2025-09-29 08:33:48Miguel
The night smelled of damp asphalt and the promise of rain. I held the two pieces of paper in my hand, nearly identical in their mystery. One was a simple slip with an address jotted down in a quick but elegant script, the one Kai had given me. The other, a stiff, formal business card, had the same address written on the back. Two invitations, one destination. I decided to follow the directions from Kai’s paper. There was something about the older student’s calmness that inspired more trust than the rehearsed smile of the man in the suit. The address led me far from the Rixus campus, to a residential neighborhood of two-story houses with small front yards. It was a normal, almost boring place, the kind of spot where no one would expect to find the epicenter of a conspiracy. I stopped in front of a number painted on a wooden mailbox. Soft music drifted from inside the house, along with the murmur of several conversations mixed with occasional laughter. Colored lights flickered behind the drawn curtains. It looked like a party, just as the atmosphere suggested, but something about the normality of the scene felt like a perfect disguise. I took a deep breath, repeating my motto to myself: Being afraid isn't the bad part. Letting it drag you down is. I walked up the three porch steps and knocked on the door. The face that appeared was not the one I expected. A girl with electric-blue hair smiled at me. “Yeah?” “I… uh, I was invited,” I said, suddenly feeling like an intruder. The girl looked me up and down, her smile widening. “Of course you were. Come on in, make yourself at home.” The inside confirmed my suspicions. In the main living room, a dozen young people, my age or a little older, were scattered about. Some were talking on a couch, others were getting drinks from a table. The music created a relaxed atmosphere, but no one was dancing. And everyone, I noticed, had a sharp, observant look in their eyes. This wasn’t a party; it was a meeting. “So you decided to come.” Kai’s calm voice sounded right beside me. He had approached without me noticing. He was wearing casual clothes, a far cry from the school uniform, but his unflappable presence was the same. “I was curious,” I replied. “Curiosity is what brings us all here,” Kai said, and his dark eyes seemed to assess me with a new intensity. “I’m glad you came.” “Not so fast, Kai. Don’t recruit him just yet.” A young man broke away from one of the groups and walked toward us. It was the man in the suit, Silas, though now he wore dark jeans and a shirt that still looked too expensive for a student gathering. His smile was sharp, almost a sneer. “I gave him my card. Technically, he’s my guest,” he said, looking at me with a predatory interest. “My name is Silas. And you’re the famous portal boy, aren’t you?” I frowned, on the defensive. “How do you know that?” “We know a lot of things here,” Kai intervened, taking a subtle step to place himself slightly between Silas and me. “And we also know how to be discreet. Something you forget when you hand out business cards like candy.” The tension between them was palpable. Silas let out a short, joyless laugh. “I just make sure the message gets through. Unlike some people, I don’t hide.” Kai ignored him and focused on me. “Come with me. The real meeting is about to start. Leave the ‘party’ for the onlookers.” I nodded and followed Kai through the room, feeling Silas’s gaze fixed on my back. He led me down a short hallway and stopped in front of a closed door at the end. “What you hear in here cannot leave these walls,” Kai said in a low voice, his tone now completely serious. “What we do is dangerous. We investigate the most powerful people on the continent: the Veyra Dynasty.” I swallowed hard, the name echoing in my head. The Governor’s surname. “Are you ready to find out why the explosion at an institute five years ago and last night’s ‘solar flares’ are connected?” Kai asked, his hand on the doorknob. I could only nod, knowing I had just crossed a line from which I could never return.
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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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