Emergency summons

Lucien barely slept.

When the morning bell rang, he was already awake, sitting on the edge of his bed, staring at the floorboards where his shadow had smiled back at him. The image clung like soot in his mind, stubborn and impossible to wash away.

He thought of Arian’s words, of the sharpness in his voice last night. Don’t shut us out again.

But how could he share everything? The whispers in his dreams. The way his shadow sometimes bent wrong. The part of him that wondered if the killer wasn’t just hunting him—but inside him.

They’d think he was losing his mind. Maybe he was.

The dormitory was dim in the early light, and the air carried the damp, chalky smell of stone. Toren snored like a dying ox two bunks over, sprawled diagonally across his mattress. 

Darius muttered something unintelligible in his sleep and rolled over, pulling the blanket tighter. Caelith was already up, hair neatly tied back, bent over his ever-present notebook.

Only Arian looked as restless as Lucien. He sat on his bed, boots half-laced, his posture stiff. His face was unreadable, but his eyes flicked once toward Lucien before settling on his task.

“Morning,” Lucien muttered. His throat was dry.

“Morning,” Arian replied quietly.

The sound of rustling blankets filled the silence. Toren groaned and buried his head under his pillow. “Tell the bell to shut up. Five more minutes.”

Darius sat up with a grunt, scrubbing his face. “The bell doesn’t care what you want.”

“Figures,” Toren mumbled.

For a brief moment, the bickering almost felt normal. Like any other day.

But normal cracked the second they stepped into the corridor.

Whispers raced through the halls, sharp and frantic. Students clutched each other’s sleeves, faces pale, eyes darting. Some spoke too fast, their words tripping over one another; others whispered so low it was like their voices had been stolen.

Lucien caught snatches: “…another one—” “…same as Kara—” “…mana ripped out—”

A girl brushed past him, her hair tangled and eyes wide. “You heard?” she gasped, not even waiting for him to answer. “They found another one.”

Lucien froze. “Another what?”

The girl shook her head, shivering. “Same as Kara. Torn apart. Mana drained.” She hurried on, vanishing into the flow of bodies.

Lucien’s chest tightened, his pulse racing.

Arian’s hand brushed his arm. “It just won't stop. How many has it been in the past week.”

---

The courtyard buzzed like a disturbed hive.

Students clustered in knots, voices overlapping in a wave of panic. Some looked like they were about to cry; others looked like they wanted to bolt. A few whispered hurried prayers under their breath.

Professors tried to scatter the groups, their cloaks swishing as they barked orders. “Back to your studies! No loitering!” But the more they tried to impose calm, the more frantic the whispers became.

Near the fountain, Lucien spotted Professor Aldwyn. His normally composed face was drawn, his cloak pulled tight as though he were trying to hide inside it. He spoke in hushed tones to two other instructors, their heads bent close, gestures sharp. He looked like a man carrying too many secrets at once.

Caelith adjusted his satchel, his voice low. “Notice how none of them are actually telling us anything? No warning, no statement. Just… let the rumors spread.”

Darius scowled, arms crossed. “They think if they don’t say it out loud, we won’t panic.”

“Or,” Arian said, his voice steady but cold, “they don’t want us to know what they really found.”

Lucien blinked at him. Arian wasn’t usually the suspicious one. That was more Caelith’s territory.

“You saw something?” Lucien asked quietly.

Arian’s jaw worked. He hesitated, then nodded. “On the way here. The courtyard path—stone scorched, like from a backlash. Not natural. Professors were scrubbing it clean before half the students were even awake.”

“Scrubbing it?” Toren asked. “Like… cleaning up?”

“Covering tracks,” Caelith murmured.

“Or erasing evidence,” Arian said. His gaze didn’t leave the cluster of professors.

The group fell silent.

Lucien’s heart thudded harder. Secrets on secrets. His name still carved into the wall from last night. The killer—or whatever was behind this—was circling closer.

Before he could say more, the Academy bells rang again, sharp and jarring. Professors clapped their hands, shepherding students like cattle.

“Inside!” one barked. “Move quickly! No loitering!”

It didn’t feel like school anymore. It felt like a prison.

---

Lectures blurred. Lucien’s quill scratched nonsense across the parchment. His eyes kept drifting to the edges of the room, half-expecting shadows to twitch.

Professor Helrad droned at the front of the hall about rune structures, but Lucien couldn’t make sense of a single word. Every time he blinked, he saw Kara’s body, pale and drained, and the image of his own name glowing on stone.

Beside him, Toren doodled circles in his margins, whispering, “If I die here, make sure they write something heroic on my grave. Like, ‘Here lies Toren, slayer of demons, too handsome for this world.’”

Elira didn’t even glance up from her notes. “I’ll write, ‘Here lies Toren, killed by his own ego.’”

Darius snorted. For a moment, it almost eased the tension. Almost.

Lucien forced his eyes back to the parchment. He managed to write three shaky words before they bled into meaningless scribbles: don’t look away.

---

At midday, they slipped into a quiet alcove near the library. The air smelled of ink and dust, and the walls muffled the noise of the crowded hallways.

Toren plopped down, tearing a hunk of bread from a loaf he’d smuggled. “All right. Someone say something. What do we do? We just can't do nothing.”

Lucien hesitated. “We can’t just… sit back. Not when it’s happening again and again.”

“No one’s saying sit back,” Darius said, leaning against the wall. “But whoever’s behind this is stronger than us. Charging in blind is asking to end up like Kara and others.”

Arian spoke next, arms crossed, eyes sharp. “Stronger, maybe. Smarter? I don’t know. They keep leaving sigils, leaving signs. Like they want someone to notice.”

“Or,” Elira countered, “they’re leaving false trails. Making us chase ghosts while the real danger creeps up.”

Toren groaned, running a hand through his messy hair. “Gods, why can’t it just be a monster in the woods? Hit it, stab it, done. Nice and simple.”

“Because,” Lucien muttered, staring at the floor, “monsters don’t write names on walls.”

The bread in Toren’s hand stilled. Nobody had a reply.

---

By evening, the rumors had twisted tighter. The victim wasn’t just another random student.

It was one of the returnees—the students who had gone missing before.

Lucien’s stomach dropped when he heard. If true, it meant something was targeting those touched by the Threshold. Kara hadn’t been an accident. It was a pattern. 

The air in the dormitory that night was suffocating. Students shut their doors tight, voices muffled to whispers. Fear spread thicker than smoke.

Lucien sat on his bed, staring at his hands. The urge to speak warred with the fear of being seen as unhinged.

Should he tell them? About the shadow that moved wrong. About the whispers that wrapped around his dreams. About the fear that maybe he wasn’t just a target, but part of the very thing they were fighting.

Should I share all this? No, they might think I’ve gone crazy.

Across the room, Arian sat by the window, oiling his blade with slow, steady movements. His face was unreadable, but his eyes flicked toward Lucien once, sharp and questioning.

Their gazes locked.

Lucien’s breath caught. He opened his mouth—

The Academy bells tolled. Three sharp, urgent notes that rattled the walls.

Emergency summons.

Darius jumped to his feet. “What now?”

Toren swore, cramming his boots back on. “That’s not the ‘bedtime’ bell, is it?”

“Not even close,” Caelith said, snapping his notebook shut.

Lucien’s pulse hammered. Another body? Another sigil? Or something worse?

The group hurried into the corridor, the sound of dozens of feet pounding alongside theirs. The air buzzed with fear.

Whatever waited beyond those doors, Lucien knew one thing for certain:

The circle was tightening.

And his name was already written in blood.

•••