The alarm buzzed.

  Kael Veyl was already awake.

  He stared at the ceiling of his dorm, counting the soft hums of the overhead lights. The vent in the corner clicked every seventeen seconds. The far-left tile above his head was cracked—just barely, but enough to notice.

  Same room. Same rhythm. Same weight in his chest.

  Another day.

  Another reminder.

  He sat up slowly, letting the cot creak beneath him, and rubbed the scar just beneath his collarbone. Still cold. Still faintly aching. Still real.

  He dressed in silence. The uniform jacket felt heavier than usual. Or maybe he was just tired. Tired of pretending to be okay in a place built for people stronger than him.

  No Imprint. No power. No glowing veins. No legacy.

  Just Kael.

  And the whisper of something buried too deep to name.

  The hallway outside was alive with sound.

  Students rushed past in uniforms of black and silver, talking over one another, the scent of too-strong coffee and ozone trailing in their wake. The scanners at the exit buzzed in rhythmic tones as cadets passed through, registering their presence and power.

  Kael stepped forward. His scanner blinked yellow.

  Unregistered.

  He didn’t flinch. He never did anymore.

  “Veyl!”

  The voice cut through the noise, familiar and too loud.

  Kael turned just in time to catch a half-wet uniform jacket tossed at his face.

  Daniel Stroud grinned, stepping into view, his hair still damp and unkempt. He looked like he’d lost a fight with his shower and won anyway by default.

  “Forgot this in the sim hall yesterday,” Daniel said. “Smelled like defeat. Figured you’d want it back.”

  Kael rolled his eyes but took the jacket. “You keep stealing it.”

  “You keep forgetting to lock your locker.”

  The banter was old. Familiar. A script they knew by heart.

  They’d grown up together, survived small-town boredom, early academy screenings, and a dozen detention slips between them. Daniel had always been the louder one. The burning light to Kael’s shadow.

  And somehow, he never made Kael feel smaller for it.

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  “You ready for StratSim?” Daniel asked, falling into step beside him.

  Kael gave a noncommittal shrug. “Not really.”

  Daniel scoffed. “Good. I’d hate to be the only one winging it again.”

  Tactical Simulation was one of the Academy’s most demanding blocks. A wide, domed chamber filled with holo-emitters and force generators. It tested everything: reflexes, strategy, instinct.

  Kael liked it.

  Not because he was good. But because the system made sense.

  They filed in with the rest of their year group. Names lit up on the projected rank board in a glowing cascade—most of them Kael recognized. None of them were his.

  “Alright, cadets,” came the sharp voice from above. Instructor Meron, spine straight as a blade, paced along the balcony ring. “Three rounds. Variable conditions. Solo runs. You know the drill.”

  First up was Emma Velren.

  She strode forward like she owned the chamber. Her Imprint, Glassweave, lit up the air with refracted prisms and razor-thin light constructs. Emma didn’t just fight. She performed. Every movement calculated for style as well as function.

  The sim cheered her with a victory tone before she even exited the grid.

  Next was Daniel. His Imprint, Pyrocore, roared to life the second his feet hit the floor. Flames burst from his palms in wild arcs, reducing half the obstacle field to ash. He grinned through the whole thing, naturally.

  Then it was Kael’s turn.

  No Imprint. No elemental surge. No shine.

  Just him.

  The scenario loaded.

  Ten-minute survival. Randomized terrain. Hostile drones.

  Kael moved quietly. Efficiently. Reading patterns. Tracking intervals. Watching the sim's internal logic reveal itself, line by line, like a code only he noticed.

  Four minutes in, something changed.

  The lights dimmed. The grid glitched. A sound—thin, metallic—whispered beneath the ambient hum.

  "...subject anomaly..."

  Kael froze.

  The terrain shifted.

  Just for a moment, he saw something that didn’t belong: spirals carved into stone, black roots twisted through fractured marble, a cathedral of broken pillars and dust.

  Then it was gone.

  The system rebooted.

  Error: Data interruption. Session terminated.

  Instructor Meron didn’t say a word. No one else even reacted.

  Just a bug.

  Probably.

  Kael skipped lunch.

  He found his way to the stairwell behind Block C. An old maintenance area, half-forgotten. Quiet.

  He sat on the concrete step, head bowed, the taste of static still in his mouth.

  He hadn’t imagined that.

  He couldn’t have.

  “Didn’t see you at the mess hall.”

  Kael looked up.

  Annabelle Rhyne stood at the base of the stairs, holding two cups of machine coffee. Her uniform sleeves were rolled up, dark hair tucked behind one ear.

  She climbed the steps and handed him a cup without asking.

  He took it, grateful.

  “Simulation glitch?” she asked.

  He nodded.

  Annabelle sat beside him, knees drawn up slightly, back against the railing. She didn’t press for details. She never did.

  “Emma’s pissed about the reset,” she said. “Claims it cost her a perfect run.”

  Kael offered a half-smile. “Daniel thinks the system’s haunted.”

  “He would.”

  They sipped their coffee in silence.

  After a while, Kael spoke. “You notice anything weird lately? Not here, just... in general.”

  Annabelle didn’t answer immediately.

  Then: “Emma mentioned power surges in Revia. System failures. Some academy evacuated last week. All hush-hush, no public reports.”

  “Could just be system-wide bugs.”

  “Could be.”

  Kael nodded slowly, eyes drifting to the edge of the concrete floor. A thought itched in the back of his mind. The kind you couldn’t scratch without bleeding something real.

  But he said nothing more.

  Annabelle didn’t ask.

  She just sat with him.

  The way she always did.

  That night, Kael couldn’t sleep.

  The lights above flickered again.

  He stared at the ceiling, waiting for the vent to click.

  Seventeen seconds.

  Then again.

  And again.

  Somewhere beneath his bed, the floor seemed to pulse.

  Soft. Subtle. Almost imagined.

  Kael shut his eyes.

  And just before sleep took him, something stirred in the dark.

  Not a dream.

  Just a shape behind his thoughts.

  And a feeling that whatever was happening out there—in Revia, in the broken systems, in the silence between code—

  It hadn’t reached him yet.

  But it would.

  Soon.