts, roars, stomps and colorful, miniature explosions launched into the sky. Morris led us on stage, visibly shaking, his hands drifting up to rub the purple bruise the rope gave him when he tried to hang himself just a couple hours ago. Ahh, immortality must be a bitch, I thought. Nancy, followed behind him, a length of fabric torn from her sleeve tied over her eyes, or, more precisely, where her eyes used to be two hours ago before she dug them out. I brought up the rear, eyes straight ahead, wondering how I'd gotten here, my robes tight around me and the twenty-pound explosive vest I wore under it. 
 
 You see, it takes a special breed of asshole to apply to the Faustus Academy of Deep Arcana. You want to learn how to brew love potions or cast stunning spells? Go to the Merlin University or Boarboil College. At the Faustus Academy, there are no team sports, no academic clubs, no group projects. You're not here to learn cheap tricks or manipulate magic. You're here to dominate magic, to bend it to your will and claim it for your own. And yes, everyone knows that no one person has ever been able to control magic, and yet that does n't stop Faustus Academy from filling a class year after year. 
 
 `` And now,'' the Headmaster said, `` I'd like to present this year's valedictorian, Morris Fortuna, with the honor of being the first to conduct his graduation ritual.'' 
 
 He mixed the contents of several containers together into a cauldron and snapped his fingers, instantly boiling the contents into a paste. He stripped to his waist and I saw scars carved throughout his chest, his abdomen, his back. Ritual scars, the kind that bleed and bleed and bleed. He smeared the paste onto his face, turning it a deep shade of red. With the rest of the paste, he painted a 20 foot wide circle on the stage. Morris grabbed another container and scattered a white powder into the center of the circle. Around the edges, he placed 4 heads, one in each of the cardinal directions. I recognized one of them as Margaret's and another as Johnny's. He must've been keeping them frozen since neither looked as far decomposed as they should have after we split their bodies up just before Christmas break, Sophomore year. In fact I was going to use some of Margaret's bones in my own graduation ritual. 
 
 Morris knelt before the circle and started chanting. Chanting was probably the one thing all graduation rituals had in common. The other thing was that they would all end in our deaths, just like last year's graduating class, and the year before that, and the year before that, all the way back to the founding of the school. 
 
 After of couple of minutes, the sky darkened and red lightning flashed across the sky. The ground shook and a giant pit opened in the center of the circle. The heads started chanting as well. All of the scars on Morris' body glowed red, the same red as the light now emitting from the pit. Flames and screams burst from deep within the hole. 
 
 I yawned. It was all standard ritual stuff. I really expected more from our valedictorian. To have made a deal with a pit demon, well that was just cliche. Then I saw a head. A human head with slicked-back, black hair. It rose from the pit to reveal a man of average height, dressed in a slick, black, three-piece suit. A perfectly average man, if you could ignore the red, whip-thin tail and the fact that he was floating a foot over the pit. He stepped forward to the edge of the circle as if walking on an invisible floor. He extended his hand only pull it back as if it had just been shocked. Quickly, he regained his composure and took in his surroundings before focusing his attention on Morris. 
 
 The man, who was definitely not a man, spread his arms and smiled, displaying a sharp set of fangs. `` Well, Morris, it appears we've finally reached the end of our contract,'' he said. 
 
 Morris stood up and bowed his head. `` Yes, Leviathan, this is the end.'' He stepped forward and descended into the flames. Leviathan laughed and followed him down, the portal closing behind him. 
 
 `` Holy shit,'' I said to myself. Morris had made a pact with Leviathan, one of Lucifer's personal guards during the Fall. Not only that, but he'd managed to summon the devil to Earth while keeping him restrained in such a tiny cage. Very impressive. 
 
 And that's really the whole point of these graduation rituals, to show-off for one last time. To tread where those who call themselves great fear to go. To show the world what magic is truly capable of. And I'm sure it provides a boost to enrollment when someone summons a devil from Lucifer's inner circle, as well. 
 
 Nancy went next. On a hunch, I closed my eyes, assuming whatever it was she made a deal with was something that you did n't want to lay eyes upon. I could here her moving around, chanting words I did n't understand, beautiful words that the world had forgotten long ago. It was a good thirty minutes before I felt a warmth shine on my body, on my soul. I felt something I had n't felt in the longest time - joy, bliss, contentment, forgiveness. A voice spoke back from above, a voice so deep and rich and pure, I could feel tears starting to stream down my face - and blood trickle from my ears. There was a loud boom and I was thrown back several feet. 
 
 I opened my eyes to see a crater where Nancy was standing, it's edges marked with runes and symbols I'd never seen before. Based on the lack of blood or body chunks, I assume whatever it was either took Nancy or else had disintegrated her to dust. I looked around the crowd to see that some people were not as smart and did n't close their eyes before hand. It took a good while to bandage everyone up and get them to a hospital. Through their constant babbling, I made out the words `` beautiful,'' `` wings,'' and `` tentacles.'' 
 
 But that's why we do it, the graduation rituals. 4 years of study at Faustus Academy of Deep Arcana comes at a price, usually your soul, sometimes even someone else's. As I said, only a special breed of asshole applies to Faustus Academy. An asshole that knows, from the moment they apply, that no one has made it past graduation day and yet believes, truly believes that they are better than the hundreds and hundreds of wizards who came before them, that they, somehow, will finally be the one to conquer magic. And then comes 4 years of study, 4 years of doing horrible, terrible, unspeakable things to make it to graduation day. Things that would eventually drive any one of us insane when the guilt finally catches up. Every graduate knows this. People who have done the things we've done ca n't exist alongside proper society. And so the graduation ceremony exists so we may demonstrate our abilities before sacrificing our lives. 
 
 I made my way to an unharmed section of the stage with my materials. First, the metal stage was unsuitable for my ritual. I tapped my foot twice and snapped my fingers once, turning a large section around me into rocky terrain, sort of like what one would expect on the side of a mountain. I grabbed some bones and powdered blood from my materials and began throwing them around randomly, some over here, a bit more over there, a little less on the other side. The ambiance set, I waved my hand in the air and a huge, metal cage covered in paper talismans fell, enclosing the area and myself. After all, if this worked, the world was about to see something that had n't walked the Earth since the time of King Arthur himself. 
 
 Then came the shoveling. It was the one part of the ritual I was not looking forward to, well, except for the dying part. Mostly because it gave me time to think. Especially about why I was so pissed about dying. It was n't that I did n't expect it or even that I did n't deserve it. 
 
 The pit finally finished, I levitated myself out. I grabbed a 5-gallon bucket of blood and poured it down the hole. I walked to the far side of the cage and surveyed my work. Rocky terrain, bones and blood, a hole. Well, it was n't quite the Cave of Caerbannog but it was close enough. 
 
 I did n't think it would work, but an hour later, I saw something move, hop out of the pit. I saw two, tiny red eyes in the darkness. From outside the cage, I could hear the crowd `` ooh'' and `` ahh'' and, of course, more than a couple people yelled, `` it is the rabbit!'' 
 
 Deep down, that's probably the biggest issue I had with the graduation ritual - that I was going to be killed by a joke. The killer rabbit of Caerbannog! Come on, how could anyone believe it was real. But there it was, almost at the very back of the book of restricted rituals. The lucky thing was that since this was n't the real cave and I'd be summoning it, the rabbit would go back down the hole after killing me. The downside was that, as I said, I'd be killed by a rabbit. 
 
 Seeing the crowd of people, the rabbit lunged at them first, but collided with the enchanted bars of the cage. Obviously it would be a real dick move if I just let it go after the spectators. The rabbit fixed its beady eyes on me as I grabbed the detonator from my pocket. The rabbit lunged cautiously, as if uncertain about what I held in my hand. 
 
 There's no holy hand grenades in today's modern era. Trust me, I looked. I settled instead for 20lbs of C4 and as many ball bearings and nails as the vest could hold, and the whole contraption doused with holy water and blessed by the only priest I could find who believed that this was for a school project. `` One! Two! Five!'' I said with a smile as I released the detonator and triggering the dead man's switch.
