"Aghhhhhh!"
The scream tore out from the main gate — raw, ragged, and so full of pain that it made the classroom fall silent in an instant. It wasn't just loud; it was the kind of sound that seemed to scrape at the inside of your skull. For a moment everything else stopped: the fans, the chatter, the tiny scrape of pens on paper.
Only seconds earlier the room had been bright with the usual pre-class nonsense — jokes about tests, someone complaining about extra classes. Now faces went pale; bodies stiffened. A hundred small breaths were held at once as everyone surged toward the windows.
"What happened? I can't see anything from here," Akshat blurted, pressing his forehead to the glass.
Ankit's legs shook beneath him. "I… I don't wanna know what it is," he said, voice trembling.
"Aghhhh!" Dhanprabha screamed. Her voice cut through the stifled silence like a knife. "A… a… ha… hand!"
All eyes snapped to the gate. A hand, slick and impossibly clean in its cut, rolled across the concrete. Blood shone on it like a dark gloss. It moved as if searching, grotesque and real, and the sight tightened everyone's throats.
Mayank's feet wobbled, but his voice didn't. "We can't just stand here. We have to see what's happening." He looked at Narayan, hesitation visible for the first time. "Can you… teleport us?"
Narayan met his gaze without a flicker of panic. "Are you for real?" He paused long enough to let the question land. "I can, but teleporting eats stamina. The more distance and the more people, the worse it gets."
"Can you at least teleport me?" Mayank asked, jaw set.
"I… might be able to," Narayan said slowly. "But do you really wanna do this?"
"Yes." Mayank turned to the class, fixed and a little fierce. "I'm going there first. You can join if you care." He nodded at Narayan.
Narayan let out a soft sigh. "Ok. Let's do it together, then."
Mayank blinked, and in the next second they were standing near the school gate. The area stretched out before them — a parking lot with a few teachers' bikes lined up. The ground was paved with hexagonal concrete blocks, some chipped and worn, and dry leaves were scattered across the surface, rustling slightly in the faint breeze.
"Why not outside the gate?" Mayank asked, breathless and close to the action.
Narayan snorted, amusement buried deep. "You really are like the protagonist of some trashy manhwa. We first need to assess the danger."
---
They moved forward slowly, each step careful. The air was thick with a strange, metallic smell — blood. With every step closer to the gate, the stench grew stronger. For a long second neither of them could speak — the scene had locked them in place.
The other boys and a few teachers arrived behind them, but fear had turned their legs to stone. Nobody dared to break the silence.
Against the wall near the gate, the school guard lay slumped and half-conscious, barely able to whisper, "p… please… help." He was a ruin of a man: one leg gone, one arm gone, blood seeping into the dust. The ground around him was dark with it.
On the other side of the gate, a boy stood with blood on his hands. Tears streaked down his cheeks, but they couldn't erase the smile that had settled on his face — a smile too wide for normal sorrow. His expression was manic, a terrifying mix of guilt and glee.
A teacher's voice came out small and hoarse. "Wh… what is this?"
The boy who had been standing silent until now turned his head and looked right at the teacher. "Hello, Abhishek sir. Did you forget me… hehe?" He smiled with a shard of something like triumph. "Don't you remember me? Dhruv. Class ten."
"Wh… what have you done?" Gautam, voice shaking, asked.
"Oh… seniors," Dhruv said casually, like he was announcing an excuse, "I forgot you had extra classes. I don't actually care about you. I'll let you go… but I want some of the teachers."
"Wh… why?" Abhishek sir's voice cracked in terror. "What have we done to you?"
"Done?" Dhruv feigned confusion as if the question amused him. "What haven't you done to me?" His eyes glistened; his smile stayed. He stepped forward and began, with a calm that was more frightening than any shout, to tell them what had happened.
"Do you remember the first day of class ten?" Dhruv asked them, voice low. "You gave me an order to do some of your personal work. I refused. The next day—fake allegations. They told lies about me breaking rules, about doing things I didn't do. My father was called to the school. I remember his eyes. He was crying." He pushed a hand through his hair like a man massaging old pain. "That was the first time I saw tears in my father's eyes. He begged them. But they didn't stop."
He swallowed. The smile didn't leave his face; if anything it got sharper. "I was punished, ostracized for a month. I came back and everyone looked at me like I was a criminal. The teachers—some of them never looked at me right again. All because of one thing, and one person. So now… I've decided on one thing." He moved his hand toward Abhishek sir, smile fixed. "I will kill everyone who destroyed my life."
There was an odd stillness after that, as if the air itself had stepped back. He hadn't moved a muscle, yet a sudden chill ran through everyone's bodies, as if some instinct deep within was screaming at them to run.
---
"You know what my ability is?" Dhruv asked, and before anyone could answer his hand shot forward like a striking snake. A blade of air, thin and sharp as glass, sprang out and screamed toward Abhishek sir's neck. Everyone felt a sudden gust rush past them; the dry leaves on the concrete ground lifted and twirled, and a small cloud of dust rose near Dhruv, emphasizing the sheer force behind the attack.
Akshat reacted with raw instinct, tensing until his skin felt like stone. Aryaraj moved even faster — an invisible blur — and shoved Abhishek out of the path of the wind blade. But Aryaraj's speed betrayed him; he slammed into a wall and hit the floor hard.
"Ar… Aryaraj… your… your hand!" Ankit gasped, voice cracking.
Aryaraj stared at his palm as if he didn't recognize it. A long, deep cut ran across it, jagged and angry. "Bu… but how? I thought I dodged it."
Mayank's mind spun: We only awakened a short while ago — how can he be this precise? Is hatred really that powerful?Can such a simple emotion turn someone this deadly? Is his ability of a higher rank? At this rate… we might not make it.
Dhruv didn't pause. "I told you already — don't get in my way." He moved his hand again.
This time Akshat stepped forward to punch, tensed like a shield, but Dhruv only shrugged and slid to the side. Two knives of air flashed out, and Akshat was on the ground the next instant, blood pooling from a wound across his back.
Ankit took a hesitant step back, eyes wide. "How are his attacks so strong?" he hissed.
"Don't rush like idiots," Mayank barked, stepping up. He dug into whatever strange, sudden warping of imagination the awakening had given him and conjured a small sword — no more than a spark of steel formed by thought, flickering faintly with a wisp of flame that felt strangely cold to him. "Maybe this is how it works," he said, and threw the makeshift blade at Dhruv. "Everyone, follow my lead!"
Dhruv's face went crazy with something between fury and hurt. He swatted the summoned sword aside with a single calculated sweep of wind, then shouted like a man thrumming with a trapped grief. "Why....Why don't any of you get it?! Why won't anyone understand?"
He launched himself at Mayank. For a heartbeat, the boy's instincts — whatever the second ability supplied — kept him a step ahead. Mayank dodged, surprised at the speed of his own movement. He couldn't explain it; it felt like the world was whispering possibilities to him.
As Dhruv prepared another strike, Ankit's wolf launched itself, jaws clamping onto Dhruv's forearm. Ankit muttered under his breath, almost to himself, "Doit…" — a quiet understanding passing through him as he guided the wolf. Dhruv snarled in pain, flinging the animal away as if it were a nuisance.
"What is this little shi… I'll kill youtoo!" he spat, snatching the wolf and hurling it aside.
Suddenly, the ground around Dhruv seemed to pull at him unnaturally. The air thickened as if some invisible weight settled on his shoulders. The feeling confused and enraged him further.
"Use it on him, Gautam — notus! " Mayank panted, breath rough.
Dhruv, blinded by fury, lashed out uncontrollably. His attacks struck anything in their path—trees rattled, walls cracked, even the concrete road split. The area filled with dust and the crack of displaced air. When the haze finally settled, there was nobody left where they had been — as if everyone had vanished into thin air.
"Where have you all runnow?" Dhruv panted, heavy breaths ripping from his chest. He looked around wildly, panic cracking his confident veneer for the first time. "Isthis…mylimit?" He ground his teeth. "Ican't stay here long… but I'll return. I will kill every one of you."
He slammed a final gust of wind behind him, using it to propel himself away. The gate echoed with the sound of his retreating footsteps and the fading whine of displaced air.
---
Inside the classroom, the tension finally released in a collective breath.
Narayan — who had teleported everyone the instant the attacks began — slumped into a chair, the motion of his shoulders heavy. "Huff…. thank God.... I'm at my limit too," he said between ragged breaths.
Aryaraj and Akshat, their bleeding already strangely stilled, lay on the floor panting.
"I… I remember I was bleeding like crazy a moment ago," Akshat muttered, still wide-eyed.
Aryaraj let out a short laugh, shaking his head. "I also don't get it… but hey, at least wesurvived."
Ankit knelt beside his wolf, gently checking it over. "Did you get hit, little guy?" he murmured, almost like a mother fussing over her child.
Gautam stood motionless, eyes wide in a mix of awe and disbelief. He whispered to himself, "How… how did I do that?"
The girls sat frozen, silhouettes against the haze that still hung in the air. The dust shimmered faintly in the sunlight filtering through the broken silence, and their whispers felt like echoes inside a dream too real to escape.
Dhanprabha's voice broke first, soft and shaking, like she was afraid to disturb the air. "Are you all okay?"
Jasmine's eyes stayed fixed on the doorway. "That… that was Dhruv from class ten, wasn't it?"
Tehsin's hand trembled against her desk. "How can someone be that strong?"
Ritika barely spoke, her voice fading into the quiet. "If people like him exist now… how long can we even survive?"
Their voices lingered for a while — faint, fragile, and filled with the kind of fear that stays even when the danger is gone.
"But… where's the guard?" Mayank asked, lowering himself onto a chair as if his knees wouldn't hold him otherwise.
Narayan let a smirk slip despite the exhaustion. Sweat dripped down his temple, catching the fading light. "Hah. Like a protagonist," he said, amusement wry and tired. "Don't worry. I teleported him to the hospital the next street over. That took most of my stamina."
Mayank's thoughts raced, fingers twitching on his knees. The world isn't the same anymore, he thought.
They sat there a while, breaths slowing, eyes occasionally darting toward the gate as if expecting Dhruv to return the second their guard was down. The classroom felt like a different place now — smaller, more fragile. Inside, a new truth had settled in: awakenings didn't just grant powers. They pulled out things already buried in people — grudges, rage, revenge — and gave them tools.
To be continued.