A Surprise Visitor in the Loneliness

The cell wasn’t built for comfort.

It was a damp hollow of stone buried beneath the Academy, sealed with iron and runes that hummed faintly at all hours. A single crystal set high into the wall glowed with a pale, steady light, casting shadows that never shifted, never softened. It was like living inside an unblinking eye.

I sat on the cot, wrists locked in mana-suppressing cuffs, staring at that light until my vision blurred.

At first, I told myself this was temporary. A precaution. Once Serenya woke properly and explained herself, once the teachers reviewed what had happened in the exam, I’d be free. My friends would come. Amara would defend me. Cedric might be harsh, but even he would see sense.

But days passed. And the silence stretched longer.

-----X-----X-----X-----

No one came.

Meals slid in through the slot at the base of the door—porridge, bread, sometimes cold stew. No words accompanied them. No footsteps lingered. It was as if I had ceased to exist beyond the act of being fed.

I paced, counted stones, whispered spells I could no longer cast. Without mana, my mind felt hollow. Without voices, my thoughts grew louder.

They circled back to the same question again and again: What if Serenya was right?

Her words echoed inside me, sharp as a blade: He is not human.

I told myself she had been delirious. That she hadn’t meant me. But the looks on everyone’s faces, the whispers in the courtyard—those couldn’t be dismissed.

Even the royals had faltered. Amara’s trembling hands, Cedric’s furious glare, Duric’s silence, Selindra’s cold assessment. Serenya herself, unconscious, unable to save or condemn me.

And me, alone in the dark.

-----X-----X-----X-----

I tried to think instead of breaking.

Every incident spun in my mind like pieces of a puzzle scattered across a floor. Amara’s missing quill. Cedric’s sabotaged wand. The library fire. Selindra’s ward collapsing. Serenya’s kidnapping. The explosion at the exam.

Always me at the center. Always evidence or suspicion pointing my way.

Too neat. Too consistent.

But who would go to such lengths? Why?

I thought of the teachers. Some already disliked me, dismissing me as a “charity case.” But orchestrating all of this? No. That was paranoia talking.

The other students? A few resented me, sure, but most wouldn’t risk expulsion for elaborate sabotage.

Yet someone had arranged it. Someone precise enough to strike at just the right moment, subtle enough to slip away unseen.

My mind turned in circles, finding no answer. Only the feeling of being toyed with, like a mouse in a cat’s paw.

-----X-----X-----X-----

Time gnawed at me.

At first, I marked hours by meals. Then by how often I dozed on the cot. Then by nothing at all. Days bled together, a shapeless stretch of hunger, silence, and the steady hum of runes.

The silence became unbearable. I began to hear things. The scrape of a boot in the hall. The faint rush of air, as if someone breathed against the wall. Whispers too soft to catch words.

Sometimes I thought I saw movement in the crystal light—shadows shifting against the stone. But when I blinked, they vanished.

Was someone there? Watching?

Or was it just my mind unraveling?

I pressed my palms over my ears, whispered to myself to hold on. If I let the doubt consume me, whoever had set this trap would win completely.

-----X-----X-----X-----

One night, lying awake on the cot, I replayed Serenya’s kidnapping in my mind. The way she had been found—mud-streaked, trembling, barely coherent. The way her lips had moved, whispering those words.

Could someone have forced that phrase onto her? Some spell, some compulsion? She hadn’t seemed herself. Her eyes had been distant, unfocused.

But no one else questioned it. They’d heard her words and believed.

And wasn’t that the strangest part? That everyone was so ready to believe?

It was as though the Academy itself wanted me guilty.

I shook the thought away, unsettled. But the unease lingered, gnawing like rot beneath the skin.

-----X-----X-----X-----

The longer I sat in silence, the more I missed the small things. Serenya’s calm smile. Amara’s laughter. Cedric’s blunt honesty, even when it stung. Duric’s foolish jokes. Selindra’s sharp, steady words.

They had been my anchor in this strange new life. And now even they were slipping away.

I caught myself whispering their names into the silence, as though saying them aloud would summon them. But no one came.

I was beginning to believe no one ever would.

-----X-----X-----X-----

It must have been deep into the night—though time had little meaning down here—when I heard it.

A faint scrape. Metal on metal.

My eyes flew open. I sat up sharply, straining to listen. At first I thought it was my imagination again, some echo born from too much silence. But then it came again: a click, precise and deliberate.

The lock.

My breath caught.

The cell door opened with the slowest of creaks, just wide enough for a figure to slip through. They closed it behind them without a word, their movements careful, practiced.

The crystal’s dim glow caught only the outline: a cloak, a hood pulled low, a gloved hand. No face. No voice. Just a presence where no presence should be.

I rose slowly from the cot, heart hammering. “Who are you?”

The figure didn’t answer. Instead, they knelt beside me, pulling something from their sleeve. A faint shimmer of magic pulsed, sharp and delicate, brushing against the suppressing runes.

My cuffs tingled. Warm. Then cool. And for the first time in days, I felt it—a flicker of mana stirring faintly inside me, like a candle spark.

I gasped. “Why… why are you helping me?”

The hood shifted, eyes glinting faintly in the shadow. Watching me. Measuring me.

A hundred questions choked in my throat. Ally? Enemy? Another trick?

The figure leaned closer, their voice barely more than a whisper.

“Listen carefully.”

And then, as if the world itself conspired to silence us, the crystal above flickered and died, plunging the cell into utter darkness.