[8:00 A.M. – Hero Academy Courtyard]
There was a hush over the courtyard. The kind of hush that usually came before a musical number or an arc-wide betrayal. Alex felt it in his teeth. And in his bagel.
"I don't like this," he muttered, squinting up at the sky.
The sky had the decency to squint back. Dark clouds swirled in neat spirals, as if they were following a storyboard.
Cryflame bounced beside him, bright-eyed and freshly sparkled. "I heard today's midterm is about inner truth! Like, we go deep into our personalities and fight metaphor monsters!"
Mistopher, upside-down in a folding chair, added, "Or dissolve into abstract symbolism and cease to be."
Voidica stood a little apart, silent as always, scarf hiding half her face.
Alex glanced at Penny, who was unusually quiet, tapping on her tablet with lips pressed thin.
He narrowed his eyes. "You knew, didn't you?"
Penny didn't look up. "I suspected. But I didn't think they'd actually run the Alignment Reflection Trial. It hasn't been used since the Identity Collapse."
"Sounds like a great name for a band," Alex muttered. "What is it?"
She finally looked up. Her eyes were serious in a way he hated.
"It builds a space out of who you are," she said. "Your fears, your flaws. Your subconscious. You don't fight monsters. You face yourself. And if the system can't categorize you…"
She trailed off.
Alex crossed his arms. "Then it tries to force one?"
She nodded. "Or delete you."
***
[8:15 A.M. – Trial Chamber: Loading]
The trial room looked like a temple designed by a cryptic life coach. Smooth white floors. Floating doorways. Mood lighting that didn't come from anywhere in particular.
An instructor—part-human, part-font—floated in the air, holding a clipboard.
"Welcome, Class WTF," they announced in a voice that came from too many directions. "Your Alignment Reflection Trial will begin shortly. This is not a test of skill, strength, or power. It is a test of integrity, identity, and inner cohesion."
Cryflame whispered, "Do I need to cry to pass?"
Mistopher nodded solemnly. "Tears are the ink of the soul."
Voidica just rolled her eyes.
Alex raised his hand.
"Yes, Mr. Armor?"
"I refuse."
The instructor smiled gently, like someone offering a hug made of plot hooks.
"Refusal is participation, Mr. Armor."
Of course it was.
***
[8:20 A.M. – Initiation Begins]
One by one, doors blinked into existence, each glowing with strange symbols.
Cryflame's door crackled with fire and gold.
Mistopher's shimmered like a reflection that didn't quite match.
Voidica's was black glass, veined with violet threads pulsing like veins.
Alex's didn't appear.
Instead, the room dimmed. All the doors shimmered.
The instructor frowned.
"Interesting," they said softly. "The anomaly's arc is undefined."
Alex sighed. "I prefer the term 'unscheduled.'"
The instructor touched their clipboard. All four doors flickered, then merged.
A single gateway appeared.
White stone. No symbols.
Just a title carved above it in simple serif font:
"TOGETHER."
The instructor straightened. "Group trial. Emotional tether enforced. Alignment judged as one."
Cryflame gasped. "We're all in your head?!"
Alex turned to Penny. "I am going to punch a system."
Penny handed him a granola bar. "Save your energy. The system punches back."
The gate opened.
Inside: nothing.
No light. No sound.
Just silence that felt like it was waiting to narrate.
Alex took a bite of the granola bar.
Then stepped in.
***
[8:22 A.M. – Alignment Reflection Trial: Room 1]
They landed in silence.
Not gently. Not with grace. The ground simply became beneath their feet, like a memory being rewritten mid-thought.
It wasn't dark.
It was dim in the way shadow might feel if it had a heartbeat.
Mistopher immediately flipped upside-down.
Cryflame clutched his scarf. "This feels... personal."
Voidica didn't speak.
She stood at the front of the group, staring at the space around them. Because it wasn't a room. Not really.
It was a maze.
Endless glass corridors, twisting like DNA under moonlight. The walls shimmered with distorted reflections, but none of them matched. Sometimes, they showed moments that hadn't happened. Or people who had died. Or looks no one ever gave her—but she imagined anyway.
Alex's own reflection didn't appear at all.
He touched the glass beside him and saw only static.
Voidica exhaled sharply. "It's mine."
"Your trial?" Cryflame asked.
"No," she said. "This place."
***
[8:24 A.M. – Mirror Logic]
The corridor shifted as they walked—twisting their paths to echo emotional proximity.
Sometimes they walked through the same place twice.
Sometimes they hadn't moved at all.
Voidica walked with purpose. She wasn't leading. She was navigating. Like she'd walked this place before.
Alex followed her without comment.
He recognized this kind of space. Not in its shape—but in its tension. The way it fought honesty. The way it hated being seen.
Eventually, they reached a central chamber. A dome of cracked glass, with one great mirror in the center. Half-broken. Half-blank.
Cryflame whispered, "It's like a boss arena."
"It's not," Voidica said.
Then, to no one, she added:
"It's a confession."
***
[8:26 A.M. – The Mirror Speaks]
The glass pulsed. Then a voice—soft, genderless, exactly like her—emerged from nowhere.
"You could be anything.But they only see what you hide.And what you hide is everything."
Mistopher shivered. "Well. That's direct."
The glass shimmered. Shapes formed.
Scenes.
Memories, maybe.
Voidica standing alone in the cafeteria, watching other students laugh.
Voidica blasting a training dummy until it crumbled into ash—and still not stopping.
Voidica staring at a file marked "Narrative Incompatible."
Alex didn't speak.
He didn't look away, either.
Voidica turned slowly toward him.
Her voice wasn't cold. Just quiet.
"I don't want you in here."
Alex didn't argue.
He just stepped forward and stood beside her.
Not in front.
Not behind.
Just… there.
***
[8:27 A.M. – The Maze Reacts]**
The walls pulsed.
Mirrors flashed.
From the edges, shapes slithered—echoes wearing Voidica's face but twisted.One smiled too wide. One bled light. One screamed in poetry.
They moved like guilt and spoke like doubt.
Voidica tensed.
Cryflame stepped forward, hands aflame. "We'll fight them—"
"No," Voidica said sharply. "They don't want you."
Her eyes locked on Alex.
"They want him."
The echoes turned.
Eyes glowing.
And charged.
***
[8:28 A.M. – What Doesn't Fight, Doesn't Fall]
Alex didn't move.
The first echo lunged.
It passed through him—shrieking, dissolving into fragments.
Another struck from behind. He turned just enough to breathe out.
It shattered.
The more they tried to break him, the less they touched.
Because he wasn't resisting.
He wasn't fighting their version of him.
He wasn't choosing a role.
He just stood there.
Real.
Present.
And unshaped.
Voidica stared.
"You're not even scared."
"I'm terrified," Alex said. "I just don't care what they think of me."
That's when the final echo—the one that looked the most like her—approached.
Not screaming.
Just crying.
Alex stepped aside.
Let her through.
Voidica looked into her own eyes.
And for the first time—
Didn't flinch.
***
[8:30 A.M. – Trial Complete: Maze Disengaging]
The mirrors cracked.
Then crumbled.
Then fell like sand into mist.
The room dissolved.
Alex stood blinking in a patch of soft grass.
Voidica stood beside him.
Still quiet.
Still composed.
But she didn't step away when Cryflame hugged her.
And when she passed Alex, she paused.
Just long enough to whisper:
"I don't want to like you."
Alex smiled, just a little.
"I can work with that."
***
[8:32 A.M. – Alignment Reflection Trial: Room 2]
The moment the world blinked back into existence, Alex squinted against an onslaught of color and cheer.
Sunlight poured in from impossible angles, gilding a forest of dramatic trees that wept golden leaves.
A castle loomed on a hilltop, somehow both majestic and suspiciously well-branded.
The air smelled like roses, glory, and main-character energy.
And in the middle of it all stood Cryflame, resplendent in a double-layered cape, holding a flaming sword that shimmered with emotional resonance.
He grinned like this was opening night.
"WELCOME!" he shouted, arms open wide. "To the Trial of Fireheart Purpose!"
Alex sighed. "Oh no. He named it."
***
[8:33 A.M. – Too Many Quests, Too Little Chill]
Within seconds, they were approached by three NPCs in distress:
A princess begging for help with a cursed crown.
A blacksmith who lost their forge to a rampaging chimera.
A bard who just really wanted someone to listen to their demo.
Cryflame sprinted between them, issuing promises, declaring intent, posing with such conviction that several squirrels stopped to applaud.
Mistopher floated beside Alex, taking notes. "This place is saturated with intent. Every object is a symbol. Every character's backstory is preloaded with guilt or yearning. I think one of these rocks is my father."
Voidica rolled her eyes.
Cryflame called back, voice reverberating across the trees, "I just need fifteen more minutes to save this family and then we can climb the Tower of Inner Flame to defeat the Ego Serpent!"
Alex looked at the group.
Then back at Cryflame.
Then, without a word, turned around and walked directly off the path.
***
[8:35 A.M. – Rule Breaking Is a Skill]
The forest stuttered as Alex stepped into the underbrush.
Branches retracted. Narration hesitated.
One of the quest givers glitched mid-plea and muttered, "Wait, that's not—"
Alex kept walking.
The trees thinned.
The sky dimmed.
And the golden atmosphere peeled away like wallpaper, revealing the understructure: a plain, flickering framework.
Bare walls of light.
Wireframes of dragons not yet summoned.
Scripts for dialogue that hadn't been triggered.
Alex sat down on a non-textured rock and unwrapped a snack bar.
Moments later, the others caught up.
Cryflame skidded to a stop, sword still glowing. "What are you doing?! The world needs us! I—I'm the key to the healing prophecy—"
"No you're not," Alex said, voice calm.
Cryflame froze.
"You're not the key. You're not the chosen. You're not even the focus. You just keep saying yes until you fall apart."
The silence that followed was heavy enough to cause a loading screen.
***
[8:37 A.M. – The Dragon That Never Spawned]
Cryflame's sword dimmed.
The tower on the hill blinked once. Then vanished.
The background music cut out mid-crescendo.
"I was supposed to slay the dragon," Cryflame whispered. "Save the day. Prove I belong."
"To who?" Alex asked gently.
Cryflame didn't answer.
He sat down next to the others, arms limp, sword melting into sparks.
Mistopher floated upside-down again. "You always try to fix everything, Flame. But sometimes the problem doesn't want solving."
Voidica crossed her arms. "Sometimes the problem just wants you to stop."
Cryflame buried his face in his hands.
"I thought... if I made enough people proud, I wouldn't feel like a sidekick."
Alex handed him the rest of his snack bar.
"You're not a sidekick," he said.
"Really?"
"No," Alex said. "You're a team character. That's harder. But better."
***
[8:40 A.M. – Trial Complete: Overcommitment Resolved]
The forest folded inward, leaves curling back into light.
The castle dissolved with a sigh.
The scoreboard that had been tracking heroic deeds blinked out with a single word:
ACCEPTED.
They stood together in a wide, open space.
Cryflame wiped his eyes. "I didn't finish the trial."
"Exactly," Alex said.
Then patted him on the back.
"You passed."
***
[8:42 A.M. – Alignment Reflection Trial: Room 3]
The world didn't load so much as… echo.
They didn't arrive with a flash or a fade.
They overlapped.
One moment, they stood on flat ground. The next, on stairs. Then grass. Then a library. Then a void.
Then—
Reset.
Again.
Alex blinked. The others swayed on their feet, disoriented.
A soft chime rang overhead.
LOAD FAILED: VERSION 7.12-BATTEMPTING AUTO-CORRECTION...
"Mistopher," Voidica said, steadying herself. "What the hell is this?"
Mistopher hovered slightly above the floor, arms limp at his sides. His eyes glowed faintly.
"It's not a place," he murmured. "It's a version."
***
[8:44 A.M. – Loop Begins]
They walked forward. The terrain shifted with every step.
A hallway became a classroom.
A battlefield. A treehouse. A hospital. A rooftop during a storm.
In each version, something changed.
Their clothes.
Their ages.
The order in which they arrived.
And sometimes—Alex wasn't there at all.
In one version, Cryflame was the leader.
In another, Voidica was laughing—freely, impossibly.
In yet another, Penny stood among them, arms crossed, clearly in charge.
Alex tried to speak in that one, but his voice was muted. He didn't exist there.
The world blinked. Reset.
***
[8:46 A.M. – The Others Start to Fragment]
Cryflame stared at a version of himself in shining armor, leading a parade.
Voidica paused in front of a vision where she stood alone on a ruined world, wearing the crown of something she'd destroyed.
Mistopher kept drifting, quieter and quieter.
Alex reached for him.
"Hey."
Mistopher turned slowly. His smile was small.
"Did you know I've been rewritten? Seventeen times. I counted."
Alex lowered his hand.
"The first one made me a comic relief sidekick. I died in Act Two. The third made me a ghost. The ninth was a love interest. I think I was happier then."
He turned toward one of the screens.
It showed Alex.
Not this Alex.
One who stood tall. Proud. Glowing.
He looked like a protagonist.
And then the screen flickered.
And showed Alex screaming. Alone. Covered in ash.
Then it showed nothing.
***
[8:48 A.M. – Too Many Versions, Not Enough Truth]**
The loop stuttered.
Walls began to bleed together.
Doors appeared, marked with names Alex didn't recognize—yet somehow knew.
"The Warrior You Could've Been""The Betrayer They Expected""The Author's Mistake"
"Mistopher," Alex said. "We have to get out of here."
Mistopher's voice cracked. "What if I pick the wrong one? What if I choose the wrong me?"
Alex stepped into his path.
"Then I'll be here when you want to try again."
Mistopher's glow dimmed.
"You stay."
"I'm too lazy to leave."
Mistopher laughed.
Then cried.
Then the loop shattered.
***
[8:50 A.M. – The Door That Stays Open]
The world knit itself into a quiet hallway.
No screens.
No loops.
Just four students standing side by side.
Mistopher wiped his face and grinned weakly. "I think I'll just... be this one for now."
Alex nodded.
Voidica didn't speak—but offered a hand.
He took it.
Cryflame looked up. "So what happens now?"
Alex turned toward the end of the hallway, where a single white door waited.
No title.
No lock.
But one word slowly faded into view above it:
"MISSING."
***
[8:52 A.M. – Alignment Reflection Trial: Final Door]
The hallway was quiet.
Not the kind of quiet you get in a library or a graveyard—but the wrong kind.The kind of silence you only notice after something has been taken.
The final door loomed ahead. Tall. Seamless. White. Not glowing like the others—just… present. Like a question no one wanted to ask.
Alex stared at it.
Above the arch, the word MISSING continued to fade in and out like a heartbeat skipping.
Cryflame tilted his head. "Whose room is this?"
Voidica said nothing. Mistopher floated slightly forward, mouth open like he was about to answer, but stopped.
There was no key.
No prompt.
No story cue.
Alex stepped closer. His hand hovered just above the handle.
It wasn't cold.
It wasn't warm.
It wasn't anything.
He gripped it anyway—and opened the door.
***
[8:53 A.M. – There Is Nothing Here]**
The room was… blank.
Flat white.
No shadows. No horizon. No walls. Just light.
But not bright.
It felt like standing in a photo that hadn't loaded yet.
Alex took a slow step forward. His foot landed without sound.
Cryflame hesitated in the doorway. "This is... new."
Mistopher whispered, "This is wrong."
Voidica's expression was unreadable. She reached for something at her hip—a defensive twitch—but found nothing to fight.
Alex looked around.
There were no memories here.
No metaphors.
No dramatized fears or flashy visuals.
No reflection.
It was the absence of a person made spatial.
***
[8:55 A.M. – The System Tries to Explain It Away]
A faint chime echoed through the air, and then a soft, robotic voice—not the instructor from earlier, but something older, more mechanical—rattled through the space like a scratched record:
"User profile not found.Narrative role: defunct.Associated arc: missing."
Cryflame frowned. "What role?"
Mistopher floated up beside him, eyes wide. "It said 'associated arc.' That means—"
Alex turned slowly.
"Someone was supposed to be here."
Voidica crossed her arms. "Then where are they?"
No one spoke.
Because they all knew the answer.
Or rather—they should have.There was a shape missing from their memories. A voice they couldn't quite summon. A rhythm they'd all fallen into that now skipped like a record missing a groove.
And Alex felt it like gravity had hiccupped.
***
[8:57 A.M. – Penny Should Be Here]
He didn't say her name out loud.
He didn't need to.
Her voice still echoed in his ear sometimes. Sharp, dry, necessary.
And now it was gone.
Not gone like death.
Gone like a page ripped from a book—clean, as if it had never been printed.
Alex pulled out the page Novell had given him. It still hummed, faintly. Still blank.
But in the soft, low glow of the room, something else shimmered against its surface.
Tiny handwriting.
One line:
"Find the draft."
He blinked. And then the writing faded.
***
[8:59 A.M. – Lockdown Initiated]
The light in the room shuddered.
Then turned red.
A siren blared from everywhere and nowhere.
"UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO NULL SPACE. LOCKDOWN INITIATED."
Alex spun.
The door behind them slammed shut.
Cryflame shouted, "We didn't do anything!"
Voidica raised both hands, shadows curling instinctively.
Mistopher reached for Alex, hovering closer.
Alex didn't move.
Because the moment the room sealed, he felt it—something beyond the Trial. Something watching.
Then the far wall split open.
And Echo Solus stepped through.
***
[9:00 A.M. – The Messenger of Structure]
He wasn't in armor this time.
Just a long coat. No weapon.
But he still looked like he'd been designed. Perfect. Inevitable.
His eyes locked onto Alex.
And for once, there was no disdain. No superiority. No smugness.
Just… gravity.
"You felt it," Echo said. "Didn't you?"
Alex didn't answer.
Cryflame stepped forward. "Felt what?"
"She's gone," Echo said softly. "But she left echoes. That's how you found this place."
Voidica narrowed her eyes. "You know who she is."
Echo didn't deny it.
"I knew her arc was irregular. But I never thought Redline would—"
He stopped.
Alex stepped toward him.
"Finish that sentence."
Echo's jaw tightened. "He erased her. Not just from the system. From the storyline memory cache. From continuity."
Mistopher whispered, "From us."
Echo looked at them all. "This room wasn't supposed to be accessible. You cracked it. That's dangerous."
"So's existing," Alex said.
Echo didn't argue.
Instead, he looked at the others.
"Things are changing. Faster than planned. The Editors are pulling threads that were never meant to tangle."
"And what are you here to do?" Alex asked.
Echo met his gaze.
"I'm not here to fight you."
That surprised them all.
"I'm here to warn you," Echo said. "You're not the only one off-script anymore."
Then he reached into his coat.
And tossed something to Alex.
A coin.
Flat. Metallic.
Engraved with a single word:
"DRAFT."
Echo turned and walked back into the wall.
The room didn't seal behind him.
Because it didn't need to.
***
[9:02 A.M. – Trial Complete: Unscored]
The world pulled away like a curtain.
They landed in the courtyard again.
No fanfare. No announcement. No rankings.
Just the sense that something fundamental had shifted.
Alex stood quietly.
The coin in his hand was warm.
The blank page in his pocket pulsed.
Penny was gone.
And now he knew it.