Zach left before Zev could invent another rare stomach disorder.
He slipped into the corridor with his hands shoved into his pockets, shadow stretching along the walls like oil spilled too wide.
It warped faintly at the edges, flickering just enough to make passing students flinch.
A couple of them stopped dead in their tracks, unsure whether the floor was bending or their eyesight was.
It was like experiencing a nightmare from a dreamer's point of view.
Two girls rubbed their eyes.
"D–Did you see that?"
Her friend yanked her arm. "Fuck curiosity, let's just go."
Zach didn't notice. The world had always felt wrong when he walked through it.
Rooms learned to make a little space. The air learned to go cold at the seams. It was all background noise to him.
Inside his head, though… Inside was the real horror show.
— ✚
The first voice snapped like teeth breaking a seed.
'Didn't you see those girls glaring at you like some kind of freak? Why the fuck didn't you do anything?!'
The second voice slid in quieter, which somehow made it worse.
'This academy is full of such fascinating little nooks and crannies. Have you ever wondered what would happen if someone just... never turned up for class one day?'
The third voice jittered, glitching syllables one at a time.
'Hhhh—Old McDonald had a farm—hehehe, Zachie boy, you hollow thing—I'll lick you~'
Zach cussed, pressing his fingertips into his temples. The migraine bloomed bright behind his eyes, fireworks detonating without color.
He'd heard the voices since he was five. Three rotten little shits squatting in the back of his skull, gnawing, cackling, fighting over what he should do.
Other Skialinths he'd overheard only had one of these infestations. One parasite to feed the hollowness.
But he'd won three. The fucking deluxe set.
And yet…
Earlier, when Zev's panicked palm had smacked over his mouth, they'd gone silent. He still couldn't get over it.
No whispers. No migraine behind the eyes. Just a very normal classroom and a very not-normal boy with star-bright pupils and the kind of anxiety that made Zach's bones want to curl around him.
He traced his lower lip with one knuckle, half-dazed to find it still tingling.
Through his Skialinth sight, Zev's lumen had been unmistakable. A cold star, an ordered geometry cutting through all the static in his head.
It felt like time had slowed when the simple, ancient instruction unfurled inside him: Tether.
One thread. A quiet that would last. Peace.
The voices lunged back before the thought could harden.
'Peace? You really think you deserve peace? This fucking idiot. You'd only rot him just like you've rotted yourself!'
'Look at you. You're a walking curse. Just stay the way you are: empty and repulsive. You have nothing anyone would ever want. Why should anyone let you tether?'
'He'll snuff you out, little ghost. And you will corrupt his light! Don't be stupid!"
'Gahahahaha—a pool of spicy chicken wings sounds smarter—huhhuhhuh.'
Their words scraped at his ribs, made bile rise. His jaw locked, shoulders tight.
"Shut up," he said, too loud for his own ears. "Just shut the fuck up. What do any of you bastards know?"
A pair of female first-years passing by froze. One peeked over, saw his unfocused red eyes glowing faintly, body taut like a predator mid-snap, and shrieked.
They bolted down the hall, tears springing as if they'd narrowly escaped murder.
Zach didn't register them. His shadow, however, jerked wildly.
The voices quieted, petty in their victory, then began chattering among themselves about trivia just to be cruel.
Half-remembered lullabies, the number of tiles in the stairwell, the smell of mothballs in a closet he hadn't stood in for years. They made a point to leave him out.
"Losers," he muttered, and kept walking.
His mind, like a moth, circled back to Zev.
The risk of immediate tethering was still too great, but that didn't mean he couldn't adjust the approach.
Roommates. Deskmates. It was fate, or at least a sinister parody of it. He had never believed in destiny; belief was weakness.
But this time? He felt a chilling gratitude toward whatever psychopath had delivered this opportunity on a silver platter.
A dry chuckle escaped him. He hadn't expected to encounter a lumen signature like Zev's before officially enrolling at the Academy.
But since things had been arranged this way...
Well.
He'd take what he could.
— ✚
Soon, Zach reached the snack store. The door slid open with a soft chime.
He glanced around the brightly lit space. Vending machines lined the walls, shelves glimmered with treats, and a neon kiosk promised "therapeutic sugar" and "exam-grade carbs."
To the extreme left, a glass case scrolled through drinks—and there it was: banana milk. Third from the top, shining like a dumb sun.
The pull was ridiculous. A gut feeling, almost like an instinct, lifted its head before he could squash it. If he brought one back... if he set it down without comment... Zev would be happy for five minutes, right?
In Zach's twisted logic, being happy was the same as letting one's guard down. If he just kept piling up good favors and making himself someone Zev considered a "friend," perhaps Zev would willingly let him tether...
But the voices pounced, a chorus of sharp, hostile mockery.
'Pfft. You're pushing it. Seriously, since when does a creature like you even notice a stranger's "happiness", let alone care about your intent?'
'Yeah, desperation doesn't look good on you, Zachie boy!'
Zach's mouth twitched.
"Why don't you both go fuck or something? 'Beats sharing your dumb opinions no one asked for," he told the empty air, which was brave or stupid depending on the lighting.
He tapped the screen.
"One banana milk," he told the kiosk. "And, uh, one spicy rice cake. With seven sugar cookies." (Diabetes fears bro.)
He glanced at the little pictogram of a winking cow in a banana onesie on the banana milk label, scowled at it for being adorable, and added, "Make that two banana milks."
The kiosk avatar, a cheerful bubble with eyelashes, chirped, "Roommate special detected. Nice! Will that be all?"
"What the..." He leaned closer, eyes squinting. "How could you tell?"
"I can always tell," the bubble said cryptically.
There was a pause.
Then—
"Wicked~" Zach grinned, reaching a conclusion that he liked this obviously suspicious bubble.
The items dropped into the tray with a noisy clink.
"Will that be all?"
"Yup. Catch you later, Suzie," he drawled, shoving everything into a paper bag and swiping his card.
He took the long way back. The extra distance offered him space: space to think, to question if his entire life had always been this much of a joke.
But memory ambushed him regardless.
He was five, tucked into a closet thick with the scent of soap and sun-dried clothes. Upstairs, someone was systematically breaking things, tearing through the apartment.
He watched dust drift in a bright line from the door crack, holding his breath tight. The motes moved like tiny planets, and he absolutely refused to be the wind that ruined their peaceful orbit.
Then, the first voice, a sound so sinister it seemed to crawl up the wall and into his ear.
'If you want to stay alive, listen carefully!'
The second voice followed, a cold current, a ripple of calculated cruelty.
'A knife should do. You do know what a knife is, don't you?'
The third giggled, a frantic, sing-song chorus: 'Hehehehe—is it tag time? It's tag time! Tag time! Tag time!!'
Zach registered no fear, just a child-like curiosity, the thrill of a new game about to begin.
He couldn't recall the events that followed, only the later sight of doctors, and a woman in a blue coat who advised him to "observe the thoughts without believing them."
Everyone had assumed he was a troubled child who would eventually outgrow his trauma.
He never did.
He learned to move through the world like nothing was wrong. How to smile with teeth. How to tilt his head so the glow in his eyes looked like a trick of the light. How to nod through headaches. How to keep his hands in his pockets so he didn't reach for cold things and give himself away.
Now there was a boy whose lumen made geometry in his skull. Tether. A word that felt like guilt and relief at once.
He rounded a corner, and nearly collided with Aluminum Bergō.
The Bergō heir strode down the hall with a stack of module packets hugged to his chest, one long earring flicking like a metronome.
His storm-grey eyes weren't on the floor or the forms; they were somewhere else entirely, in that smug future where he'd already written his valedictory speech.
He didn't notice Zach first. He noticed the air.
A temperature dip. A faint warp along the tiles. The prickle of the back of the neck that says someone is staring when no one is.
Aluminum's gaze snapped to the source. White hair. Red eyes. A shadow that didn't quite behave. Eccentric, his brain labeled crisply.
Also: problem. He scanned the boy's uniform pin in a blink; House Scarlet. He hoped, fervently and immediately, that the walking omen was not in Class 1C.
He had just volunteered as class representative; he didn't need a phantom chewing on his spotlight!
Zach walked past him without a flicker, thumbing his paper bag, expression somewhere between bored and thinking about something else.
He knew Aluminum was in 1C. He'd watched the whole LinkedIn monologue earlier. He did not have the energy to have an opinion about it.
The silverhead turned as well and kept walking, filing the phenomenon under "future management issues."
Zach glided past the atrium, past a bulletin about the infamous Assignment Zero, an ice-breaker in the chaotic halls.
He did not go all the way back to class. He took a side corridor that would loop him toward the outer stair, because a small voice (his, not theirs) wanted another minute to think.
He did not know that the vending alcove on that route only stocked drinks.
He did not know someone else was already walking there for a bottle of the same stupid sunshine.
— ✚
Back in 1C, Zev packed his notes with the cautious care of a trash panda putting stolen grapes under a jacket.
He had survived an FCA lecture and produced words on paper. It wasn't that bad, after all. He deserved a medal. Or at least a sticker.
He stood, aiming his body toward the door with stealth that wasn't stealthy at all.
Across the room, a short girl watched him like she'd been wound by a key.
Half-white, half-black hair framed a face marked with vitiligo. One eye was pink, the other green, both fixed on Zev as if someone had told her the answer to a very important question was permanently etched on the back of his head.
Her leg bounced. She gnawed her lower lip. "Crap. He's leaving. What should I do?" she whispered to what looked like no one.
Her oversized bag answered in a voice that didn't belong to a bag. Deep. Sophisticated. Annoyed.
'You follow him. Opportunity rarely comes twice. With the odd one nowhere in sight, this is your chance to corner him.'
She bent her head.
"But what if—"
'Are you doubting me?' the voice cut in, cool yet somehow polite.
She straightened so fast her neck popped.
"Never!"
'Then hop to it! And remember, keep your chin up. Back straight. Shoulder blades kissing. We do not stalk. We promenade.'
"Yes, sir."
She slid the strap onto her shoulder, and something in the way she moved shifted. Her shoes aligned. Spinal column coaxed into dignity. Even her hands seemed to learn where to live.
The voice hummed what sounded akin to approval.
'Better. Now tail him at a distance. Observe. Confirm the moment before you approach. Elegance is timing.'
"Right."
She stepped into the corridor.
The hallway was a river of first-year students and noise. Assignment Zero complaints, Doomweaver's Nightmare speculation, the eternal debate about which snack cart sold the tastiest hot dogs.
No one spared her more than a sidelong glance. People rarely do when you're that small.
But her world narrowed to Zev's outline and the invisible current he left behind. She mirrored it like a dancer learning a partner's steps.
When he slowed near a poster, she slowed and pretended to check her phone. When he drifted left, she did too, three bodies back, eyes alert for a sudden turn.
Zev wasn't heading to the snack store. He was on a mission for the nearest vending unit, the drinks-only kind tucked into an alcove on the way to the food court.
He'd promised himself this morning that he would refrain, that he would be a morally upright citizen who chose water or soda like a person with boundaries.
That lasted until his brain started spiraling. The taste of banana milk grounded him. Like a reflex. Like a bad habit wearing a friendly mask.
He turned down a quieter corridor where the air ran cooler and the lights buzzed with that particular hallway gloom.
Posters scrolled on one wall. Screamline Prime bragging about last week's top nightmare, Nightlix pushing a retrospective on "classic terrors," the Bleed Channel leaderboard flicking tears-per-minute like a stock ticker. He tried not to read any of them.
Assignment Zero throbbed at the edge of his thoughts. Echo Index. Map the hooks. Diagram cleanly. Bring notes.
He could already see himself getting lost between shelves, apologizing to a librarian, signing a form he didn't understand, and waking up with an overdue fee that haunted him.
He tried counting—one, A, two, B—but the numbers wobbled at the edges.
Imprint, he thought, and the word felt like a bruise. The rest of his family awakened early. He hadn't.
He hadn't minded exactly, until now, when everything felt like a test he'd been enrolled in by accident.
The vending alcove opened on the right: a glowing bank of drinks encased in glass, humming to itself like a contented refrigerator.
No snacks here. Just rows of bottles and cans, sparkling water and moral sodas, and—third shelf from the top—banana milk, peeking out like a familiar sin.
"Shit," he whispered to his own resolve when the machine lit up as if it had been waiting for him.
He tapped the screen. The price blinked. He fumbled for his card, dropped it, pretended that was part of the show, swiped again, and the metal arm slid the bottle forward with a smug little click.
He caught it like a lifeline.
The smell hit first, comforting in a way that made him both warm and deeply ashamed. He cracked the seal, took a cautious sip, then a bigger one.
The first swallow unclenched something behind his ribs. He looked at the label like it had performed a miracle.
'Ugh, I missed this so much. Knew it was a bad idea to stay away. The heck was I thinking?' he mentally sobbed.
Behind him, the girl with the mismatched eyes slowed at the mouth of the alcove.
Her companion's voice went soft. 'Mark the moment. First impressions are choreography.'
She nodded once, barely breathing.
Zev took another sip.
Suddenly—
Down the corridor, a cluster of boisterous laughter turned the corner.
Several boys, voices overlapping, confidence too loud for the hour. The sound grew closer, feet heavy, jokes already mean before they picked a target.
Zev glanced up, bottle halfway to his mouth.
Behind the pillar, the small girl stiffened. Her companion's voice lost its polish for the first time all morning.
'Careful,' he said. 'Group of miscreants incoming.'
► — ✚
[ Extra: Behind-the-scenes ]
𖤐 Read about Zach and Zev's first interaction in Zach's POV on my Patreon for free :)
Here's the excerpt lol. Had fun writing it.
My dorm room smelled like expired detergent and despair. I opened the door and found a blanket the size of a small continent.
Underneath it, something sniffled. I watched the shape breathe, waited for it to emerge, and learned three things:
1. My new roommate had a ridiculously strong pair of lungs and tear ducts to die for (not)
2. The light under that blanket was a 'cold star'...
3. I have never in my life been this tempted to say "there, there" and then leave the district.
I didn't. I sat on my bunk like a polite ghost, listened to him act like a brat to his mother, and made a promise to speak to him tomorrow since he wouldn't come out of the blanket.
Spoiler: he sat next to me in class and pretended not to check me out. Gross~ Didn't think he'd be a perv.
. . .
Also on my Patreon:
[ Racial Spotlight: Who are the Skialinths? ]
𖤐 Zach is a Skialinth. But who exactly are they? Wanna know more? Become a member today.