[External POV]

13 YEARS PRIOR

"And what are we watching today?"

Doctor Reese. Dark silky hair. Round black eyes. There hadn’t been a day anyone had seen him without a lab coat — adjusting it on himself like it was a new dress he still hadn’t gotten over. It was always perfectly positioned. Always deliberate.

Each day, he’d remember to come into Seraphine’s crater uninvited, under the excuse of checking her developmental progress. She’d always forgiven him whenever he brought CDs alongside.

"It’s a movie called Blood Alchemist." Seraphine replied with a wide smile.

She was only five, but she’d grown up enjoying horror movies more than anything else. That was the only thing they’d allowed her to watch — Doctor Reese and the others. And fortunately, she’d resonated with it so fully that she pretty much hadn’t registered that other genres existed.

"Blood Alchemist, huh?" Doctor Reese glanced at the TV screen, catching a split scene where the head of a barely intact human exploded. "Ah, this movie."

"Mhm!" Seraphine nodded. "It’s about a vampire alchemist who’s trying to recreate humans with his blood." She tugged her knees into her chest. "It’s really good."

"I know, right?" Doctor Reese leaned down, giving her a smile. "And speaking of alchemists — I have a similar surprise for you."

"A surprise?"

He nodded. "How would you like to perform a magical experiment with me in real life?"

Seraphine’s expression landed somewhere between blank and excited.

"I’ll explain on the way." He stood and headed toward the door. "Come with me."

He’d already walked a few steps outside when he noticed she hadn’t moved. She was still on the bed, tugging the blanket over herself nervously.

"What’s wrong, darling?" 𝒇𝓻𝓮𝓮𝙬𝙚𝒃𝒏𝓸𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝓬𝓸𝒎

"Is it... is it really okay for me to come out there?" She stuttered slightly. "I thought you said it was dangerous."

"Just this one time, sweetie." Doctor Reese’s smile hadn’t moved. "And don’t worry, dad is here to protect you."

She stood. Followed him out.

They walked down the long hallway, her hand in his. The corridor was lined with craters like hers on both sides. She wondered for a moment if there was anyone inside them — anyone like her.

But she never asked. Five years in this place had taught her exactly the kind of questions worth asking. Questions about other craters, about what was inside them — those were the kind Doctor Reese would redirect, and she’d already learned not to walk into that wall.

They reached a door at the end of the hallway. He pushed it open.

A larger room came into view. The brightness hit first — Seraphine waved a hand over her face, blinking as her eyes adjusted. A laboratory. Large test tubes. People in lab coats moving with purpose. Apparatus arranged cleanly on the cabinets. A stretcher in one corner. And at the far end of the room sat a glass bathtub — deep enough to sink a small child in entirely.

"What’s that?" She managed to ask.

"Our experiment." Doctor Reese kept walking. "You want to know something interesting, Sera?"

"Hm?"

"You’re the reason everyone has gathered here today." He didn’t wait for her to respond. "You’re quite popular around here. Every person in this room has been waiting for the day you’d finally awaken your ability." He took her hand calmly. "Today is that day."

"I have an ability?"

"Of course. A powerful one." He rubbed her fingers. "Magical. Even more magical than that vampire alchemist’s."

Her face brightened. "Really?"

"Really. But to awaken it, you have to show that you’re truly willing to create something. A legacy." He held her gaze. "True power doesn’t come from the heart. It comes from the mind."

"From the mind..." She repeated the last word after him slowly, like she was holding it in her mouth to test the weight of it. Then she nodded. "Okie. Let’s awaken my powers."

"Good girl."

Doctor Reese’s smile had always been convincing. Even when he’d told her that this laboratory was her home. Even when he’d told her they lived among monsters and that coming out of her crater was dangerous. It had been convincing all the while, and it had never stopped working.

They moved toward the bathtub. He placed earmuffs on her, then fitted a helmet over those — a diving helmet, with a long pipe connected at the back. He noticed the moment Seraphine started to shiver. She’d connected the dots. She knew what the bathtub meant.

"Don’t be scared, okay?" He leaned down to her, taking her hand again. "I promise I’m here. I won’t let you sink."

She nodded. Pressed the fear down. Climbed up to the edge of the bathtub.

"Alright, breathe." He lowered her in gently. "While you’re in there, focus on your inner mind. Tap into your memories. Can you do that for me?"

She nodded.

"Good." He watched her go under completely. Then he turned to the attendants. "Let’s begin."

They drew a metal seal over the bathtub, then a curtain over everything — concealing any visible light from inside. Most of the attendants moved toward their computers, monitoring her heart rate, her brain readings, tracking any unusual rise in fortitude.

For the first few minutes, nothing happened.

Just when Doctor Reese was about to call the experiment off, a sound came.

Beep.

It was subtle at first. Then it grew, multiplied — a full device chorus.

BEEP. BEEP. BEEP.

"What’s happening?"

"It’s a tremor, Doctor Reese." Sandra, one of the lab attendants, replied. "Fortitude reading of 8.6."

Reese didn’t believe her. He crossed to Sandra’s station and looked into the monitor. Seraphine’s fortitude. Now 8.7. Climbing toward 8.8.

"What the—"

BANG.

A loud impact from inside the bathtub cut him off.

"She’s drowning." Another attendant spoke with laced urgency. "We need to get her out. Now."

"Do not move a muscle." Reese turned to the man who’d spoken — Doctor James. His voice was calm. Unsettling in its calmness. "I decide when she comes out."

"She could sink in there—"

"Let her fight." His eyes moved back to the monitor. "This might be the one real chance I have to finally create an S-rank soldier of my own."

The fortitude reading hit 8.8.

The bathtub exploded.

Reese closed his eyes for the impact but itnever came. What arrived instead was cold. Immediate, biting cold. He opened his eyes.

He was standing in what appeared to be a snow desert. Land stretching for miles in every direction, covered in white, broken up by ice towers rising at irregular intervals. Then it glitched — one second he was back in the lab, the next he was in the ice desert again, back and forth, like two realities fighting for the same space.

Several of his employees were on the floor. Dead. The rest were standing exactly where they’d been, staring around in wide-eyed silence.

"This is incredible." The word came out of him, quiet at first. Then a laugh followed; the specific laugh of someone who had just won something they hadn’t been prepared to win. "This is just incredible."

***

[Author’s POV]

PRESENT DAY

"And your name?"

"Ren." I replied. "Ren Mora."

The registrar had a still expression on her face. The expression of someone who had come to the private realisation that she would’ve preferred a nice afternoon in a park to sitting in this small, quiet office all day. Dark hair. Bored deep green eyes. Even while I was speaking to her, her eyes hadn’t moved from the monitor screen. She kept them there with the specific dedication of someone who understood exactly what it cost to look away.

"F rank?" She asked, still moving her mouse.

"Yeah."

"Alright, you’re checked in." She slipped my application form back across the desk. "Move your things to the F-Division cabin. There’ll be a general rearrangement soon, but find a temporary space for now."

"Would I need a key card or something?" I asked. Because Aria had gotten one after her check-in, and that seemed like a reasonable thing to expect.

"No, you won’t be needing one."

I mean, I was fairly confident I’d need some kind of access to a room, but I didn’t argue. She didn’t look like she was in the mood for one, she still had an entire queue of student problems behind me, and I also had a separate issue quietly assembling itself in the background.

Cabins were assigned by rank. Which meant Aria was in the S-Division. I was in the F-Division. And at some point in the next week, she was going to find that out — and would proceed to choke me with the last available unit of inferiority the world had to offer. I was not prepared for that.

Also. Where exactly is the F-Division?

"You’re heading to F-Division, right?" A voice behind me, just as I was about to turn back to the registrar for directions.

I turned around.

He was either Black, or he’d just returned from a very committed beach tanning session. Either way, he wasn’t a white guy. High afro cut, dark, with a clean bald fade at the lower half. He looked like something out of a Black American movie — except with slightly less confidence and slightly less accent.

"That’s where I’m going too." He nudged the strap of his backpack. "Registrar said it’s south of the camp."

"Well, unfortunately, neither of us is a compass—"

He didn’t let me finish before pulling a compass out of his pocket.

An actual compass. He’d brought a compass to an academy training camp as if he’d known in advance that he was going to need one. He knocked on the glass once. Twice. A grunt. Then a harder knock.

"Aw man, why is this thing refusing to—" Another knock. "Oh, it works now!" He studied the face of the compass with full concentration — the bearing, the angle, whatever calculation he was running. Then he reached his conclusion. "Alright, we’re facing north-west right now. So if I just—" He turned on the spot. Began moving. "South. Got it. You coming?"

I stood there for a second and took that in.

First day at a completely new location. First person to speak to me was a guy who still used a compass to trace directions and carried it in his pocket like it was a wallet.

"I think it’s gonna be fun here."