The hallway was empty.
But the shadows weren't.
Raya heard it again — that whisper. It wasn't a voice, not exactly. More like breath brushing her ear from a place no one stood.
You're waking up.
She spun around. Nothing.
Except… him.
The boy with silver eyes was no longer at the end of the hall. He was closer. Much closer. A few meters away, half his face hidden by darkness, as if the shadows themselves were scared to touch him.
His gaze dipped to her neck.
The glowing mark pulsed once — violently.
Raya stumbled back, gripping the railing. "Stay away."
The boy didn't move.
But the lights above them flickered — again, again — and in the brief flashes, she saw something impossibly wrong.
In one flicker, he looked human.
In the next… his eyes weren't silver.
They were black. Completely black.
Inhuman.
He blinked, and they were silver again.
"Your mark is unstable," he said softly.
Raya's breath froze.
"How do you know about—"
"Because mine started the same way."
He tilted his head slightly and she saw it — a faint, pulsing red crack glowing on his throat. Smaller than hers, but alive.
Alive like hers.
Her heart dropped into her stomach.
"You're… like me?"
"No," he said. "You're not like anyone."
Something in his tone made her blood run cold.
Before she could question him, a sharp metallic scream tore through the corridor — like metal twisting in pain.
The lockers behind her started to shake.
One dented inward from the inside.
Something was pushing out.
Raya backed away, her mark burning.
The boy stepped forward finally, his expression tightening.
"It found you," he whispered.
"What found me?"
The locker door snapped open.
Darkness poured out — not smoke, not shadow — something heavy, something with weight, something that crawled across the tiles like it remembered being human once.
Raya choked.
"What—what is that?"
The boy stepped in front of her, voice low.
"A Revenant."
Her pulse jumped.
"What does it want?"
His silver eyes gleamed.
"You."