Glass Dust

The rain fell thin over Aurelia, so light it looked like dust made of glass.

In the Common District, no one looked up anymore when the Resonance trains passed above the buildings. The suspended rails trembled in the air, bright and silent, drawing pale blue lines between low rooftops, shop signs, and the identical windows of worn apartment blocks. For everyone else, it was normal. For him, it wasn’t.

Every time those lights crossed the sky, he felt as if the world were reminding him of something simple and cruel: some people were born to rise, while others were meant to watch from below.

And he belonged to the second kind.

Not because of some great tragedy. Not because he was cursed, hated, or marked by fate. That would almost have been easier. At least then he could have given a name to the weight that always seemed to sit inside his chest.

The truth was much simpler.

He was normal—terribly normal.

He had no name that opened doors, no hidden talent that made teachers stop and stare, no secret training carved into his body since childhood. No mysterious power waited obediently inside him for the perfect moment to awaken. Resonance had always been something he watched from a distance.

He saw it in the trains above the city, in the pale barriers surrounding the Upper City, and in the news reports that spoke of the Academy with voices so solemn they almost sounded religious. He saw it in people his age when they returned from selection trials with a new light in their eyes, as if they had already started belonging to another world.

A world that kept moving ahead without him.

He stopped beneath the rusted shelter of an old bus stop, pressing the strap of his bag against his side. Ahead of him, the road sloped down toward the interchange of the Common District, where cars disappeared into low, damp tunnels lit by flickering streetlamps.

Above him, another Resonance train cut across the sky. The suspended rails gave off a deep, steady hum. He raised his eyes and followed that blue line as it moved above the rooftops, toward the high towers and clean lights of a place that always seemed just out of reach.

Then he heard a scream.

It wasn’t one of the usual sounds of the city. Not a drunken argument. Not the sudden shout of someone nearly hit by a car. It was a dirty scream, broken and raw, made of real fear.

He turned sharply.

The sound had come from the interchange in front of him. More precisely, from the narrow street on the left, the one that ran between the retaining wall of the railway and a row of old closed warehouses.

For a few seconds, he stayed still. Rain slid down his forehead, cold and persistent. Another voice cut through the air, closer this time.

Then a girl burst out of the side street.

She was running badly, as if one of her legs could no longer carry the weight of her body. Her hair clung to her face, soaked by the rain, and one hand was pressed hard against her side. Something dark poured between her fingers.

Blood.

His breath stopped.

The girl managed three more steps, maybe four. Then her knee gave out and she fell onto the wet asphalt with a sharp sound. She tried to get back up immediately, but failed. So she began dragging herself backward.

Her shoes slipped over the dirty water. Her bloodied hand left an uneven streak on the pavement. Her wide eyes were not looking at him. They were fixed on the street she had just come from.

“No…” she whispered.

He wanted to move. He truly did. He wanted to run to her, ask what had happened, call for help, do anything a normal person should do in a situation like that.

Instead, he remained frozen.

His body wouldn’t answer.

There was something in the air. It wasn’t just fear. It was denser than that, more physical, an invisible pressure crushing his ribs and making his teeth hum. Like the air before a storm, when everything turns electric and the whole world seems to hold its breath.

The girl finally saw him. For one brief instant, something like hope appeared in her eyes. Then that hope died.

“Run…” she said, her voice hoarse.

He didn’t understand at first. “What?”

“Run!”

The sound came after: a low growl, deep and uneven. It did not seem to come from a single throat. It was as if several animals were growling inside the same body, all out of rhythm, all filled with the same rage.

A shape emerged from the side street.

At first, he thought it was a dog.