Beds lined the walls, curtained off, muffling the world within. One curtain hung half-torn. Lian’s rapid chatter and persistent beeping filled the hospital air; the steady hum was a distant memory.

  The air vibrated, a static that blurred the edge of my vision. The air felt thick and heavy against my skin as I walked.

  My hands rested inside my pockets, seeking the familiar warmth of the fabric. The lining was soft, brushed cotton. Familiar, like the inside of my old coat.

  Lian’s voice broke through—too fast, too bright. “…and then he panicked and teleported into the ceiling. Just his shoes, though. The rest of him stayed on the floor, which, honestly, is worse...

  Suddenly, Lian turned around. "Are you even listening?" She said, her voice bouncing off the corridor walls.

  I gave a sharp nod, my gaze snagging on the ward's glass.

  "...anyway, if I ever get stuck mid-jump, just leave me there." Lian paused, her gaze fixed on the wall for an instant. "I’ll become art. ‘Girl in Plaster.’" She swept her hands out. "You’d visit me, right?” she added, turning to me with a wink.

  My stomach clenched. Behind the glass, wires and tubes pressed in. That body from before.

  The skin looked wrong... too smooth in some places, patchy in others, like it had been fixed, but not all the way.

  Where eyes should have been, there were only sockets. Where a mouth, a stitched line.

  One tube ran from the head into the wall as if the room wanted to hear its thoughts.

  The chest rose, barely... more twitching than breathing.

  My lungs seized, fingers scrabbling inside my pocket, stroking the dry petals. My other hand tightened on my pants, a silent protest as the beeping around me warped.

  Lian grabbed my arm. “Come on, slowpoke…”

  The contact was sudden, snapping my body awake. She dragged me out of the room, pulling hard on my arm. Her grip was warm—the watch on his wrist. I had stared at it once... too long. The corridor. The containment doors.

  The hallway tilted. My skin prickled.

  “Stop!”

  It came out louder than I meant.

  The air bent around me: brief, brittle, and straining to scatter from Lian's hold.

  My hand twitched, a tremor of an urge to be gone. But I stayed. I always stay.

  My fingers scrabbled for the rice flower. Its dry petals, a ghost against the tight edges of Lian's grip, a desperate pressure against the one in my chest.

  Just outside the ward, I half-freed myself as Lian’s grip softened. Not release. Restraint. Her fingers didn’t tighten. They just stopped moving.

  Lian’s eyes widened, just a breath, just a flicker of surprise at the sudden space between us. Her smile didn’t fall. It froze, then faded into something bare, like the moment after a joke lands wrong and no one knows how to fix it. I felt the verdict settle: broken, unfixable, not worth the effort.

  But it didn’t come.

  My breath, held tight, finally eased out, though my muscles remained coiled.

  Lian didn’t reach for me again. Instead, her open palm, which was still extended like in a rejected greeting, twitched almost imperceptibly.

  I’d seen her power in the Coliseum, the air itself buckling and the walls groaning with her struggle. She could crush me without trying, yet I'd just slapped her arm away as if she’d given me a reason to.

  But Lian’s eyes didn’t narrow with anger. Instead, her focus sharpened, her head gave a minute tilt. She floated down, slow and calm. Like she’d done it a hundred times—for people whose bodies spoke before their mouths did. "I’ve felt that before. The way your body wants to vanish but doesn’t.”

  Lian's eyes met mine. “Some of us pull back. Not because we want to, but because we’ve learned what happens when we don’t.” Her tone was soft, honest, as if she’d learned not to startle people who brace before they’re touched.

  “But don’t worry. I don’t break easily.” She tapped her chest once with her fist. “Even when I fought the Midwich Ripper, I didn’t break.”

  That’s when I saw it. The glint. The curl. The ease.

  The same one I’d seen in the sketch. Not cruel. Not pitying. Just… playful.

  I watched Lian turn and walk ahead of me, her glance briefly meeting mine. It was an invitation, but more than that, it was a pull I chose to answer.

  It was mostly quiet as I followed Lian, the older girl keeping her hands behind her head as she hummed a tune off-key.

  Then a notebook zipped from a shelf and into her hand, pages fluttering open mid-air. “The relic, here is where it begins!“ Her voice dropped into a deep growl, plucking one page loose with a flick of her fingers. Lian's hands went wide, holding the paper aloft like a sacred scroll.

  The sterile scent of the hospital clung to me, battling the artificial sweetness hanging in the Rec-room. My eyes blinked, adjusting to the sudden, almost aggressive brightness after the muted tones of the ward.

  I saw Cassian lounging upside-down on a couch off to the side near the table, legs hooked over the backrest like a bat, his head bopping imperceptibly to a beat only he could hear.

  Without announcing herself, Lian half jumped—half floated herself on top of a table where Julian sat with a couple of other students.

  “I see you’re feeling better, Lian.” He flicked cards lazily toward a boy about my age, who caught them without looking and stacked them in neat rows. Neither spoke. The hum returned, faint and steady. It vibrated just beneath the surface.

  Cassian flipped from the couch and got to his feet “So you’re do-”

  “Hush, servant, and assist me in the seance!” Lian said, pointing at Cassian with a finger as if recruiting him for an important task.

  Lian raised her arms like a conductor.

  “Uoooooooooh!” Her voice boomed through the room. Soon enough, both Cassian and Julian chimed in, their voices lurching up and down the scale like a flock of geese trying to sing opera.

  Apparently, Cassian didn’t mind as long as it wasn’t reggaeton.

  'The psionic relic' hovered between Lian's hands, folding itself with exaggerated precision.

  "Behold!" she said, her voice echoing off the walls. "The relic of fate—ancient, sacred, slightly crumpled.”

  I stared. “You’re making a cootie catcher.”

  “I’m summoning destiny!” Her voice boomed through the room as her hair lifted like static.

  "Destiny’s never looked so much like a paper cut waiting to happen."

  “Now pick a color.” For an instant, Lian’s lips curved up before returning to her tense grimace, her eyes shining with energy.

  Lian held the psionic relic like a sacred talisman. It looked like a paper fortune teller: creased, faintly glowing, flapping in her hands as if it had opinions.

  She levitated slightly, hair floating upward, voice echoing like prophecy.

  “Pick. A. Color.” she intoned with a hiss, her glimmering eyes staring at mine like they wanted to take my soul.

  I stared. “Is this… serious?”

  "Deadly," she said, mock reverently. “This relic has seen the future. And also third grade.”

  I sighed. I was tempted to say invisible. “Blue.”

  She spelt it out, flapping corners theatrically. ‘B-L-U-E.’ With each letter, the relic unfurled, opening vertically and horizontally.

  “Now pick a number and think of your question.”

  “Seven.”

  She counted now, slower this time, like the relic needed time to calibrate its nonsense. I didn’t speak, didn’t blink. But the question was already there, forming in the quiet space behind my eyes: Will I see my parents again?

  I stared at Lian in the eyes and nodded.

  Lian opened the flap. Her voice dropped, mock solemn. “It is done.” Her hands released the paper and let it float in the air. I watched as it moved towards me and began to unfold itself, presenting its answer to me.

  ‘You can count on it.’

  If only my math skills were that reliable.

  I snorted. “That’s so lame.”

  It was corny enough to make me roll my eyes, but the knot in my chest eased. Exactly the kind of thing he’d say.

  Lian and the other two let out a loud "Aaaaaaaaagh!" Not laughter exactly, more like the way kids at school used to groan when someone fell for a setup: dramatic, and weirdly affectionate.

  I didn’t believe it. But I wanted to.

  Cassian and Lian were already immersed in interrogating another cootie catcher. Julian and that kid were still absorbed in the cards. Nearby, a small girl was sketching on paper, lost in her own world.

  They were all so...present. So engaged. Me? Just memories.

  So I stood slowly. No one stopped me, probably realizing that I needed some space.

  I walked around the large room. There were a lot of students: loud, scattered, pulsing with energy. I didn’t want to be part of it. I wanted to be near it, but not inside it. So I looked for a quieter spot.

  That’s when I saw the silence across the room. The couch in front of the TV looked empty: just a flicker and a buzz. But something felt off. I walked there to confirm my suspicion, and surely enough, there was the pale figure of the Tyrant of Halden, sitting on his throne.

  Ripper.

  His posture was loose, but not relaxed.

  Ripper hadn’t been around when I woke. I’d assumed I’d overslept and he’d left without me. Part of me was curious about where he’d gone, but another part welcomed the quiet. If he wouldn’t offer answers, at least I could have peace.

  I didn’t want to be loud. just wanted to be near someone who could exist within the quiet, not flinch from it.

  The screen flickered with muted colors and low sound. He didn’t react or move, just breathed.

  So I walked toward the couch, the room seeming to shrink a bit. I sat cross-legged next to him, just close enough to share the quiet.

  He didn’t look up. But he didn’t move away either.

  I pulled the creased scrap from my pocket and folded it slowly. No theatrics. just corners meeting.

  Inside it still said: ‘You can count on it.’

  I didn’t ask a question. I didn’t need to.

  I tucked the paper into my other pocket, opposite the rice flower, letting them thrum together.

  “So you got your initiation, huh?” Ripper was the one who broke the silence, his eyes never leaving the screen.

  ”Where did you go?” I said, shifting my weight slightly as I stared directly into his golden eyes, trying to catch his attention. My gaze flickered for a second to the muted colors on the screen. It was an odd foreign cartoon I was unfamiliar with. "You weren't there this morning," I added, the words feeling a little hollow in the quiet.

  “Probably off destroying a small town in my sleep,” Ripper shrugged dryly, eyes on the TV. “I hear that’s trending.”

  He didn’t smile. On the screen, kids played hide-and-seek in a forest. A bigger woman, a maid, I supposed, chased after them.

  “You should’ve woken me,” I said, my voice taking on a low, shaky edge. “I could’ve helped." I turned from the screen to look at him. "Teleporters make great accomplices.” My face felt stiff as I tried to arrange it into the smirk I’d seen Ripper and the others use here.

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  Ripper let out a low laugh. “That’d be a pair. The Midwich Ripper and the Gremlin of Halden, stomping across America. We’d be unstoppable.”

  He didn’t look at me, but the corner of his mouth twitched—as if the idea amused him more than he’d admit.

  I rolled my eyes, but the corner of my mouth mirrored his smile closer now. “I’m not a gremlin,” I said finally. “If anything, I’m the Sadness Sasquatch.”

  Ripper snorted. “That’s worse.”

  I shrugged. “At least Sasquatch gets to be blurry and mysterious. Gremlins just break microwaves and wail in vents.”

  He didn’t argue. Just let the silence stretch again, this time softer. Like he’d remembered the jokes from before, and realized I had finally come up with a retort.

  "So, the Sadness Sasquatch… A Sadsquatch?”

  I smiled. Not wide, just enough to feel it twitch. “Sadsquatch,” I repeated, voice low. “That’s such a bad pun.”

  The word hung in the air, soft and stupid. A dull pressure settled behind my ribs, spreading outwards, making me shiver.

  My fingers brushed the rice flower again, slowly... just to remember.

  He used to say things like that. Corny, certain, and just sincere enough to make me roll my eyes. I used to groan, loud and dramatic, as if allergic to affection. But I always remembered them.

  “He would’ve loved that one,” I said, barely above a whisper, my hands quivering slightly. “Sadsquatch.”

  Ripper shifted, his jaw set, and his eyes turned away from me. A sharp pang rocked my chest. His posture reminded me of my mother turning away from me after what I did.

  I bit down hard on my lip, forcing the sting back. I forgot, monsters don't cry.

  The overhead lights dimmed, then brightened slightly.

  A pulse brushed against my thoughts—faint, impersonal, like a finger tracing the edge of a locked door. Not a voice. Not a sound. Just an order, etched into the air: Session. Now.

  Ripper exhaled, long and slow, as if surfacing from deep water. He looked at me, his expression unreadable.

  “What was that?" I asked, my voice a little shaky. The air still felt...thick, somehow.

  Ripper stretched, slow and deliberate, rising from the couch. "The school bell, " he said dryly. “Time for our lesson."

  I blinked. The room was empty. Cassian, Lian, Julian, the others. All gone.

  The quiet descended after they left. No creak, no shuffle, just the ache pressing down inside me.

  "Where did everybody go?”

  Ripper glanced at me, then started walking away. “Your mind probably checked out for a second,” he said without a hint of mockery.

  I nodded, scanning the empty room. “I was thinking of something,” I said, trailing behind.

  A new cootie catcher, creased and thrumming faintly, lay folded on the table. The girl's drawing, a house or perhaps a cage, was left behind. Two neat packs of cards, as if someone wanted to leave no trace.

  The chairs were askew now, some turned at odd angles. One had a faint handprint on the back—long, slender, fading even as you looked.

  The air looked thin, like a cracked window. Soft pale lights curled where something had been, as though the room vibrated in a nameless color.

  I didn’t know how long I’d been sitting. But the 'school bell' had come and gone, and the others had moved. And I hadn’t.

  Ripper didn’t speak, just kept walking. The echo of his footsteps, slow and deliberate, followed him.

  A subtle distortion, like heat haze, shifted in the periphery of my vision.

  I turned, slow, uncertain.

  The door hissed open.

  A figure stepped in, quiet and deliberate, not looking for company but simply looking. The hum bent around it, briefly distorting as if acknowledging its passage or awaiting its arrival.

  It was the Director, as if he had never left, or perhaps never arrived at all.

  “Ah, Candidate Holloway, Miss Eliaz, I’m glad you’re getting along.” Uriel’s lips twisted upwards, but his eyes remained still, like a camera lens that reflected nothing.

  Ripper didn’t step back, didn’t blink. "Glad?" he said, his voice dry as he turned with measured slowness. “Is that supposed to be a greeting, or are you just counting mice for your little labyrinth?” His muscles coiled, speaking to calculated intent.

  Uriel didn't answer, just kept that smile plastered on his face.

  Ripper’s gaze sharpened, fixing on Uriel's forehead. Despite the familiar intensity that made others falter, Uriel didn’t flinch, didn't even offer the ghost of a reaction.

  I'd seen Ripper crack apart the coliseum with a single step, seen him make others scatter with his mere presence. But now, the deliberate power he projected seemed to shrink, making him look like a blustering punk under the boundless ocean of Uriel's gaze.

  It was as if his presence alone had claimed the room, making it feel like it belonged to someone else entirely.

  “I tally heads when I need to,” Uriel's voice was low, almost bored, with a slight, imperceptible drawl. “But I watch patterns. Yours is always the same, Holloway.” He said, sparing Ripper a passing glance.

  Ripper didn’t move. But the air around him twisted—it seemed to curdle and rot, a faint, sickly, sweet smell like spoiled fruit blooming around him.

  "Miss Eliaz, you've lingered," the Director continued, his face turning to me. "That's good." His gaze was steady, a scanner dissecting the data. "It means you're still feeling, still connected to the core of what we do.” His voice, however, dripped with a syrupy gentleness, like artificial honey poured over a bitter pill.

  My breath snagged, sudden and sharp. A cold uncertainty, like ice seeping into marrow, settled deep within my bones.

  Stillness settled over me like a confession.

  “Come, I will show you to your lessons." The director said as he turned his head, his eyes sweeping past Ripper as if he were no longer relevant.

  ——

  The hallway compressed, each step heavy but echoless. Whispers of the Bullseye Room were the only sound I could register.

  The director didn’t speak as we entered. Just watched. Like the room was his lens.

  The room was ten meters wide, its metallic panels subtly vibrating, buzzing beneath the surface. In front of me, glowing circles—unblinking eyes—watched everything.

  A small table stood beside me, a steadfast sentinel. It was stacked with red sandbags, their texture strangely smooth, their weight a deceptive whisper against my palm. They felt like condensed air, light enough to float, yet burdened with a gravity of expectation settling around them.

  A few meters ahead, the bullseye targets glowed in concentric rings of bluish light, each nested inside the other like a test. The smallest circle, a distant blue eye, was the target.

  Distance frayed my aim. Precision dissolved into a wobble, the landing point drifting. I knew it would happen again.

  I rolled the rice flower between my fingers, its petals faintly pulsing with rhythm. Cassian's gift, Gabriela's lesson. It was a small anchor against the tense air.

  Or at least I told myself that…

  "Whenever you are ready, Miss Eliaz," said the Director, his voice calm but expectant.

  My breath hitched in my throat. Not fear. Just knowing.

  I squeezed one of the small bags in my hand; it yielded like soft clay, cool and damp beneath my fingers. Then, when I eased my grip, it snapped back into shape, as if the sand inside remembered a form I couldn’t see.

  I stepped forward, not truly ready, but with just enough resolve to try.

  I couldn’t hesitate. There was no room for it here. So I focused, putting all my will into teleporting the bag as close to the circle as I could.

  To my relief, it landed near the target, touching the outer edge of the first ring. A small victory, it was one of my best attempts.

  "Continue."

  The director's voice was flat as glass, devoid of any inflexion.

  I did as ordered, repeating the attempt a second time, then a third, each one a little more strained than the last.

  And the director just kept saying:

  "Continue."

  My spine shivered as his command echoed inside me, flat and recursive, like a system prompt cycling endlessly.

  By then, the air around me began to stutter, faltering like a broken record, as the hum—faint but insistent—seemed to taunt my every failure.

  The room recoiled, its metallic panels seeming to contract.

  On the fourth attempt, my teleport misfired, falling too short and too wide, the bag landing outside the rings.

  ”Continue.”

  By the fifth, I couldn't teleport at all. The room didn’t punish me; it just watched. Its unblinking gaze was a far more profound torment.

  “Continue,” Uriel’s voice repeated, monotone and unyielding, as if the word had never stopped.

  I didn’t move. “I can't…” I whispered, thin and ragged, like a thread about to snap. A wave of dizziness washed over me, my knees buckling as I landed on the cold floor.

  A hiss echoed through the room as the door slid open. Uriel stepped inside, his movements slow but deliberate.

  My breath shortened. I didn’t brace or cover myself. I just remained there, watching him approach me.

  Uriel's eyes locked onto me, unblinking, as if I were an insignificant insect under a microscope. The director paused as he got close, tilting his head ever so slightly, like an odd bird. "Miss Eliaz, if you're going to fail, at least do it faster." His voice was flat as glass.

  Two guards stepped forward, one on each side.

  I didn't cry, didn't speak. I just felt the words settle—sharp, a blade of pure dread pressed against my breath.

  I didn’t resist. I didn’t brace. I just let the masked men take me, as if the ritual had already sealed my fate.

  I didn’t track the movement. Only the moment it stopped being mine.

  ——

  I didn’t remember the walk. Just the shift. As though I’d been slotted into place.

  I counted the tiles beneath my feet. Not to orient. Just to prove I still could.

  Then the world dissolved into metal—cold. A chair with a hairline crack across the armrest.

  The room with the visors, the hum, the quiet—a place I'd seen before, when I first arrived. Now, trapped within its cold judgement, the guards calling it 'C.C.C.' felt like a sentence.

  Nothing had changed, but the air, the very feel of the place, was different from inside. The lights flickered nervously. The air smelled like a doctor's office, but with an underlying chemical tang that felt strange yet familiar.

  I rubbed my thumb against my palm, feeling the straps tighten, biting into my wrists and ankles, constricting my breath.

  The director tapped the side of the chair. 'Consider them supplemental studies,' he said softly, like a lullaby to a captive animal. 'It will help with your education.” He then reached for something in the chair that I couldn't see. A wet plink echoed around me, absorbing the air.

  The urge to ask a question flickered.

  Then the visor descended, a slow, deliberate motion. The surface reflected my face, a blank mask devoid of my expression.

  A silent tremor ran through me, eyes blinking as the air pressed in.

  For a moment, all I could see was black.

  Then the hum warped.

  A flicker behind my eyes, a jarring pulse in my teeth...

  The visor’s glow started faint, then surged across my eyes. Unfamiliar colours twisted in patterns that wouldn’t hold still. My breath caught, shallow and rapid, then the light shattered—like a mirror that violently refused to reflect me any longer.

  Sound followed—a dissonant chorus of high-pitched screeches and low rumbles, like a discordant symphony was playing within my skin.

  My nails dug into my palm, a sharp, familiar pressure against the tide.

  Then the pain began.

  Flashes of light assaulted my eyes: ever-shifting patterns and colours, changing faster than I could track. It was a disorienting onslaught. Through my ears, the sound cracked. It switched between a high-pitched screech and a low, guttural rumble.

  It wasn't mere noise; it was an intrusion. The pain wasn't a sharp stab; it was a layered assault of light, sound, and thought. Drills bored behind my eyes, and screeches tore through my skull.

  My brain felt like collapsing inward. Something primal snarled—not pain or fear, but the raw shape of something deep inside I didn’t want to name.

  "Stop, stop, it hurts! Please!" I choked out, the words a raw, desperate spill.

  No one answered, no one moved. I thrashed, I sobbed, I begged.

  The straps held firm, indifferent. The visor didn’t stop.

  The other students didn't scream. They just sat quietly...

  The machine didn’t teach; it etched images, formulas, pulses—as if whispering math into my bones.

  I wasn't learning. I was being forcibly rewritten. My very essence, overwritten.

  ——

  My mind blinked awake. One moment that assault was happening, the next, this alien air. This time, no hands had gripped me, no one had pulled me along, I was just... here.

  My shape felt wrong, like clay pressed flat and smoothed over, leaving no sharp edges, a dull numbness settling in my limbs

  I pulled the rice flower from my pocket and began counting its petals, trying to feel like myself again. The rice flower didn't pulse. It simply lay still, quiet.

  The air breathed, a slow living rhythm waiting for me. The lights strobed: metallic silver, deep crimson, electric blue. Too bright, too much, as if recoiling from me for what I'd done.

  The hum stuttered, a pulse counting down in my chest. The walls pressed inward, not shifting, but contracting, as if the space itself was trying to crush me.

  The director's voice cut in from the intercom: "Ah, I see you've woken up. No residue, no drift, that’s promising.”

  The room revealed a red square on the floor. I stared—wide, translucent, too big for this place.

  "The hologram is your proving ground, Miss Eliaz. Show me what you’ve retained."

  That wasn’t just a square; it was a crimson cage. Seamless pressure enclosed me, walls breathing in with me, then refusing to let the air out.

  “Proceed, Miss Eliaz, teleport yourself inside the square. The test is active, and the room will record.” The director’s voice beckoned, calm and practised, as if guiding me into a sacred truth.

  "But… teleporting myself… It's risky. I'm not supposed to do that yet," I said, my voice low. The air around me pressed inward, tight and reluctant, as if bracing for what came next.

  “Ah, so you’ve been taught well." Uriel's dry, almost musical tone crackled through the intercom. “But don’t worry, it's just a test, a hologram with physical feedback. You won’t receive any serious injury if you misalign.”

  He tapped a small device on his wrist, and the red square on the floor pulsed slightly, a faint shimmer passing over its surface.

  My breath hitched, heart hammering against my ribs.

  Then came the line I'd learned to fear: 'Perhaps you're not ready. Perhaps you require… additional supplemental studies." That was all the comfort I needed.

  I didn’t move, but the air around me seemed to thicken, pressing inward—tight, reluctant, as if bracing for failure. My emotions frayed, untethered and adrift.

  I pictured myself inside the square, not standing, just placed.

  For a split second, the floor seemed to buckle: light warped, edges curled inward, as if reality itself was unstable. Then I saw it, a flicker—the edge of something vast—like the moment before falling asleep.

  Then the pull hit. Not clean or kind, just sudden.

  My shoulder scraped the red square: a surge of heat, searing intensity, a ritual’s mark. I landed inside, breath stuttering, knees buckling.

  The square vanished, but the mark remained.

  A recursive red glyph burned across my arm, a brand etched by ache, not sight.

  My hum recoiled then collapsed. Light, sound, and a glimpse of someone I wasn't bled through.

  “Not serious injury,” Uriel stated, his voice clipped, even. like a doctor dismissing a stomach ache. “Pain is proof the terrain read you."

  A hitched whimper escaped me as my body buckled inward. A raw, primal response to the searing agony. The glyph didn’t fade; it deepened, waiting.

  “The mark means you’re learning." The director's cold words settled like ice in my gut.

  My fingers traced the edge of the burning sensation, a dull ache responding to the pressure.

  “Continue.”

  A new hologram surged into place—a towering, red wall of light that covered the room from floor to ceiling, its surface un-glowing. “Miss Eliaz, you must teleport to the other side. Hesitation will be marked.” Uriel said, his voice as dry and measured as the wall of light that began its deliberate advance.

  The wall closed in, stalking silently, predicting my failure.

  My breath shortened, and the air around me shivered. not moving forward or back, just… wrong. As if it was trying to go somewhere I hadn’t picked.

  I teleported. For a fraction of a second, the world warped, a dizzying kaleidoscope of red light and impossible angles. Then, a searing jolt, not of impact, but of misaligned arrival. I landed, knees buckling, just as the wall slid past where I'd been.

  “The delay will be considered.” The director said, no anger in his voice, no frustration. But his words settled over the sting on my arm, a cold counterpoint to the pain I felt.

  Then beams of red light erupted from the room, like a mirror violently shattering.

  My fingers slowly traced the rice flower once, not to ground, but to remember.

  The recursive, deliberate red beams closed in, leaving untouched only the patch beneath me and a few flickering gaps ahead.

  Uriel's flat, unhurried voice came through the intercom. “Miss Eliaz, the terrain is compressing. Movement is expected.”

  I wanted to, but the space around me went still, locked as if the air itself had solidified.

  The glyph pulsed again in recognition, not pain. As if it had logged my hesitation before I even moved.

  I flickered: fast and messy. For a second, I saw myself mirrored in the beam's edge, not whole but fractured light. The terrain dissected me, rather than reflecting me.

  I landed meters off target. The beams, still active and sweeping, hit instantly—shoulder, thigh, spine.

  Pain surged, not sharp, just recursive.

  I collapsed with a cry, the beams vanishing as my fall took me out of their path.

  Not accident or mercy, but a cold, practised precision.

  I didn't notice at first, not through the beams or burns. But when I collapsed again, breath stuttering and rhythm gone, I felt it.

  The rice flower was beneath my palm.

  Crushed, not by terrain or ritual... by my own fall.

  Broken by me.

  The petals lay flattened, torn, unreadable.

  The hum didn't scream.

  The glyph didn't ache.

  Only the silence answered.

  No tears fell, I didn’t break. My gaze settled on the ruined rice flower.

  I couldn’t Ground anymore.

  Just a breaker—incapable of holding anything... or anyone.

  “Continue.”

  ignored him. My fingers traced one crushed petal, my stare fixed on the ruin. The silence didn't echo; it suffocated me.

  Uriel’s relentlessly steady voice came through again. “From the sides, Miss Eliaz…”

  Two walls of light surged toward me, faster than before. I vanished out of their path, the air coming along with me. I didn't do it cleanly, however. My shoulder clipped the edge of the light, and pain surged.

  "Continue."

  I teleported to delay the next mark, not to survive.

  The rice flower had been crushed. By me.

  Just like my father, just like his memory

  I used to think I could carry it, but now I wasn't sure I deserved it.

  The beams kept coming. I flickered once more—wrong, late, misaligned.

  The glyph pulsed; the room logged not just movement, but hesitation. No comfort offered.

  “Continue.”

  I didn’t answer, just flickered again to disappear for a second.

  The hum followed, clinging to my every move.

  "Continue."