Hours passed.The infirmary lights dimmed on their own, shifting into a softer spectrum meant to simulate night. It was never truly dark here. The System did not believe in darkness. Only reduced visibility. The hum of machines settled into a steady rhythm, layered with the faint pulse of the building itself, like a giant artificial heart keeping watch over empty halls.Tess sat near the foot of Zayel’s bed, still and upright, one leg crossed over the other. Faint blue glyphs hovered across her vision, system logs scrolling at a pace only she could comfortably read. Her eyes moved with small, precise motions. She looked relaxed, but Zayel knew better. Tess never relaxed. She merely conserved motion.Milo had lost his battle with consciousness hours ago.He was slumped sideways in a chair clearly designed for someone taller, one leg hanging over the armrest, his head tilted back at an angle that looked uncomfortable even by Milo standards. An empty food wrapper clung stubbornly to his

Milo stared at the grav boots like they might bite him.The pair rested at his feet, sleek and quiet, faint lights pulsing along the seams as if patiently waiting for permission to defy gravity. Milo shifted his weight, then shifted it back, clearly reconsidering every life choice that had led him here.“Nope,” Milo muttered. “You’re not fooling me again. Last time you launched me sideways into a wall. I still feel that in my soul.”Across the row, Zayel held his own pair in his hands.A familiar tightness settled in his chest before he could stop it.Last year.The memory surfaced without warning, sharp and intrusive, like a system alert he had never been able to mute.The grav boots had resisted him then.Lagged.Stuttered.When they finally activated, it was already too late. His balance had gone off, his trajectory misaligned. He drifted sideways mid air and collided with a Class C student who had already achieved stable lift. The impact had been sudden, disorienting.Safety proto

Tess noticed Zayel at the same moment he realized he had been staring too long.She was hovering a short distance away, grav boots humming softly, posture relaxed as if floating were a casual habit rather than a graded activity. When her eyes met his, one of her brows lifted.“What?” she said plainly. “Do you have something you wanted to tell me?”The question was direct. No accusation. No curiosity sharp enough to cut. Just Tess being Tess.Zayel straightened instinctively, shoulders stiffening as if he had been caught doing something illegal rather than simply looking. “No,” he replied at once. “Nothing.”Tess studied him for half a second longer, eyes searching his face like she was scanning a line of code for errors. Then she shrugged, already bored. “Okay.”She turned away without another word.Zayel exhaled slowly, the tension loosening in his chest. So she did not notice. Or at least, she had not seen anything concrete enough to question. What he had done was invisible. No phys

Zayel’s feet felt heavy, but he moved.Each step up the platform stairs echoed louder than it should have, metal tapping against metal, sound carrying through the evaluation hall like an announcement he did not want to make.Eyes followed him from every direction. Some were curious. Some amused. Some already bored, convinced they knew how this would end.Standing beside Aurelian Vox felt unreal.The difference was immediate and painful. Aurelian stood straight, relaxed, perfectly aligned with the platform as if the system itself had shaped his posture.Zayel felt out of place, like a defective prototype rolled onto the stage by mistake. His shoulders were tense. His breathing shallow. His chip pulsed faintly, uneven.Instructor Hale glanced down at his tablet and tapped once.“Zayel Anz,” he said. “Please replay the moment you woke up yesterday.”The request was simple. That was what made it cruel.Zayel swallowed and raised his hand. His fingers brushed the chip embedded in his foreh

Zayel stopped and turned.Aurelian stood a few steps away, no audience, no instructor, no observers. Just the two of them.“Zayel,” Aurelian said.His voice was calm. Flat. Controlled.“Yes… Aurelian?” Zayel replied, keeping his tone steady.Aurelian studied him in silence. His gaze moved over Zayel’s face, pausing briefly on the faint orange glow of his chip.“Your sync rate is low,” Aurelian said. “Your stats are poor. Your performance was a failure. That is what the data says.”Zayel said nothing.Aurelian took one step closer.“But during the evaluation,” he continued, “my chip did something it has never done before.”Zayel felt his throat tighten.Aurelian tilted his head slightly, as if listening to something beyond the room.“You are an error,” he said. Not with anger. Not with disdain. Just certainty. “And I do not like errors.”His eyes sharpened.“The system is correct. Class D individuals introduce instability. They create deviation. That leads to disorder.”A brief pause.