The classroom reeked of sweat, melting plastic, and hot dust.
Samuel Li sat near the back, fanning himself with a sheet of crumpled homework. His desk had warped slightly in the heat — a slope that made his pen roll off if he didn't hold it. Outside, the world rippled like boiling soup, and even the clouds avoided the sun, leaving nothing but a reddish haze in the sky.
Summer had overstayed its welcome.
"...which brings us to chapter twelve," Mr. Callahan muttered, sweat dripping off his nose as he flipped through his half-singed textbook. The projector had shorted out earlier, and the classroom's ceiling fans now spun in slow, mocking circles.
No one was listening.
Not really.
Everyone was watching the ceiling.
It had started sagging last week — just a small dip — but now you could see the faint lines where the structure warped, stretched by days and nights of punishing heat. Some kids joked it looked like it was breathing.
Samuel didn't laugh.
Neither did the ceiling.
The moment came fast. Too fast.
CRRRRK.
The sound of snapping rebar echoed through the room. Then, without warning:
FWASH.
A section of the ceiling — glowing faintly orange, like it had been sitting in a forge — tore free and crashed down with the weight of death.
It landed on Casey Reaves.
The room exploded into screams.
Samuel flinched as heat rolled across the class like a furnace blast. Some of the students were already running. Others just stared, frozen. The chunk of ceiling wasn't huge — maybe the size of a kitchen table — but the heat it carried was inhuman.
Casey didn't even get the chance to scream.
He had been standing. The impact caught his leg first, shattering bone — but the slab didn't stop. It melted into him, pinning his chest and shoulders, skin bubbling and blackening in an instant.
His eyes were open.
For a few seconds, he twitched.
And then… he stopped.
Someone gagged. A girl threw up. Mr. Callahan fell to his knees, whispering something over and over.
Samuel couldn't move. Couldn't breathe.
Casey's body was half-embedded in the slab — fused with it. The color of the molten slab was shifting. Pulsing. It wasn't cooling. If anything… it was getting hotter.
And then it moved.
A ripple. A breath.
The slab on Casey's body let out a soft hiss as if inhaling through unseen lungs.
Samuel stepped back, heart pounding. He didn't know what was happening. No one did.
And before anyone could react—
Casey opened his eyes.
But they weren't his anymore.
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