I missed the morning training.
By the time I got to the field, the grass was already stepped on and flattened. The wooden swords were stacked up by the fence, and the air smelled like dust and sweat. I was too late, but nobody got mad at me.
"Finally!" Margaretha said, stretching her arms way up high. "Study hall time!"
Theo made a loud groaning noise. "First, they hurt my body, now they hurt my brain. It's not fair."
Robert didn't say anything, just rolled his shoulders. Agni and Pritha started walking toward the big building, and Pritha kept looking back at me to make sure I was following. I followed.
Inside, it smelled like old paper and wood. The sun came through the windows in long, straight lines. Spiro gave me a book with letters in it.
"Start with these," he said. "Write them until you know them."
I opened the book. I already knew the letters. Father had taught me a long time ago. I could almost feel his big, warm hand over mine, helping me hold the pen... but the memory broke before it could finish. It was like a mirror falling on the floor.
"...Understood," I said.
Reading was easy. My eyes just knew what the marks meant. But when I tried to write them, my hand wouldn't work right.
The lines were wobbly and ugly. I erased them and tried again, but it was still wrong.
My brain felt like it was floating away, listening to a bird outside or a footstep in the hall.
"Rick?" Margaretha leaned over. "You're pressing too hard. Look, like this!"
She wrote a pretty, looping letter. I understood how she did it. I tried again.
But my pen stopped halfway through a line because, suddenly, I wasn't in the room anymore.
Cold stone.
A closing door.
Blood on my fingers.
I stopped moving. My pen poked a hole right through the paper.
"Hey," Robert whispered from my other side. "You okay?"
"Yes," I said. I said it too fast.
Robert looked at me for a second, then nodded.
Theo tried to make a joke about his hand hating school, and Margaretha laughed. The noise was good. It kept me from falling back into the cave.
I kept writing. Slow. Like a machine. Even after an hour, my page looked like a mess.
I knew what to do, but my fingers wouldn't listen. It was like they were too far away from my head.
Spiro looked at my work. "You can read better than this, can't you?"
"Yes."
"But writing is hard."
"...Yes."
"Keep practicing," he said. "Don't rush."
***
Later, we sat on the floor in a circle. Spiro told us to close our eyes and find the mana.
I closed my eyes, but I didn't have to "find" anything. It was just there. The room was full of blue glitter that moved like water. It went through the walls and through our bodies.
I could feel everyone's mana, even with my eyes shut.
Robert's silver mana looked heavy and solid.
Margaretha's light green mana was like a spinning wind.
Theo's grey mana kept blinking on and off.
Agni's red mana was a steady, quiet fire, while Pritha's mana was flickering a lot, looking unstable, sometimes powerful, sometimes weak.
I opened my eyes. "...I can see it."
The others looked at me like I had done a magic trick.
"Already?" Theo asked, leaning in. "Without even trying?"
"Describe it," Spiro said.
"Blue particles," I said. "Everyone has a different kind."
I told them what they looked like.
Margaretha looked proud that hers was like the wind.
Theo got a little bit huffy when I said he was unstable, and everyone laughed.
I didn't laugh. I just told them what I saw. It was like reading a list of colors.
Pritha touched my sleeve. "...Is mine weak?"
"No," I told her. "It's warm."
She smiled a tiny, shy smile.
"Talent isn't everything," Spiro warned us. "Keep meditating."
I closed my eyes again, but I didn't need to. The blue lights were always there now. Beautiful, but far away. Like everything else.
***
The place where we slept was huge. There were ten bunk beds, but a lot of them were empty.
It felt too quiet and too big. We each had a wooden box with a key for our things.
I picked a bottom bunk in the corner. The bed was soft and clean, but it didn't feel right.
It wasn't my bed at home. I didn't feel sad about it. I just noticed it, like noticing the floor was made of wood.
. I lay there, and sleep came quietly.
And for the first time in a long while…
I was home.
Warm light filled the dining room. Afternoon sunlight passed through the window, painting golden patterns across the wooden table. The familiar smell of soup drifted through the air, rich and comforting.
Mother laughed softly as she placed another bowl in front of me.
"You're growing again, Rick. Eat more."
Father sat across from me, smiling as he folded a letter carefully beside his plate.
"You must hold your spoon properly," he said, guiding my hand gently. "A swordsman's discipline begins with small habits."
I laughed.
A real laugh.
The sound felt light, effortless, natural.
"I am holding it properly," I protested.
Mother chuckled. "He says that every time."
The three of us ate together. Bowls clinked softly. Steam rose between us. Outside, birds sang somewhere beyond the window.
Everything felt warm.
Safe.
Whole.
Father reached over and ruffled my hair.
"You've worked hard lately."
"I want to become strong," I said proudly.
Mother smiled. "Strong enough to protect everyone?"
"Yes!"
They exchanged a glance filled with quiet pride.
For a moment, the world felt perfect.
Then…
The light dimmed slightly.
I didn't notice at first.
The soup tasted colder.
The birds stopped singing.
The air grew heavy, like a storm approaching.
Mother froze mid-motion.
Father's smile did not fade but it stopped changing, as if painted onto his face.
"…Father?" I asked.
No response.
The room grew silent.
A faint sound echoed from behind me.
Footsteps.
Slow.
Uneven.
I turned.
Frans stood at the doorway.
His clothes were torn. Blood stained his sleeve. Yet he smiled the same way he always did, gentle and reassuring.
"Frans?" I said.
He looked at me, with soft eyes.
"…Rick," he said quietly. "You need to run."
I frowned. "Run? Why?"
Behind him, darkness seeped into the hallway like spreading ink.
The walls began to tremble.
I turned back toward my parents.
"Father…?"
Mother's hand slipped from her spoon.
Her fingers began dissolving.
Not falling.
Melting.
Skin turned into faint light, breaking apart into drifting particles.
"…Mother?"
Her smile remained as her face slowly faded away.
Father reached toward me.
But his arm softened, losing shape, dissolving into the same fading glow.
His voice came faintly.
"Live… Rick…"
The chair across from me collapsed into dust.
The table warped.
The warm sunlight turned gray.
"No," I whispered.
I tried to stand, but my legs would not move.
Frans stepped closer urgently.
"Rick. Look at me."
I did.
His smile trembled now.
"You have to run."
The darkness behind him surged forward.
The dining room walls cracked, revealing cold stone beneath. The warmth vanished completely, replaced by the suffocating chill of the cave.
My parents were gone.
Only empty chairs remained.
"I don't want to!" I shouted.
No sound came out.
My throat moved, but silence swallowed everything.
Frans placed a hand on my shoulder.
Warm.
Real.
"…You must live," he said.
The darkness swallowed him next.
His body broke into fragments of fading light, just like theirs.
His last expression was still smiling.
The room collapsed into blackness.
SLAM.
I sat up fast, gasping for air. The ceiling was there. The moonlight was coming through the window. I didn't know where I was.
"...Rick?" Robert called from the top bunk. "You were shaking."
"I'm fine," I said. The lie came out of my mouth before I even thought about it.
"Nightmare?" Margaretha whispered.
"...No."
Pritha got out of her bed and brought me an extra blanket. She didn't say anything, just laid it next to me.
"You make scary noises," Theo grumbled, sounding sleepy.
"His breathing says he's scared," Agni said, his voice very flat and calm.
I lay back down and watched the shadows on the wall.
I listened to them breathe until the sun started to come up.
I was tired, but I couldn't stop. I had to get up and do it all again.
Because if I stopped moving, the door in my head would never open again.