Reaching the building, Mr. Alfonsi sincerely hoped that he was wrong. He hoped that the unease gnawing at the back of his mind was nothing more than paranoia brought on by fatigue and unfinished work.
He had left behind a stack of ungraded papers on his desk, red pen still uncapped.
When he entered, the image he wanted to see was that everything was the same as normal, and that would've silenced the feeling of paranoia.
The feeling hadn't gone quiet.
The moment he saw the unconscious bodies of his two subordinates slumped beside the basement entrance, whatever lingering hope he had evaporated.
He exhaled slowly and shook his head.
"So it wasn't nothing after all," he murmured. "Good thing that I came back when I did then."
Sensing the presence of multiple people below, his lips curved into something between resignation and irritation.
"They're still here."
His shoulders sagged as he let out a quiet sigh.
'Why does someone always have to make my life more difficult?' he thought. 'I was so close to finishing my work here and getting to head back home.'
He knew exactly where this complication stemmed from; it was his refusal to kill the student Mason with his own hands. It would have been simpler. Cleaner. Yet he didn't regret the choice.
He still had a code.
A line he refused to cross, even if obeying it meant inviting more trouble into his plans. If that meant things became inconvenient… so be it.
As he descended the staircase, one measured step at a time, he could only hope that everyone in the basement was old enough for him to terminate without hesitation.
'Please don't be kids. Please don't be kids. Please be of legal drinking age. Pleeeeease.'
When he reached the bottom and came face to face with the intruders, he tilted his head slightly in confusion.
They were all wearing masks.
Animal masks. Plain masks. Decorative ones. There was no way to tell their faces or their ages.
'...Guess I have no choice but to assume that these are all adults.' That made things a little easier on his mind.
"Well, hello there," Mr. Alfonsi said pleasantly, folding his hands behind his back. "Guests are rare down here. I do apologise for not being present to greet you properly at the door."
"That's quite all alright," replied the person closest to him, wearing a tiger mask. Behind the mask was Quinn, Sarakit's grandfather. "We were just about to leave."
You wouldn't automatically assume that Quinn and Sarakit were related if they stood next to each other, but that's because the grandfather was born and raised in Valdonia while his wife was from Ganarsha. Their daughter, mixed, also ended up marrying an immigrant from Ganarsha, which made Sarakit only a quarter Valdonian by blood.
"Oh, nonsense," Mr. Alfonsi replied, smiling warmly. "You've only just arrived. It would be rude of me to let you leave so soon. Please, stay. Have dinner with me. I insist."
"Hohohoho," Quinn laughed. "Then we'll gladly accept your generous offer. What's on the menu?"
"Hm." Alfonsi tapped his chin and began counting the figures before him. "One… two… three… four… five… six… seven… eight." He didn't include Mason in his count.
His smile widened.
"Eight piggies for dinner tonight."
"Eight?" Quinn asked mildly. "Are you perhaps bad with numbers?" He paused, then added, "Ah, those three upstairs. They aren't with you?"
"Hm?" Alfonsi blinked. "Oh, no. I assumed they were with you." His eyes gleamed. "Well… it's too late now. They'll be joining us for dinner as well."
With that, he drew his sword.
Instead of raising it, he turned the blade downward, the tip pointed towards the ground, and let it fall from his fingers.
It should have clattered against the concrete. It didn't.
The sword vanished mid-fall, sinking into the ground as if the floor itself had opened its mouth and swallowed it whole.
At the very back of the group stood Bell, wearing a plain black mask.
Truthfully, he had come here half-expecting this outcome. Part of him had hoped Alfonsi would catch them, as it was better to deal with the problem now rather than later.
If nothing eventually happened and Mr. Alfonsi had remained at the academy while they rescued Mason, then he would have brought reinforcements for nothing, but he wouldn't complain, as it was better safe than sorry.
Both outcomes were fine.
Bell and Maya weren't just wearing masks. Both were cloaked, their student uniforms hidden beneath dark fabric. It was faster than changing entirely, and more than sufficient.
Bell didn't care if Alfonsi realised they were students from the same academy. The cloaks weren't for him; they were for civilians. Being a Trinity Academy student attracted far more attention than wearing something suspicious like a dark cloak suited for criminals.
The moment Bell saw the sword vanish, he knew what was coming.
It was the same reason he hadn't minded being followed by Grace. Even if whoever was tailing them made a bunch of noise or caused a scene, Mr. Alfonsi's ability would make sure none of it reached the outside world.
He and the others watched as a crack formed in the air directly in front of Mr. Alfonsi.
At first, there was no sound.
But that lack of sound wasn't silence; it was the absence of sound entirely.
The distant hum of the building lights dulled, footsteps outside lost their echo, and even the scrape of breath in everyone's chest felt muted, as if the air itself had grown thick and unwilling to carry noise.
Then more cracks appeared.
They spread outward in jagged lines, branching across the air like fractures in glass, until the space around them was webbed in shimmering fault lines. As the cracks multiplied, colour began to misbehave.
The building lights flickered, not in brightness but in hue. Whites dulled into sickly greys. Reds bled too dark, blues washed thin, and shadows stretched unnaturally, as if they were being pulled toward the fractures. The world looked wrong — flattened and distorted. It was like a painting left too long in the rain.
Only Bell understood what was happening.
He hadn't informed the others of the ability, as doing so would have revealed that he had known about the perpetrator long before this moment — and that was a truth he couldn't afford to expose yet.
Then, as the final crack etched itself into the air, space itself shattered.
There was still no sound.
Shards of the world broke apart and collapsed downward, fragments of space peeling away and falling like glass — except what replaced them was not emptiness, but more… space?
What had occurred was simple in explanation and horrific in execution.
When the ground swallowed Mr. Alfonsi's sword, his star ability was activated. Everything within the building was dragged into a pocket dimension, one folded cleanly over reality itself.
In this dimension, everyone inside could see the outside world, but they couldn't interact with anything. On the other hand, to the outside world, nobody in the pocket dimension existed.
And that was precisely why Mr. Alfonsi had been selected to work at the academy.
Any incident, any mistake, any necessary act of violence could be resolved here, contained, unseen, unheard, without ever alerting the city to his presence.
* * *
Diana's eyes flicked toward Grace, who had been waiting at a restaurant near the building that Bell and Co. had entered.
Grace sat with her legs crossed, sipping tea with impeccable etiquette, though her eyes roamed restlessly. After finishing the last sip, she placed a coin on the table and stood, entering the building as her patience had worn thin and her nosiness had reached its limits.
Diana stepped off the rooftop moments later.
She landed without a sound despite falling from six floors up.
'What's going on here? Why is she following Bell too?' Diana wondered. 'Don't tell me… he's about to commit another crime.'
She was already suspicious of his behaviour when his car had stopped to pick up a few people who had been waiting on a corner near the academy.
She followed shortly after, careful to maintain her distance from everyone who was walking around the streets. She was still uncomfortable with the outside world, and she was paranoid that anyone could turn out to be a vampire hunter.
Diana moved like a shadow, her footsteps soundless against the concrete as she slipped into the building. The moment she crossed the door, her senses were dialled up to their limits.
Multiple floors stretched upward above her, yet as her hearing expanded to cover the entire building, something immediately felt wrong.
Other than the first floor and the basement, there wasn't a single heartbeat anywhere else in the building. The only heartbeat on any floor above belonged to Grace.
Her brows furrowed slightly. 'What kind of building is this barren?' she wondered.
That was strange, considering that when she looked from the outside, numerous lights were on, illuminating different windows. Were all of those lights on just to make the building feel more lively than it actually was?
She slowed her breathing and listened more carefully.
Two heartbeats stood out as abnormal, as they were far slower than the rest. Based on the fact that the origin of those two heartbeats didn't move around either, she could tell that their owners were unconscious on the floor.
'Did Bell and his people knock them out?' she thought.
Why would they do that? What heinous activity was he up to now? Is he here to harm innocent people like her again? Is he here to indulge his monstrous desires that he hides from the rest of the world?
Her frown developed more and more as she imagined it.
Her hearing shifted focus slightly in order to track the movement of Grace above her.
She could hear her footsteps clearly. They were light and careful. Grace was already on the fourth floor, moving cautiously, stopping now and then as if checking corners.
'She must not want to get caught by Bell. If she's trying to see what he's up to then…'
She'd chosen the wrong direction. Whatever was happening here wasn't upstairs.
Diana herself remained on the second floor, slipping into an empty room and pressing her back against the wall. She crossed her arms and closed her eyes, cutting off unnecessary stimuli so she could focus solely on listening.
That was when she heard a voice.
A boy's voice, thin, hoarse, and strained. Someone who sounded like he hadn't eaten or drunk properly in days.
His words tumbled out in a rush, gratitude bleeding through exhaustion.
"We have to get going before he comes back," Mason said, sounding nervous. His heartbeat was racing so fast that Diana was struggling to count them.
'They're here to rescue someone?' she realised, surprise flickering across her thoughts.
So they weren't here to commit a crime, but instead, it was a rescue operation?
Just as she leaned further into the conversation, the sound of the entrance door opening echoed faintly through the building. No one else could've heard it, but she did not miss it one bit.
Her muscles tensed instantly.
Was the person entering the "he" that Mason was talking about?
No. She recognised the breathing immediately as it matched one that she had been listening to ever since her hearing had started to become sharper than a regular human's.
It was identical to her roommate's.
Her eyes snapped open.
"Peaches?" she whispered aloud, disbelief slipping into her voice. "What is she doing here?"
Alarm spiked through her chest. Based on Mason's words, something dangerous could potentially be lurking nearby.
'Was she following me?'
The thought made uncomfortable sense. The scream she let out yesterday in the middle of the night, her behaviour the past week, the time that she returned to the dorm room and the state that she was in… it would make sense for Peneri to be so concerned for her that she would follow her around trying to discover the truth for herself.
Without hesitation, Diana pushed off the wall and rushed out of the room, her movements blurring as she dashed down toward the first floor.
Peneri had only taken a few steps into the building when a hand clamped around her wrist.
Peneri reacted on instinct as she panicked, twisted her body, and was about to strike whoever had grabbed her when—
The face she saw belonged to her best friend, Diana.
"Peaches, why are you here?" Diana hissed in a quiet scream, her grip firm but controlled so as not to harm her friend.
"…You caught me," Peneri responded, winking and sticking out her tongue to lighten the tension.
Diana was about to press her further when her ears picked up something else, rapid footsteps approaching the building from the nearby alleyway.
That must be the danger that Mason was afraid of.
"Be quiet," Diana whispered sharply.
Before Peneri could respond, Diana lifted her effortlessly, one arm around her waist, and moved.
'How is she this strong?!' Peneri wondered as they moved so fast that her hair was blowing, similar to someone sticking out their head from the window of a moving car.
They were on the third floor in seconds.
Diana set her down gently and pressed a finger to her lips, her eyes hard with warning.
Don't. Make. A. Sound.
Understanding that they were in a dangerous situation, Peneri swallowed and nodded, every muscle in her body tensing as she forced herself to suppress even the sound of her breathing.
Diana listened to the sounds below her; every word and movement carried clearly through the building to her as if they were speaking and moving around in the same room that she was in.
"Eight piggies for dinner tonight."
"Eight? Are you perhaps bad with numbers? Ah, those three upstairs. They aren't with you?"
"Hm? Oh, no. I assumed they were with you. Well… it's too late now. They'll be joining us for dinner as well."
Her stomach sank.
Her presence, as well as the other two girls, hadn't just been discovered.
It had been known all along.
"They know we're here," she said quietly to Peneri.
"What? How?" Peneri whispered back, and confusion flickered on her face as question marks spun around her head. "How do you know that they know?"
"I'll explain later," Diana replied, her eyes narrowing. "Right now, we need to escape before we get caught up in whatever this is."
Based on how confident the person was when he spoke to the whole group in the basement, he must be extremely powerful. Powerful enough that he could take on all of them.
They turned to leave, but before they could escape, the two of them watched as the air around them cracked, warped, and malfunctioned. Eventually, the space in front of them was no longer the same space they had once been in, although it looked nearly identical.
"What just happened?" Peneri asked, her voice barely above a breath.
"I don't know," Diana answered. She couldn't have known that a sword had been dropped because there was no sound for her to pick up.
They hurried down to the first floor. Diana grabbed the door handle and twisted.
Nothing happened.
She tried again, harder this time.
Still nothing.
The handle refused to turn.
"We're trapped here," Diana said, her gaze drifting toward the basement.
Above them, Grace had reached the rooftop just as the cracks appeared. She tested the invisible barrier and found she couldn't pass through it.
Then a bird flew in from outside, straight through the barrier.
"How was it able to pass, but I wasn't?" Grace uttered as she reached out her hand to touch the bird.
Her hand phased through it.
"…"
A cold unease settled in her chest.
"Am I in danger?"