The sky was frighteningly gray. No storm, no wind, just a dense silence wrapping everything like a curtain of gray dust. The ground was wet, but it hadn't rained. The air was cold, but it didn't move. As if time itself had refused to continue.
In the center of the academy courtyard, the main plaza had turned into a sanctuary of death. Rows of black coffins lined up with military precision, covered with the golden emblem of the academy, surrounded by half-raised flags fluttering lightly in nothingness.
Ethan Merkov stood at the front of the crowd, wearing his official academic robe black with faint blue threads. His eyes were moist, his face noticeably pale, but no one knew that his heart, beneath that broken face, beat with hidden delight. A delight not born of pure cruelty, but as a result of a plan executed with years of patience, a plan that had begun to bear fruit.
"Our loved ones… left without a farewell…" he began to speak, his voice sad and broken in a precisely measured way. The echo of his words bounced off the academy walls as if death itself were listening.
"We lost the best this generation had to offer. Victims of a virus whose source we don't know and whose motives we don't understand. But what we do know is that they died dreaming… dreaming of becoming something greater."
He looked at the coffins, then lowered his head. A tear slipped down his left cheek, slowly, as if it was extracted by will, not feeling. Inside, Ethan replayed the plan in his mind, savoring the details of the final moments before the virus his own incomplete creation spread. Enough to kill, but not enough to leave any evidence.
Among the silently standing crowd, Selina clenched her hands tightly. She also wore the official robe, but her eyes did not look at the coffins—they were fixed on Ethan's face. Every word he spoke was like a stab not because it was true, but because of its false sweetness.
She knew.
She knew Ethan was not innocent.
And she knew she had to continue her role despite that.
There were orders. Instructions. Missions.
But her heart, which wasn't supposed to get involved, began to rebel. The rage in her chest was so thick she had to shift her weight from one foot to another just to keep from exploding.
"What a liar…" she whispered to herself, in a voice no one heard.
"We stand today, not just to mourn, but to vow. To continue, despite the loss. To not let their deaths be in vain."
He whispered to himself: Their deaths were necessary.
As the funeral ceremony ended, students and teachers began to leave slowly, as if their feet were tied with strings of grief. The sound of footsteps on the ground was scattered, and every breath from their chests carried an invisible weight.
Selina didn't move.
She stood by the last coffin, staring at the name engraved on it: "Alen Vosk." He was her friend. One of the few who knew her other side, and she had planned to get him out of the academy before the events occurred. But the virus got there first.
Ethan approached her, his voice soft and tender, as if speaking to his daughter: "He was a wonderful boy. I know he was close to you."
She didn't answer.
He turned to leave, but she said without looking at him: "Sometimes I think death is easier than pretending all the time."
He stopped. She didn't notice that he smiled to himself before regaining his blank expression. "Pretending, Selina, is an art… and all art is pain."
Then he left.
That night, the winds began to blow gently. Selina was in her room, writing her report. "The situation is growing more dangerous. The virus is unnatural. There's evidence of genetic manipulation. Ethan Merkov may be the primary suspect. Immediate intervention is becoming urgent."
But she didn't send the report. Her fingers hovered above the send button, paralyzed.
"If I send it now… everything will collapse. The academy will explode. And I'll lose my place, maybe my life."
But if she didn't send it, more would die.
She remembered the way Ethan looked at her. How he tried to get closer, how he tested her. He was smart. Skilled at reading faces. He might suspect her if she acted impulsively.
The next day
The academy announced the suspension of classes for a week. Apologies were sent to the students' families, along with fake reports explaining that the virus came from an external visitor. The truth was buried as they were.
But Selina could no longer sleep.
In one of the hallways, she found Ethan standing by the window, sipping tea. "Do you like tea, Selina?" he asked.
"No."
"Nor lying?"
She froze.
He turned to her. "Sometimes I feel I see you. The real you. Beneath that clever mask."
"And I feel you only cry when you want people to pity you."
He chuckled softly. "Smart… but sad. That's a dangerous combination."
"And you're a killer… but loved. That's worse."
Silence fell.
Then he said in a cold tone: "In the world of academies, if you don't kill… you get killed. Remember that."
After a week
A small memorial was erected in the academy courtyard. A tall black stone, engraved with the names of the victims. But one name was missing.
"Alen…" Selina whispered, standing in front of the memorial, staring at the space where his name should've been.
"Maybe because he knew too much." came the voice from behind.
She turned. It was Ethan. His eyes wider than usual, and a faint smile on the corner of his lips.
"Some names don't belong in memory. They belong in silence."
"But silence doesn't last."
"It does, when everyone is afraid."
Beneath her calmness, a fire burned. A feeling of helplessness, guilt, the need to do something but not yet. She watched, wrote, waited for the right moment. She knew confronting Ethan now would be suicide.
But she swore, at Alen's grave, that she wouldn't let him get away with it.
No matter the cost.
At the end of the second week
The academy seemed to be recovering. The students returned, but with less innocence on their faces, and more fear in their eyes. Death changes people but it hadn't changed Ethan. It had freed him.
As for Selina, she had become a ghost roaming its walls, speaking with a smile, acting normal while carrying inside her a ticking bomb.
And deep within, she no longer asked herself, "Can I?" But "When will I?"
A week ago
Night blanketed the academy like a shawl of crushed coal, and the sky was filled with heavy clouds that did not cry but hinted at an impending explosion. Inside a forgotten room in the basement, Valerian sat on the ground, his back against the wall, his eyes empty as if time had frozen within them.
He wasn't asleep, but he wasn't awake either.
He was seeing something… someone.
In the shifting shadows, a face appeared. Familiar enough to hate. The face of the young man who stole everything from him. The one who was supposed to be in his place.
The ghost wasn't a misty figure it was clear, smiling, mocking, filling the room with his arrogant presence.
"Didn't I tell you, Valerian?" said the entity, its voice an echo resembling Valerian's own voice, but laced with terrifying disdain. "You were never going to make it. Not in illusion, not in reality."
Valerian trembled. But he didn't speak.
"You pretend to be strong. You build plan after plan. But you're still incomplete. A student of nothingness. And the truth?... You know it."
The ghost approached, sat in front of him, face just inches away. "Mercy… compassion… these are illusions they planted in you so you'd lose. Greed, Valerian. Selfishness. That's what you need. Don't be a fool be a predator."
"Enough…" Valerian whispered, barely audible.
But the ghost smiled wider. "You don't want it to stop. You want to collapse. To become my version. To kill what's holding you back. I'm not a ghost I'm you… without masks."
Suddenly, the room began to change. The walls shrank, the shadows stretched like snakes slithering from inside him. Everything pressed on his head distorted memories, fake laughter, mocking words from the past. And the face in front of him grew, until it filled his entire vision.
"There's no salvation unless you abandon the human in you."
Valerian screamed a scream that didn't come from his throat, but from his soul.
Suddenly…
A white light exploded inside the room. Sharp, silent, cold.
Everything stopped. The ghost vanished. The sounds faded.
And Zenith appeared.
His eyes were as cold as a polar sky, and his hand gripped Valerian's shoulder firmly.
"Wake up," he said. Not shouting, not whispering. Just commanding, his voice slicing the fog like a sword.
But Valerian was trembling, his breaths short, as if his body refused life.
"You're drowning in a swamp your mind created. Self-pity wrapped in anger. Illusions that look like truth, but are nothing more than sickness."
He grabbed Valerian by the neck, lifting him from the floor as if waking him from a dream.
"No one blames you. But you left the door open. Stop crying inside because the world won't wait for those who break down."
Valerian's eyes flickered with a faint glow. "He… he was laughing at me."
"And now?" said Zenith, letting him fall back to the ground but this time, aware.
"Now… I'll rip his image from my mind."
Zenith didn't smile, but he nodded slightly. "Beware of yourself, more than any enemy."
He left the room, leaving Valerian in a thinner darkness, with quieter shadows.
But inside him, he was no longer the same.
Valerian sat, his tremors calming slightly. The room was dark except for a faint light slipping through a half-open curtain. The clock pointed past midnight, and the air was utterly still as if the entire academy had held its breath.
He rested his head on the wall, his eyes drifting toward the ceiling.
"Why did he come?" he muttered, as if speaking to the void.
"Did he save me? Or was he just watching?"
A long silence passed.
In the abandoned upper floor, behind a library sealed with mud and dust, Zenith stood alone, holding an old leather booklet. In front of him was a wooden table scattered with papers, maps, and worn manuscripts in an ancient language.
He read with his eyes without moving, the muscles of his face tight, his breaths slow and steady.
"Nothing," he said softly, as if talking to himself or to a hidden spirit. "No symbols, no hidden codes, no signatures. The Black Moon Organization… moves like ghosts."
He flipped another page, revealing a map of tunnel systems beneath the academy, followed by incomprehensible scribbles.
"Even Ethan… smart enough to leave no trace. If they're moving through him, they're not using the usual channels."
He pulled out a small black pendant from his pocket, engraved with a faint symbol resembling a half-circle intersected by a broken blade. It was the only thing he found last time he ventured out. "Smoke without fire. Lies disguised as truths. And behind it all… silence."