The final bell of the day was supposed to be a sound of freedom. For everyone else, it was. For me, it was just noise.
I leaned against the cool brick of the hallway wall, watching the flood of students pour out of classrooms. They laughed and shouted, making plans, their faces bright with the promise of the weekend. My own face was just a pale blur. Just another face in the crowd that no one ever really saw.
Then I saw him. Lucas.
It was impossible not to see Lucas. He was like the sun. Golden hair that caught the light, a laugh that made girls turn their heads, a confident stride that owned the hallway. He was talking to Lilly and Aurora, his hands gesturing wildly as he told some story. Lilly, the student council president, was laughing, her bright red hair bouncing. Aurora, quiet and watchful with her startlingly blue eyes, just offered a small, rare smile. They were a perfect picture. The kind of picture I was never in.
I was just James. The guy who sat in the back. The guy who got good grades but no one ever asked for help. I wasn't unpopular. To be popular, people first have to notice you exist. I was just... background. A shadow in a world full of light.
A strange feeling washed over me. A deep, chilling cold that had nothing to do with the school's air conditioning. The noise of the hallway began to fade, replaced by a low hum that vibrated in my bones. The lights flickered. Once. Twice.
I looked at Lucas. He felt it too. He stopped talking, his smile vanishing. He looked around, confused. Lilly and Aurora huddled closer to him. For a split second, his eyes met mine across the hall. There was no recognition. Just a flicker of shared confusion with a stranger.
Then the world shattered.
It wasn't an explosion. It was a wrenching, tearing sensation. The floor beneath my feet dissolved into nothing. The bright, familiar hallway was replaced by an endless, suffocating darkness. The hum became a deafening roar. I felt like I was being pulled apart and put back together a thousand times a second.
My last thought, my last piece of my old life, was a strange one. I just watched Lucas get everything he ever wanted without even trying. I wondered if, just for a moment, he ever wished for a day of peace and quiet.
Because in that tearing darkness, I knew I would give anything for just one more boring, quiet day.
When sensation returned, it was not the polished floor of a school. It was cold, damp stone. The air smelled of wet earth and old blood. Hooded figures stood in a circle around me, their faces lost in shadows. A single, guttering torch cast long, dancing monsters on the wall.
A voice, dry as rustling leaves, spoke from the deepest shadow. "He is here. The other has been delivered to the light. This one belongs to us."
Another voice answered, this one sharp and cruel. "He looks weak. Frail. Are you sure he is the one?"
The first voice seemed to smile, a sound with no warmth at all. "The brightest light casts the darkest shadow. His training begins now. Let's see if he can survive the forging."
I tried to speak, to ask where I was, to ask about Lucas. But my throat was tight with a terror so pure it left no room for words. I was no longer in the background. I was the center of attention. And I knew, with a certainty that chilled me more than the stone floor, that I was in hell.