They say magic is God's gift to the world. I say magic is a parasite that feeds on my soul. It was 3:00 AM when the arcane lamp in my room died for the tenth time this week. It didn't run out of fuel, and the glass wasn't cracked. It just "expired." Everything I touch eventually stops breathing, whether it has a pulse or a battery of mana. In a world that runs on enchantments and glows with ethereal light, I am a black hole, a walking void that consumes the very fabric of reality. My name is Rowen, and I am dying. Or at least, that's the lie I've fed everyone for as long as I can remember.
I reached under my bed and pulled out the secret drawer, the wood groaning as if protesting my touch. I retrieved the envelope with the heavy gold seal: The Academy of the High Arcanum. It's the place where geniuses go to become gods, and the place where I am going to commit the greatest crime in the history of magic. I wasn't accepted because I'm gifted; I was accepted because they are terrified of me. They want their "Anomaly" under a microscope, pinned down like a butterfly in a display case.
"Rowen? Are you awake?" My mother's voice trembled from behind the door. She never came in anymore. Not since I accidentally "charred" my brother's arm when I was six—a mere brush of my hand that drained the life from his limb. To them, I wasn't a daughter; I was a ticking time bomb wrapped in pale skin and fragile bones. "I'm fine, Mom," I lied, my voice sounding hollow even to my own ears. The truth was, the Wasting was clawing at my insides, a cold hunger that no food could satisfy. It wasn't a disease. It was a vacuum. My body was starving for magic, and when it couldn't find an external source to drain, it began to eat itself, cell by cell.
The journey to the Academy felt like a funeral procession. I arrived through a shroud of thick, unnatural mist that seemed to cling to my clothes like a damp shroud. The buildings were monoliths of Ether-stone, glowing with a rhythmic blue pulse that felt like a taunt to my empty veins. Students in silken robes paraded the grounds, flicking their wrists to ignite floating flames or make heavy tomes dance in the air. They looked so confident, so oblivious to the fact that their world was built on a foundation as thin as glass.
The moment my boots hit the main courtyard, the "Collapse" happened. The mana-meters—delicate brass instruments designed to measure the atmospheric energy—began to screech in a high-pitched frequency that made my teeth ache. The glowing crystals lining the walkways flickered, turning from vibrant azure to a sickly, dead grey as I passed. I felt the weight of a thousand eyes on my back, the whispers starting like the rustle of dry leaves. I was the ghost in their machine, the glitch in their perfect matrix.
"You're the one doing that, aren't you?" The voice was deep, smooth, and laced with a dangerous mix of mockery and fascination. I froze. I turned to find him standing there, framed by the dying light of a nearby pylon. Aiden. He didn't look like the other students. His eyes were as sharp as a ritual dagger, and his charcoal hair fell over his brow in a way that felt both careless and calculated. He stood exactly six feet away—the "safe" distance people instinctively kept from me, though I knew it wouldn't be enough.
"I don't know what you're talking about," I said, my voice brittle. He took a step closer, breaking the unspoken perimeter. The air between us crackled, not with magic, but with the absence of it. "Oh, you do. I've been watching the counters since you passed the gate. The local mana dropped forty percent in seconds. You aren't a student, Rowen. You're a sinkhole in a silk dress." He reached out his hand, a daring, reckless gesture. I flinched, pulling my shawl tighter. "Don't. I'll hurt you. I'll drain you dry before you can even scream." He smiled—a slow, predatory tilt of the lips that sent a shiver down my spine. "Maybe that's exactly what I need. A little pain in this boring, perfect world."
Driven by a suicidal curiosity, I didn't pull away when he reached again. His fingers brushed against the back of my hand. I expected the cold. I expected the agonizing drain that usually left people gasping for air. Instead, I felt an explosion of heat so intense it made my vision blur. It was like drowning for a lifetime and suddenly finding a lungful of air. My body lunged for his energy, greedy and desperate, but he didn't go dark. Instead, his eyes flared with a strange, molten gold light, and for a second, I felt... whole. "Gods," he whispered, his grip tightening on my wrist instead of pulling away. "You aren't sick, Rowen. You're the Source."
That night, the silence of the dormitory was suffocating. The Academy was a gilded cage, and I could feel the eyes of the gargoyles watching me from every corner. I found a slip of paper tucked under my pillow, the ink still smelling faintly of copper. Do not trust Aiden. He is the only one who knows how to kill you without touching you. And welcome to the Arcanum... we've been watching you since the day you were 'made'. My heart hammered against my ribs. Made? I wasn't born? I looked into the vanity mirror, and for the first time, I saw the grey shimmer behind my pupils—a static that looked like a dying star. Outside, the warbeasts began to howl behind the Great Walls, a haunting, rhythmic sound that matched the thumping in my chest.
The next morning, the reality of my situation became even darker. I was summoned to the amphitheater to face Professor Malakai, the High Mind of the Arcanum. The room was a horseshoe of rising benches, filled with students who looked at me as if I were a freak show. "Today, we test the stability of mana in living vessels," Malakai said, his voice like dry parchment. He didn't look at the class; he looked at me with a hunger that rivaled my own. "Miss Rowen, step forward." I climbed the wooden stairs, every creak sounding like a gunshot. Malakai placed a complex bronze device on the table, a Soul-Crystal humming at its center. "Place your hand here. Let us see your frequency," he commanded.
I hesitated, glancing at the back row. Aiden was there, leaning back with his legs crossed, a faint, knowing smirk on his face. He shook his head almost imperceptibly. Don't. But Malakai's gaze was a physical weight. The moment my skin touched the bronze, the world tilted. The device didn't just malfunction; it disintegrated. The crystal didn't dim—it melted like sugar in boiling water. The bronze turned to black ash, coating the table in a soot that smelled of ozone and rot. "Impossible!" Malakai shrieked, recoiling as his own protective amulets shattered into dust. "You aren't absorbing magic... you are erasing the Arcanum itself!"
Suddenly, sirens wailed across the campus, a screaming herald of doom. Students rushed to the windows, their faces pale with terror. Miles away, the Great Wall was under siege. A Crusher—a warbeast the size of a cathedral—was slamming into the gates with a ferocity never seen before. But it wasn't the attack that froze my blood. It was the color. The beast was radiating a sickly grey aura, a mirror image of the energy that lived inside my marrow. In the chaos, a strong hand grabbed mine and pulled me into a darkened corridor. It was Aiden.
"You need to leave, now," he hissed, his eyes wide with a terrifying urgency. "Malakai isn't going to teach you, Rowen. He's going to vivisect you. He thinks you're the remote control for those things at the gate." I demanded to know why he was helping me, but he just pinned me against the cold stone wall, his face inches from mine. "Because I've been waiting for you for a very long time. In a world of boring rules, you are the beautiful chaos I've been looking for." He brushed a strand of hair from my face, and that electric heat returned. "I'm the only one who can teach you how to feed that hunger before it eats you alive... and before they use you to reset the world." He kissed my forehead—a gesture that felt like a brand—and told me to meet him at the Clocktower at midnight.
He vanished, leaving me alone with my reflections. I passed a long hallway mirror and stopped dead. The mirror reflected everything—the tapestries, the torches, the fleeing students. But it didn't reflect me. I was a void, a literal hole in the fabric of the world. Back in my room, I found a faded photograph on my nightstand that hadn't been there before. It was a picture of the faculty from thirty years ago. Next to a young Malakai stood a girl who was my identical twin, wearing the same obsidian pendant that Aiden wore today. On the back, the words chilled me to the bone: Subject No. 1: Failure. Survival impossible. Await the offspring. My life was a scripted experiment, and I was just now beginning to read the script. The rain began to fall outside—black, oily drops that sizzled against the stone. The war had started, and I was the weapon they had been waiting for.