The cafeteria had been nearly empty that day, the lunch rush long since faded into scattered traces of its passing. Crumpled napkins slumped on tabletops. Trays leaned in crooked stacks by the return window. The air carried a lingering mix of reheated pasta and sharp disinfectant. Honald and I drifted through the rows with the wandering pace of students who had nowhere urgent to be, our steps unhurried and our path without intention.
The wall clock above the serving line showed 1:47 PM in stark red digits. Break was almost over. Outside the double doors the hallways would already be filling with the steady shuffle and murmur of students returning to class, a tide pulled along by bells and routine.
But we stayed where we were, lingering in that strange in-between moment where time felt loose and flexible.
"I feel strange today," I murmured. The words escaped me uncertainly, more question than statement. Strange was not quite right. It was not the usual exhaustion that clung to me like damp cloth. It was something deeper beneath my ribs, something tilting the world slightly off center, as if I were looking through glass that had been shifted by just a few degrees.
Honald looked at me with a flicker of something that felt like recognition. Or understanding. It passed quickly, so quickly that I could not tell if I had imagined it.
Then he brightened. His grin appeared with startling suddenness, lighting the room if not the entire day. It was the kind of smile that could make the sun jealous, bright and reckless, belonging to someone seconds away from proposing something wonderfully irresponsible.
"Let's just bunk our classes," he said, as if it were the most logical suggestion in the world. His voice held that conspiratorial edge that made terrible ideas sound brilliant, the same tone that had pulled us into trouble more times than I could count.
I nodded without arguing. Something heavy inside me almost welcomed the idea of escaping another dull lecture, another afternoon pretending to care while my mind drifted somewhere else entirely.
But somehow the afternoon veered away from our plan.
By the time I realized what was happening, I was already sitting in the back of my last class, watching the clock drag its way through the hour. I had made it to class anyway, late as always, slipping in just as the teacher called attendance. Another unimpressed look. Another silent mark against my name.
The strangeness from earlier had grown heavier, settling deeper inside me like cold sinking into stone.
And Honald had vanished.
One moment we had been talking, though I could no longer remember the topic, and the next he was simply gone, as if someone had neatly edited him out of the scene. I searched for him between classes, checked the usual corners, even sent a text that never got a reply. Nothing. Just absence. A shape missing from a familiar picture.
When the final bell released the students, the evening sun was already dipping low, casting long shadows across the concrete walkway. I shoved my hands into my hoodie pockets out of habit, trying to keep warm.
My right hand brushed something unfamiliar.
I froze. My fingers closed around a small weight and I pulled it out slowly, holding it up to the fading light.
A pendant.
Recognition struck immediately. Honald's pendant, the one he always wore tucked beneath his shirt. I had seen it many times. He never took it off. He never talked about it either, always dodging questions with easy jokes until I stopped asking.
It was beautiful in a way that felt strange for something he kept hidden. A teal stone that caught the last sunlight and turned it into something warmer, something that seemed lit from within. Its surface was smooth except for a single engraved symbol.
The marking curved and angled with deliberate precision, a design that felt meaningful even though I could not decipher it. I had never seen anything like it, not in books or late-night internet rabbit holes.
My thumb brushed the shallow groove of the symbol.
The world lurched.
Light drained from my vision like water slipping through open fingers. Color dimmed. Shapes blurred. The familiar street dissolved into shadow. My knees buckled. The pendant fell from my grip, striking the ground with a distant metallic sound.
My last thought before darkness swallowed everything was the certainty that something irreversible had begun.
I did not know how long it took me to stumble to the bus stop, only that eventually I arrived. My shoulders curled inward, my schoolbag dragging at the seam of my worn hoodie. The sky was already turning orange and violet. Streetlights blinked awake. The world seemed to pause.
When the bus arrived, I boarded automatically and made my way to the last row, settling into the corner seat I always claimed. I put in my earphones and pressed play. Familiar music washed over me, heavy and comforting, a song I had listened to hundreds of times for reasons I never questioned.
As the melody wrapped around me, the city outside blurred into streaks of color. The hum of the engine became part of the rhythm. My eyelids grew heavy.
I recognized my stop approaching. I pushed against the seat to stand.
My body did not respond.
At first it felt like stubborn exhaustion, but the second attempt brought a sharp spike of panic. My arms refused to move. My legs felt disconnected, distant, as if they belonged to someone else.
My heartbeat thundered in my ears. The fluorescent lights above smeared across my vision. Color dissolved into streaks like fireflies trapped in a storm. The world tilted.
Darkness closed in like deep water.
A voice emerged from the distance, faint at first, then clearer, as though someone were walking toward me through a long hallway.
My eyes opened.
I lay beneath an unfamiliar ceiling carved with gilded leaves and constellations of hammered gold. A chandelier glowed above me like a small frozen galaxy. Warm air carried the scent of lavender and polished wood.
"Young master? Are you unwell?" a calm, composed voice asked.
I turned my head. A man in a black suit stood beside the bed, posture perfect, expression carefully neutral.
A butler.
The realization settled coldly in my stomach. The room around me confirmed it. Polished marble. Tapestries and oil paintings. A bed large enough to swallow my old bedroom whole.
This was not my world.
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Three days have passed since I arrived here.
In that time I learned the rules of this place, at least the ones people were willing to explain. Magic existed, but magic required principles to activate. More importantly, this world had something called divine symbols which functioned like blessings from gods.
And my new name appeared to be Theodore Valtair Roosevelt. Yes, it's too long.
I asked the butler questions as if I had lost all my memories, which felt close enough to the truth. He explained that I was a distant noble, someone with blood that mattered but not enough to stand in the center of power.
I learned about the Royal Tournament as well. It was hosted by the king himself, said to be the strongest man alive, and it existed to select promising youths from every noble family.
Only males could participate. Only those with a divine symbol or something called a black bone.
And I was expected to take part.
Whatever had begun that day in the cafeteria had led me here, into a life that was never meant to be mine.