Two weeks.
I had been out cold for two weeks?
My thoughts reeled as I sat upright. My mind raced — flickering images, voices, pain. It felt like an eternity of wandering in some mental limbo. The white test room. The sharp sting of syringes. Screaming. The agony. The cold laughter of researchers. The taste of iron and fear.
It wasn't just a dream. It felt vivid. Too vivid.
Real.
I could still feel it etched behind my eyes like scars on memory.
Even now, I remembered it all — though everything came in fragments. Shattered pieces.
The Headmistress sat across from me.
Small frame. Barely adult-looking. But her presence… absolute. A lollipop perched between her lips. Her eyes — cold and clever — locked onto mine.
But something strange lingered beneath her expression.
An emotion.
Affection?
She didn't waste time.
"I'm just gonna come out and say it. Axel, become my assistant. Train under me."
I blinked.
Wait. What?
"Why?" I asked, voice hoarse.
"Because," she said simply, "you clearly don't know how to control that power you have. You are, to put it bluntly— a ticking time bomb. A disaster in human skin."
I stared at her.
What power? What the hell was she—
"The Vanguard Project."
My blood ran cold.
My hands clenched instinctively.
Muscles stiffened.
My face froze.
A trigger phrase. That's what that was.
She was watching me closely now. Gauging my reaction.
"You were an experiment, weren't you? I did find it strange when Javette shown us those test papers you wrote."
She didn't give me time to lie.
"Mysteriously, a few months ago—before the academy officially began—the League received word. An illegal facility. One that was supposed to be shut down a few years ago. Still running."
"When we arrived at the site," she continued, "everyone was dead. Teenagers. Subjects. Slaughtered. The researchers were gone. Vanished. But we found documents. A few notes. Enough to piece together what happened."
"They mentioned one subject. Special. A sigil on his neck. Labelled '059.' Dangerous. Is it coincidence that you have a sigil at the same spot? I think not."
"Then we found that the subject escaped. Along with two others. Does it ring a bell?"
She looked at me.
I had no words. I simply stayed quiet.
Did I really alter the timeline just by surviving? Just by existing?
The headmistress continued.
"So, Axel…" she said softly. "Who are you?"
Silence.
I felt the weight of her question. I heard it echo in my head over and over. Who are you?
"I am Axel," I answered.
Just that.
Nothing else.
She didn't press further.
She simply smiled — as if she expected that answer.
"Well," she said, straightening her lollipop, "I still want you as my assistant."
The silence returned, this time awkward. Unnatural. A pause that didn't know how to end itself.
She stood, brushing nonexistent dust off her skirt.
"At least consider my offer," she said. "Classes will resume as normal."
She stepped out, the door hissing shut behind her.
---
I exhaled.
I got up, slow and shaky, and put on my academy uniform. The fabric felt unfamiliar — stiff. My hands moved mechanically.
Outside, the air hit my skin like a slap. Cool. Fresh.
Too fresh.
It grounded me.
The campus was alive. Students moved across the walkways in groups, chatting, laughing. The buzz of daily life carried on like I hadn't just vanished from existence for half a month.
They didn't know.
Couldn't know.
Two weeks. I had been gone two whole weeks. And the world just… moved on.
---
I walked across the quad. Past the training fields. The tech towers. The cafeteria with its clatter of trays and lazy lunchtime hum.
Finally, I reached it.
The dorm.
The one I shared with her.
I opened the door.
Candice sat inside. Unmoving.
Back perfectly straight. Eyes half-lidded. Legs crossed.
Waiting.
"So," she said dryly. "You decided to come back. After two weeks."
I paused in the doorway.
My thoughts were still a mess. Still scrambled from that broken backstory "quest" I'd never signed up for.
"Yeah," I said simply. "I had things to do."
Her eyebrow twitched.
"For two weeks?"
"Yeah," I replied, shrugging. "It was a long project. Get used to it. I'm an occasional disappearer."
I moved past her and into the bathroom.
---
The water was warm. Hot enough to sting.
Steam rose, fogging the mirror. For a long time, I just stood there — letting it wash over me. My skin, my mind, my soul.
Cleansing.
Maybe.
I got dressed afterward, slowly. Ruby hummed softly beside me from the nightstand, her gentle glow the only constant since this hell began.
I collapsed into bed.
For the first time in what felt like months,
I slept.
Not with one eye open.
Not in a corner of a bloodstained lab.
Not in the shadow of nightmares.
Just… sleep.
Real, peaceful sleep.