Night returned to Ashthorne like a closing jaw.
The sky outside Dorm Nine was a smear of black clouds, the moon nothing more than a pale bruise behind them. Wind pressed against the windows, rattling old frames. Something cold moved through the dorm halls, too deliberate to be a draft.
Caelum sat cross-legged on his thin mattress, hands resting lightly on his knees, eyes open.
He hadn't slept.
He didn't need to tonight.
Because something was coming.
He felt the build-up all day—during Mistress Halien's test, during Rennik's lecture, during Dravos' little "survival lesson."
The world was paying attention.
And something beneath it was paying attention harder.
The whisper arrived like a needle pushing through cloth.
"…thread… bearer…"
Caelum's breath left him slowly.
Calm.
Unhurried.
"You're impatient," he murmured.
The whisper shivered around the edges of his consciousness, less like a voice and more like rope dragging against stone.
"…awake…"
Caelum lowered his fingers to the floorboards.
The wood was cold.
Colder than before.
And vibrating—just slightly—like the heartbeat of something buried too deep to be human.
Upstairs, someone screamed.
Faint. Choked.
Cut off too fast.
Caelum didn't even look.
Dorm Nine is thinning out.
The floor under him creaked sharply.
Then again.
Not the normal groaning of old wood.
Rhythmic.
Measured.
Steady.
Footsteps.
Under his room.
He stood.
Slowly.
Soundlessly.
The whisper pulsed again.
"…hungry…"
The footsteps moved toward the center of the building, growing louder, heavier, like something dragging a limb or crawling with too many joints.
Caelum stepped into the hallway.
The air was still.
Too still.
A door cracked open ahead—Lira's.
Her eyes were wide, shimmering with fear.
"C–Caelum… do you hear that?"
"Yes."
The footsteps echoed again.
This time directly beneath the hall.
Lira's skin went pale.
"Is it… another mutated student?"
"No," Caelum whispered. "This one is older."
Farther down the corridor, several doors slammed as students panicked inside their rooms. Someone whispered prayers. Someone else sobbed.
Caelum walked past Lira and placed a gentle hand on her shoulder.
"Stay in your room," he said softly. "Lock the door."
She nodded shakily.
"Will… will you be okay?"
"I will."
She hesitated, then closed her door.
The hall lights flickered.
Twice.
Then died completely.
Darkness swallowed Dorm Nine.
Something exhaled beneath the floor.
A hot, rotting breath that crawled across Caelum's skin like wet fingers.
Then—
CRACK.
A board snapped open behind him.
Something crawled up through the floor.
Caelum didn't turn yet.
He wanted to feel it first.
Thread Sense unfurled—quiet, invisible, delicate—mapping the presence behind him.
Long limbs.
Twisted spine.
Pulsing, corrupted Sigil remnants.
Eyes that had once been human but now glowed like hollow lanterns.
A body stretched too thin, too tall.
A Mindscarred?
No.
Worse.
This one had been here longer.
This one had fed on more than students.
This one remembered things.
It dragged itself from the darkness on elongated limbs, joints bending backward, fingers tapping the floor in rapid, unnatural rhythms.
CLICK.
CLICKCLICK.
CLICK.
Caelum turned.
The creature froze.
Its face was wrong—skin pulled tight over a skull that seemed to be smiling beneath it, jaw cracked on one side, one eye sunken and trembling.
Its breath hitched.
Like it recognized him.
"…you…"
The voice was broken, shredded.
Not words.
Echoes of words.
Caelum tilted his head slightly.
"You remember me?"
The creature shuddered violently, limbs spasming.
"…bearer…"
Its voice warped into a sound older than the creature's ruined flesh.
Something speaking through it.
From deeper beneath the dorm.
Caelum studied it calmly.
"You're not the one whispering," he said softly. "You're a mouth."
The creature screamed.
Not at him—
At the air.
At whatever was puppeting it.
And then it lunged.
The attack was fast.
Faster than any mutated student he'd faced.
Long arms whipping like blades, claws sharp enough to carve stone. The hallway tore open around them—splinters flying, plaster cracking.
Caelum stepped backward once.
Only once.
The creature slammed into the wall where his chest had been. Its elongated arms cracked the stone. It flung its head back and screeched.
Caelum watched.
Analyzing.
Its movements were fluid but fragmented.
Strength moderate-high.
Thought process corrupted but guided.
Sigil residue: Reality-frayed.
Threads exposed along the spine.
Weak point: Third vertebrae.
Secondary weak point: Jaw hinge.
Tertiary: Soul-thread cluster near sternum.
The creature rushed him again.
This time Caelum moved.
Not fast.
Not frantic.
Just… precise.
He slid under a swiping arm, two fingers brushing the creature's ribs.
The creature spasmed violently, momentum twisting its torso.
It screamed again, voice distorted.
Caelum exhaled softly.
"I see."
His Proto-Sigil pulse awakened, threads sliding beneath his skin like thin, glowing veins—visible only for an instant.
The creature lunged again, faster, frenzied.
Caelum stepped inward.
Close.
Too close for claws.
He reached up—
—and touched the creature's throat.
Lightless, silent, invisible force rippled from his fingers.
The creature froze mid-scream.
Its limbs trembled as if strings were cut.
Its head twitched.
"…sto…p…"
The voice under the voice.
Not the creature's.
Something else speaking through it, begging, commanding, confused.
Caelum leaned in.
His whisper was almost kind.
"No."
The creature convulsed once—
—and collapsed like a puppet with cut threads.
Dust rose.
Silence swallowed the dorm.
Caelum stood over the unmoving body, expression calm, chest barely rising with breath.
He crouched beside what remained of the creature.
His fingertips brushed the sternum.
A thread of corrupted soul—weak, decaying, but still alive—pulled into his palm like a drawn breath.
Images flashed—
A boy screaming
A ritual circle
Dorm Nine's basement
Hands forcing him into the dark
Whispers leaking from the stone
Terror
Terror
Terror—
Then darkness.
Caelum stood and wiped his fingers on his sleeve.
Behind him, Lira's door cracked open.
"C–Caelum…? Is it safe?"
He turned, dust settling around him like smoke.
"Yes," he said gently.
She stepped into the hallway slowly, eyes going wide when she saw the corpse.
"Oh gods…"
"It won't bother you again."
"How did you—"
Caelum smiled softly.
"Lucky timing."
Lira didn't question it.
She ran to him and hugged him tightly, trembling.
Caelum's hand hovered a moment, then rested lightly on her back.
Her fear soaked into his awareness.
Predictable.
Soft.
Human.
Useful.
When she pulled back, she looked up at him with wide, grateful eyes.
"You saved me again…"
Caelum smiled.
"Of course."
She didn't see the darkness flicker behind his eyes.
She didn't see how the collapsed creature's body twitched once more—something deep beneath the academy shifting in recognition.
She didn't hear the whisper that slithered across the floorboards.
"…awake…
…closer…
…bearer…"
Caelum heard it.
And for the first time, a faint smile tugged at the edge of his lips.
Not soft.
Not gentle.
Sharp.
Controlled.
Hungry.
"Good," he whispered into the dark.
"Come closer."