I woke up screaming, but the sound was a phantom thing, a desperate, silent gasp that scratched at the back of my throat. My senses, a frantic searchlight, swept across the dark mausoleum of sleeping bodies, as I lay there, rigid in my bed. The image of him dissolving was burned behind my eyelids, a ghost in my mind's eye like a negative film. The horrifying echo of Sister Kay's voice, "Don't let him fade...", now settled in my bones with a terrible, haunting resonance, like the final, chilling frame of a horror movie that was about to break the screen.
A quiet echo, the part of my soul that had found its peace with Rhay, tried to soothe me, whispering that it was just a phantom of the mind. But the raw, cold panic that seized my chest was a new, living thing—a terror so immediate it couldn't be reasoned away. I lay there, trapped in the darkness, waging a silent war against the fear that threatened to consume me, until the senior's hand found the light switch, and the day began.
The communal prayer had always been a quiet routine, a hushed conversation with a God who felt impossibly far away. But this morning, as the minutes stretched five minutes longer than usual, the shared, familiar rhythm slowly became a balm. The low murmur of voices, the quiet weight of heads bowed in unison—it was a quiet unity, a fragile shield against the chaos still echoing in my mind. For the first time since I woke, the frantic hammering of my heart began to find a different beat, a slower, more solid tempo that wasn't my own.
But it was only a moment. The next hour passed in a blur of detached motion. I moved through my morning routine like a ghost in my own skin, making my bed and doing my cleaning duty with a profound sense of unreality. A heavy, constant weight sat in the pit of my stomach, a cold anchor that pulled me down. Even the familiar rush of cool water from the shower felt alien, a desperate attempt to wash away the chilling residue of the dream that clung to me. It wouldn't, and the weight of my uniform felt like the next layer of that burden, a solemn promise I didn't yet understand.
A quiet calm settled with Fray at breakfast, a silent treaty with the chaos in my mind. We were among the few there so early, eating quickly and moving through our familiar morning ballet. Soon, we were ready for class, and as I said goodbye to her and the others, my mind was already a million miles away, lost in the lengthening shadow of the dream. It wasn't until I was lacing up my shoes at the dorm wing, about to walk into the world, that the terror truly returned, a cold fist to the gut.
He was at the far side of the hall, near the dish station, talking with June. His shoulders were relaxed, his posture at ease, and a slow, gentle smile was on his face as he talked. The internal "warzone" I had so often sensed in him was gone, dissolved completely, replaced by a profound and unsettling stillness.
This Rhay, this new version of him, was the very one Sister Kay had warned me about. My heart, the one that beat for him, seized in a cold grip. The fear wasn't just about losing him to a past I didn't remember; it was about losing him to a beautiful, peaceful future that he was finally ready to embrace—a peace that would make him vanish.
I had to give him a reason to stay—a new reason to live that wasn't in the past, but in our shared future. My steps toward him were measured and deliberate, each one a desperate vow. June saw me first, and a small, knowing smile touched his lips as he gave a subtle nod before deliberately speeding up. "Hey, I'm heading to class first! See you at homeroom!" he called out to Rhay, his voice a burst of energetic noise that went completely unnoticed by Rhay himself.
"Hey," Rhay greeted me, his voice a warm comfort, a world away from the silent battle I was fighting. I met his gaze with a sweet, forced smile, fighting the urge to reach for his hand as my own fidgeted nervously.
"Are you all set?" I asked, my voice betraying none of the restlessness churning through me.
"I am," he replied softly, another smile blooming on his face. "Ready to go?"
We walked side by side past the dining hall, toward the not-so-quiet courtyard before the main school building.
"Rhay," I said, my words feeling heavy on my tongue. "When we go to the chess club later, promise you'll teach me everything."
He laughed, a deep, joyful sound that should have soothed my fears, but only fed my desperation. "I'd love to," he said, and his hand instinctively went to my shoulder. For a single, terrifying second, I braced for the cold nothingness from my dream. But there was only warmth. His hand was solid, real, and full of life. It anchored me.
"I want to be so good that I can beat you someday," I said, a little bolder now, the words filled with a newfound conviction.
"It's a promise, then," he said, and my heart clenched. He saw a game, a lovely new beginning. He didn't know I was making a vow to bind him to my world, to me.
The walk to our homeroom classes was slow and deliberate, a new and unpracticed rhythm. The crowd thinned out and the noise began to fade, until we were alone in the vast, empty courtyard. The morning air was crisp and cool on my skin, and the only sound was the faint scuff of our footsteps on the pavement, a quiet rhythm that emphasized the intimacy of our walk. I found myself wanting to fill every moment with words, to build a fortress of conversation against the terror lurking just beneath the surface.
"Rhay," I said, my voice softer this time as I stopped at the entrance to the park. "Could we just spend a few minutes here? We still have about ten minutes before class."
"I was just about to ask you the same thing," he said, his smile full of a genuine warmth that made my heart ache. He didn't wait for my reply, stepping quickly into the park. His eyes found the familiar bench, and a jolt of recognition ran through me—the spot where I had trusted him, where I had finally surrendered to him. Now, I felt a desperate need to give him a reason to stay, to bind him to this shared future—a future where he won't just disappear.
"What was your favorite place here back in junior high?" I asked, breaking the silence as we sat on the same bench. His eyes brightened at the question, his shoulders relaxing even more as he began to talk about a quiet corner of the library. I listened, hanging on every word, desperate to commit every detail to memory. Each word was a new anchor, a new vow to a future he didn't know he needed. Just like that, we made a new promise to visit the library together, and soon, the bell rang, a cruel beacon marking the start of the long day ahead.
We stopped at the intersection of our different homeroom classes. Our classes, 10-A and 10-B, were just one wall apart, yet the separation felt impossibly vast. He waited for me to walk inside first, and then, a simple turn of his body, and he was gone from my sight. The cold dread of my dream began to seep back in, a constant whisper of "fading" that I couldn't ignore.
The thirty minutes felt like an eternity, a silent fight against the panic that was threatening to overwhelm me. The room felt foreign, the faces of my classmates blurred, and my teacher's voice was a distant, muffled sound. All I could think about was the cold fear of his absence. The clock on the wall, a cruel beacon of time, seemed to tick with a deafening slowness, each second a painful reminder of the distance between us.
The bell finally rang, its sharp, metallic sound slicing through the tension like a release and a new terror all at once. The homeroom teachers ushered us toward the Multipurpose Hall, where the seniors from the Orientation Committee were already directing us to sit with our previous groups from Day One. I navigated the sea of merging classmates, a current of students from my class and his, all seeking out their familiar clusters. I found my own group—my personal port in the storm—and sat between him and June.
A quiet calm settled over me. We were a complete unit again. My eyes found his, and the soft, easy smile he offered me was an anchor against the fear. The senior in charge stepped up to the podium, his voice echoing over the microphone as he began the briefing. My heart finally began to settle, a quiet peace returning with his presence. We were together, our small group restored.
But that peace was short-lived. I saw the new faces at the back of the hall, a mingling current of students in bright junior high uniforms, all looking lost. The vast, open space of the hall felt hollow, and the senior's voice, impersonal and booming, echoed with a chilling finality. "Starting now," he announced, "all groups will be joined by their junior high counterparts. Senior Group One will be joined with Junior Group One, and so on."
A cold, insidious dread seized my chest. My small, familiar group, my personal port in the storm, was now gone. The vow I had made to bind him to my world felt suddenly, impossibly vast, a quiet promise swallowed by a turbulent sea of unpredictable variables.