Ash didn’t leave.

He was still on the floor, back against the front desk, when Phoebe’s breathing steadied. She hadn’t moved from her knees. One hand still flat on the floor, holding herself up more from habit than necessity.

Phoebe looked at nothing for a long time. Her face had been open since the realm collapsed, and was resting in a way he hadn’t seen before. It tried to compose itself back into the performance, but the armor wouldn’t fully clasp. She seemed aware of how unfamiliar that was.

"Thank you," Phoebe said. It was barely audible. Ash wasn’t sure if it was in his head or if Phoebe had actually thanked him out loud.

Outside, the academy continued to run its evening schedule. Students were sneaking quietly together in distant corridors, a door closed somewhere above them. In here the chalk dust hung in the last of the bad-angle light.

"I don’t want to be left alone right now. If you don’t mind"

She didn’t look at him when she said it. It hadn’t come out with any weight, no more or less than the thank you, a truth spoken because the mechanism that would have stopped it wasn’t running.

Ash looked at the wall across from him. He stayed where he was. He didn’t know what to do at this point. He wasn’t injured like he was against Leon’s shade. If anything, he was feeling more energized than he had before fighting Phoebe’s Shade.

"Of course" Ash mumbled, just as soft and quiet as Phoebe spoke.

Ash waited as long as Phoebe wanted. Or rather, as long as he felt she needed.

The next morning, Ash was reaching for the upper shelf of his dormitory wardrobe when his arm moved faster than he had told it to. With a half-second surge, his hand arrived at the shelf before he even thought about reaching. The coat came down hard. His arm went dead from the shoulder, a deep radiating throb that climbed to his neck and sat there while he stood in the middle of the room and waited for it to subside. When full movement returned he flexed his fingers, tested the range, and reached for the shelf again at normal speed.

At lunch that day, Ash spotted Phoebe in the cafeteria. She was at her usual table, in her usual seat, uniform correct to the standard she always held. From across the room she looked the same.

Two students from the elite track came to her table. They were the kind who always flocked to whoever was just slightly above them and built their entire social lives being near the elite. She talked to them. Her voice carried the same tone, the same even authority. But there was a pause before each answer now, half a second where the response used to arrive instantaneously. The machinery was still running. She was just no longer certain it was hers.

"Hey Phoebe, is that elective class of yours still going on?" One of them asked.

"Yes, it is. Are you interested in joining?" She answered politely.

"No. I heard you let that Null into it. That’s not like you." The other said.

"It’s academy rules. Perhaps your time would be better spent arguing with the school board than myself if it is a concern to you."

The two students didn’t show anything on their faces. But Ash watched them walk away. The ecosystem didn’t make announcements. It just updated.

Seth found Ash later that day at dinner with a full tray and the look of someone who had been collecting data points all day and had decided to share them.

He sat down, cut into a gray slab the menu listed as braised protein, and spoke just loud enough for Ash to hear him "Phoebe looked at her food for ten seconds today before eating it."

Ash ate his food.

"Ok?"

"She orders the same meal every day," Seth continued. "Eats it the same way. Every day." He wasn’t asking a question. He was narrating the anomaly for the record, his usual routine when he’d identified a variable and wanted it acknowledged.

"People change," Ash said.

Seth looked at him across the table.

"Yeah," Seth said. "I guess they do."

"Vivian wants to fight me. Have you heard?" Ash said poking at his food, trying to change the subject.

"The same one from my Applied Combat course? She hasn’t said that to me, but even I don’t think I could beat her in a fight."

Later, through his cracked door, Ash heard two voices drifting up the corridor.

"— eastern district, three days ago. It was at least a Class Three. Maybe even four"

"Did a guild get dispatched?"

"One did. I didn’t get the name of it but I don’t think it is in any of the top ranking lists. There weren’t any casualties. But there was no resonance reading beforehand either."

"That happens sometimes."

"Does it?"

Their footsteps subsided into the direction they were going. 𝑓𝘳𝑒𝑒𝓌𝘦𝘣𝘯ℴ𝑣𝘦𝑙.𝘤𝑜𝑚

Ash left his dorm to go towards the bathrooms. A towel was slung over a shoulder, when an intense pressure coming from the Year One block stopped him mid-step.

This didn’t come from the east wing. It didn’t feel like anyone he seen in person so far. This came from further in the building, through more walls, in a direction that had been empty to him until right now. And it pulled. Where Phoebe’s Shade had pressed outward against its seal, this one drew inward. Everything around it bent slightly towards a single point, how a drain pulls at still water before you see the current.

The hunger woke up and went still.

Ash stood in the corridor until the sensation had finished itself. Then he went to his room, put the towel away, and lay down.

The pull stayed with him in the dark, clearer now than it had been in the corridor. Somewhere below, a first-year was carrying a weight they’d stopped noticing, a heavy bag strap worn for too long.

The hunger waited with him, patient and awake, already learning the distance.