Evan stepped into the Advisor's meeting room and paused.
It was empty.
The chairs were still neatly aligned, the blinds were half-open the way the Advisor always left them and the faint scent of old carpet and printer ink hung in the air.
How strange, he's never been late before.
Evan set his bag down slowly.
That feeling in his chest, it was strangely quiet.
It was muted, like someone had pressed a palm over its mouth.
He checked the clock on the wall. Two minutes passed, then three.
Still nothing.
He exhaled, a thin, controlled breath, and tried to steady the unease he was feeling.
The door clicked.
Evan straightened.
But it wasn't the Advisor.
A student stepped inside. He was someone Evan had never seen before. He looked to be in his early twenties with a clean haircut and a backpack slung casually over one shoulder. He smiled when he noticed Evan.
"Hey," the student said, stepping closer, closing the door behind him.
The feeling in Evan's chest detonated.
A sharp, internal spike of alarm hit so fast his vision flickered. He jolted backwards before he even knew he was moving.
The student's smile stretched wider.
And this time… it pulled wrong. The smile too perfect, too uncanny.
Evan's thoughts scrambled.
Of course… it was a person. That's why—
He never finished the thought.
A pressure, massive but utterly silent, condensed in the air before him. The air shuddered like something had just torn through it. Evan dove sideways on instinct, hitting the carpet and rolled as the impact cracked through the space where he'd been standing a split second before.
The room lurched, his heart hammered against his ribs—
And everything changed.
Evan barely had time to breathe before another invisible force snapped toward him. He threw himself sideways, palms skidding across the carpet as it tore past where his head had been and pushed himself up, heart pounding.
He locked eyes with the assailant, but he was already gone.
A blur appeared in front of him.
Evan didn't even see the move. One moment, the figure was across the room, the next, it was inches from him, smiling that stretched, wrong smile.
A white-hot spike drove into his gut.
He gasped, the sound ripped straight out of him. He only realized he'd been stabbed when the assailant's hand twisted slightly.
Evan's knees buckled.
Instinct took over.
He shoved the student backward with all the strength he had. The blade slid free with a sickening warmth and he stumbled, one hand pressed to the wound.
His other hand found the box cutter. It snapped open with a metallic click he barely heard over the blood rushing in his ears.
Evan hurled himself forward.
He aimed for the throat, going in for the kill. He had to end it as fast as possible.
A soundless impact hit him like slamming into a wall. A shimmering aura, barely visible, flared between the two of them. The box cutter bounced off the barrier, the jolt rattling through his wrist.
Evan staggered backward, breath forced out of him. The student tilted his head, watching Evan with something like curiosity or even amusement as the barrier rippled faintly in the air between them.
Evan's blood dripped down his fingers.
The student didn't move.
Evan, while bracing for the next strike, led some of the heat in his chest to his injury. He had reached a rudimentary understanding of his power during the 'peaceful' days he had been given.
A faint warmth bloomed beneath his palm—then light, soft and wavering, seeped through his skin. His torn flesh tightened, pulling itself together as if invisible threads were stitching him from the inside out.
The bleeding thickened, halted, and the gash sealed shut in a trembling, imperfect line.
The student's eyes narrowed, darkening like ink spreading through water.
"You…" he hissed.
Evan's eyes widened.
The force hit him square in the chest.
He couldn't dodge in time. The air warped, folding inward before exploding outward with the weight of a battering ram. Evan was blown backward, his was body lifted off the ground, then slammed into the wall behind him with a force hard enough to crack the plaster.
He screamed, but the sound vanished under the roaring pressure in his ears.
Agony tore up his spine—shock blanking out everything for a second. He slid down the wall, vision coming in and out like corrupted film.
His breath refused to come.
His fingers twitched uselessly.
The room spun.
Through the blur, he saw the student step forward, no longer smiling.
He stopped a few feet away.
"You are their greatest insult," the student sneered, then almost reverently, he murmured "With this, their will is fulfilled."
The word "their" scraped across Evan's nerves.
Then the feeling in his chest detonated.
He'd tried this once before, instead of healing, he attempted something else.
He forced himself inward, clinging to the sensation, shaping it with whatever scraps of willpower he had left.
He couldn't push it out, he could push it… into himself.
His fingers twitched.
Then his arm.
Then his legs.
Strength, raw and jagged, surged through his limbs. His vision sharpened. His muscles locked tight, then snapped free with explosive force.
The pain spiked, flooding through every nerve until it felt like his body might split under it.
But he held on. He had to.
He lunged, desperately.
He swung his fist with everything the burning in his chest could give him.
It connected squarely with the student's head, too fast for him to react.
There was a crack, the sound of a body hitting the floor at full force.
The student crashed down hard, skidding across the tiles.
Evan staggered forward, fist still trembling from the impact, chest burning as the power inside him thrashed like a caged animal.
The raw, jagged strength he had forced into his limbs didn't vanish. It sank deeper. It had turned inward to repair the devastating internal damage from the wall slam.
But the pain didn't fade
It will go away eventually.
He approached the fallen assailant.
The student was somehow still conscious but didn't seem to be able to move.
Evan acted quickly, grabbing the knife off the floor and piercing him through the chest.
He stood there, breathing heavily.
A faint gasp sounded from the doorway.
The door he'd stepped through, the one the student had closed, was now wide open, its lock shattered from the force of the impacts.
Mei was there.
Her hand was half-raised, as if she'd been about to knock.
She must've come to find him.
He froze, mid-breath.
Her face was pale, her eyes wide, her eyes darted from the destroyed wall, to the body on the floor, and finally... to him.
To Evan. Breathing heavily, fist still clenched, the faint, golden light of the warmth fading from the already-sealed wound on his stomach.
She didn't scream. Her breath hitched, a tiny, sharp sound in the sudden silence.
"Evan...?"
Her voice was a whisper, but it cut through the roaring in his ears, striking him with more force than the worshipper's blow.
He had tried to protect her by avoiding her, and instead, he had dragged her directly into the truth.