2025-09-29 08:27:19The Institute had a strange silence to it that morning. Maybe it was my imagination, or maybe it was the stares. I had noticed for a few days now that some students followed me with their eyes—not with curiosity, but with the kind of contempt that hides behind a polite smile. I didn’t like it, but it didn’t stop me either.
That day, as we were leaving History, the tension exploded. “Look who’s talking about old wives’ tales again,” said a tall boy, his uniform perfectly pressed and the emblem of a student society embroidered on his pocket. Two of his friends were with him, surrounding me in the hall. Karol, who was walking beside me, frowned. “Leave him alone, Arven,” she said sharply. Arven smiled, but not at her. At me. “I’m just saying, we come here to study what’s real, what’s documented, not fables about portals and lost magic. Or do you think you know more than the teachers?” I stood still. I could have lowered my head and walked away, but my blood was boiling. “If they were just fables, they wouldn’t be in so many archives. Don’t tell me you’ve never seen the symbols repeat themselves—on murals, in manuscripts, in ruins. You think that’s a coincidence?” Arven’s smile tightened. The students around us started to whisper. This was what he wanted: to humiliate me in public. “The only thing repeating here,” he shot back, “is your childish obsession. Look around you. Do you see anyone else believing that nonsense?” Silence. Karol took a step forward, but I touched her arm to stop her. “Sometimes the one who stands alone is the one closest to the truth.” My voice came out firmer than I expected. A murmur ran through the hall. Arven’s eyes flashed with contained rage. Before he could reply, someone coughed softly from the end of the hallway. An older boy, with neatly combed black hair and an unreadable expression, had stopped to watch us. His eyes were dark, serene, but there was something in the way he looked that made me feel exposed, as if he already knew what I was going to say before I even thought it. He said nothing. He just watched me as Arven, uncomfortable, backed away with his friends, shooting me one last warning glance. Karol sighed in relief. “You shouldn’t provoke them so much, Miguel.” “They started it.” She was about to argue, but the boy with the piercing gaze approached. His steps were calm, calculated. “You talk too much for someone new,” he said in a low voice, almost a whisper only I could hear. “That can be dangerous.” “And who are you?” I asked, a bit defensively. He smiled faintly, without showing his teeth. “Someone who listens. And someone who knows of a place where your questions wouldn’t be so poorly received.” He pulled a folded piece of paper from his pocket and pressed it into my hand before turning away. I opened it as soon as he was gone: an address and a time. No name. Karol saw it over my shoulder. “What’s that?” “An invitation. Or a trap. I don’t know yet.” Later To clear the tension, Karol took me to the nearest shopping mall. It was a massive place, full of lights and screens advertising everything from clothes to political campaigns. I laughed watching her jump from store to store; it seemed she forgot everything when she was surrounded by display windows. “You need a distraction,” she told me. “If you keep thinking about murals coming to life, you’re going to go crazy.” I didn’t answer. My eyes were fixed on a giant screen in the central plaza. The noise gradually died down as the broadcast began. “Live: Address from Governor Edrian Veyra.” The crowd in the mall came to a halt. Some even applauded when his face appeared. Edrian was a man with carefully styled silver hair, in a dark suit that radiated elegance. His voice filled the space with a calculated calm. “People of Fosack,” he began, “today I wish to share a momentous decision with you. I have served this nation for years—years in which, together with you, we built roads, raised factories, strengthened education, and brought prosperity to every corner of this land.” The people in the mall nodded, as if they were all part of that story. “But today,” he continued, “I announce that I will soon step down as Governor, because I wish to serve at a higher level. I have decided to run for Internal Minister of the continent of Fosack. Because Fosack is not just our nation; it is the heart that beats alongside the others, and it is time for us to unite under a single purpose.” The plaza erupted in applause. Some cheered his name. I didn’t clap. Something in his words sounded too rehearsed, too perfect. I looked again at the surname that appeared in golden letters at the bottom of the screen: Veyra. I had seen it before—in archives, in notes, in symbols. A shiver ran down my spine. The Dynasty - Part 1: Isandra Veyra - Secretary to the Governor I watched him from the side of the stage. His voice filled the plaza with a confidence that bordered on hypnotic, and I knew exactly which words would come next. We had rehearsed for weeks, every pause measured, every gesture studied in the mirror of his office. Governor Edrian Veyra never left anything to chance. “The people love us,” he had told me the night before, as we went over the final lines. “And when they love you, they stop questioning.” He was right. There they all were: clapping, cheering, chanting his name as if it were an anthem. They believed in him. Or rather, they believed in the image we had built for them. I smiled, as always. That was my role: to accompany him, to reinforce the scene, to keep the facade of the unimpeachable man intact. No one was to notice the arguments behind closed doors, nor the agreements that never appeared on paper. My notes were filled with names, dates, strategic moves. It was more than a secretary should handle, but Edrian trusted me, or at least he made me believe he did. I was his shadow, the one who silenced what was inconvenient and polished what was necessary. “Fosack is not one nation,” he proclaimed from the podium, raising his hand with solemnity. “We are many. And together, the continent of Fosack will be glorious.” The plaza roared with emotion. I, on the other hand, felt the weight of what was left unsaid. Because his smile wasn't just about politics.
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Chapter 18 - The Well of Stars
MiguelThree weeks had passed. Three weeks of living like a ghost in a world that was hunting me. Our new refuge, provided by an old, paranoid contact of Kai’s, was an old textile factory in the industrial suburbs, a skeleton of brick and steel that offered an anonymity no apartment ever could. Time in that limbo was measured not in days, but in small breakthroughs and mounting tensions. Karol was no longer the frightened guest; she had become Lena’s shadow, absorbing knowledge about encryption and counter-surveillance with a quiet ferocity. Her old life had been erased, and in its place, she was forging a new identity from necessity and loyalty.My life, on the other hand, had turned inward. I spent my hours with Kai, not planning missions, but in a strange and desperate kind of training. Sitting on the dusty floor, surrounded by the silence of the dead machines, we practiced. It wasn't magic. We didn't know what it was. We approached it as if it were an unstable muscle. "Feel the hu
Chapter 17 - The Ghost and the Vote
MiguelThe air in the warehouse had grown thick, almost unbreathable. Kai’s question hung between us, a chasm opened at Karol’s feet. I watched her swallow, her eyes shifting from Kai’s serene, expectant gaze to the icy contempt on Silas’s face, and finally, to me. In her eyes, I saw a storm of emotions: pure, paralyzing fear, the confusion of a world turned upside down, and beneath it all, the same stubborn determination that had brought her here. The relief I had felt at seeing her had soured, turning into a heavy ball of guilt in the pit of my stomach. She was my anchor to the normal world, to the life I’d had just a few weeks ago. And I had just dragged my anchor down into the abyss with me.“Yes,” Karol said, and her voice didn’t tremble. It was a whisper, but as firm and clear as steel. “I accept.”A tense silence followed her answer. Kai nodded slowly, an expression of grave respect on his face. Rocco, who had brought her, looked both relieved and even more terrified at the sam
Chapter 16 - The Interrogation
KarolFear has a metallic taste, like blood in the mouth. I felt it on my tongue as the stocky, hostile-eyed boy loomed over my table. His shadow covered me completely, blocking out what little light was left in the coffee shop. His question, "Who are you, and how did you find this place?" wasn't a question. It was an accusation. A verdict delivered before the trial. My first instinct was to shrink back, to stammer an apology and run. But the image of the mural pulsing with that impossible blue light, and Maestra Zara's cold, dismissive face, anchored themselves in my mind, forging my panic into a fragile but sharp determination.“My name is Karol,” I said, surprised by the firmness in my own voice. “And I’m here because this is the only thread I could pull. I’m looking for my friend, Miguel. He disappeared last night.”The boy's—Rocco's, I guessed, based on what I’d overheard—eyes narrowed even further.“I don’t know any Miguel. You’re in the wrong place.”“No, I’m not,” I insisted,
Chapter 15 - Ghost Protocol
KaiThe silence after the lightbulb exploded was deeper, heavier than any scream. Outside, in the distance, the sirens continued to weave a web of panic over the city, but within the four walls of the dusty apartment, the only sound was our own ragged breathing. The four of us—Lena, Rocco, Silas, and I—stared at Miguel. He was sitting on the bed, his eyes wide, looking at the empty spot on the ceiling where the bulb had been, wearing the same expression of horror and awe as the rest of us. He had collapsed shortly after, not from fainting, but from sheer exhaustion. The hum that emanated from him had subsided, becoming a barely perceptible murmur, the purr of a sleeping storm.Now, hours later, in the stillness of the early morning, I was on watch, sitting in a rickety chair beside his cot. Lena and Rocco were finally asleep, slumped on an old sofa, their faces marked by a tension that not even sleep could erase. Silas was in the other room, supposedly sleeping, though I doubted someo
Chapter 14 - Ariadne's Thread
KarolFear is an ocean. For most of my life, I had only ever dipped my toes in at the shore, feeling the tingle of everyday worries: a difficult exam, an argument with my parents, the nervousness of talking to someone I liked. But now, hidden behind the cold solidity of a stone column, the ocean had swallowed me whole. I was drowning in the icy darkness of a truth I couldn't comprehend, my lungs burning for lack of air, for lack of logic. The mural, Miguel’s damned mural, was alive. It was pulsing with a soft, bluish light, an otherworldly breath that mocked every law of physics I had ever been taught.My first impulse was to run, to scream, to find an adult, an authority figure, someone who could put the world back to normal. But the image of Maestra Zara’s impassive face flashed in my mind, a wall of ice that extinguished any hope of help. Then I thought of the guards in their black uniforms, their weapons designed not to protect, but to suppress. No. I was alone. The fear was still
Chapter 13 - The Broken Morning
KarolI wasn’t woken up by the alarm on my tablet, with its soft, programmed melody. I was woken up by the silence. An unnatural, heavy silence that had swallowed the usual campus sounds: the laughter of those heading to early classes, the murmur of conversations, the distant hum of maintenance vehicles. I opened my eyes to a room tinted a pale gray. Outside, the sky was overcast, as if the strange storm from the night before had left a scar on the atmosphere.I looked out the window, and the real reason for the silence hit me with the force of a punch. The grounds of Rixus Institute looked like an occupied zone. The usual campus security guards, with their blue uniforms and relaxed attitude, were gone. In their place, men and women dressed in black tactical uniforms with no insignias patrolled the paths. They moved in pairs, with a cold, military efficiency, their boots marking an ominous rhythm in the morning stillness. They weren’t protecting. They were controlling.I left my room
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