Chapter 20: The Calm Before the Storm
The exams ended not with cheers, but with silence.
The forest still whispered at the back of everyone's minds—its shadows too deep, its call too close.
By noon, the announcement came:
> "Due to certain irregularities, this year's results will be reviewed manually. All students are to return home for the short break."
No one complained. Everyone just wanted to forget.
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Alex didn't even bother to pack properly. Clothes got stuffed into her bag in whatever shape they fell, books wedged in between. Claire leaned against the doorway, arms crossed, that same half-bored, half-protective expression she always wore when Alex's mind was somewhere else.
"You've been spacing out since the exam," Claire said, voice low. "Still thinking about the forest?"
Alex zipped her bag. "Aren't you?"
Claire shrugged. "I try not to think about things that make me question reality."
"Lucky you," Alex muttered, slinging her bag over her shoulder.
They went home that afternoon, the same house that always looked too big and too empty. The maids greeted them with polite smiles; their parents were—again—nowhere to be found. Meetings. Business. The usual excuses.
Dinner was quiet. Forks against porcelain, the hum of the chandelier above, Claire scrolling through her phone pretending she wasn't watching her sister slip away into silence.
When Alex went to her room later, she stared at her reflection for a long time.
There was something in her eyes—something she couldn't name. The forest had left a mark. Not visible. But there.
---
Raymond's homecoming was a different story.
His mother nearly crushed him in a hug before he could take his shoes off. His father grinned from the dining table, waving a spoon like a victory flag.
"There's our boy! Top of the class, right?"
Raymond laughed. "You wish, Dad."
The warmth of home pressed around him like a blanket—loud, chaotic, filled with laughter. His little brother pestered him for stories about the academy, about "fighting monsters" and "saving the world."
Raymond smiled and played along, but when the lights dimmed and everyone went to bed, he found himself outside, staring up at the sky.
The stars looked peaceful tonight, but somehow... distant.
"Whatever that forest was," he whispered, "it's not done with us."
---
Anna had nowhere to go.
Her dorm room was quieter than usual, the walls echoing with the absence of everyone else's laughter.
She sat on her bed, staring at Gabriel's note again.
> "Report to me after the break. You'll be part of a special training program."
Special training.
Her lips twitched—half confusion, half dread.
Was it because of what happened in the forest? Because of that strange pull she'd felt, that whisper that wasn't entirely her own?
She set the note down and sighed.
Outside, the trees swayed like they were breathing, like the forest was listening.
---
Days passed. The break ended before it even felt like a pause.
One by one, they returned to the academy—each changed in their own quiet way. The laughter in the courtyard sounded the same, but something beneath it had shifted. The trio found each other near the dorm gates, smiles awkward, eyes too knowing.
"Feels weird, doesn't it?" Raymond said.
"Like nothing happened, but everything did," Alex replied.
Anna just nodded, her gaze fixed somewhere far beyond the gates—toward the forest that waited, patient and hungry.
The calm was over.
The storm was coming.
And this time, the forest would not be ignored.
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