The morning after starts off with a bell that peals so shrill it's like punishment.
Lunaris High doesn't cancel school—not for drills, not for fatalities, and not for kids like me. So I get there, still in yesterday's coat, still questioning whether last night happened. My skin hums like there's a low-grade current running under it. Like I'm holding something in.
My head is kept down in the hallways, but the glances are different today.
Nobody's mocking me. They're staring.
And not like normal staring—like they saw. Or heard, at least. Rumors spread faster than tech signals on Lunaris, especially after a breach. Some think it was a hijacked mech. Others whisper about a mutant. Someone called it "a student with an illicit god-tier surge."
They don't say my name.
They never do.
But a blue-uniformed girl—Rank C—skates away from me in the lunch line as if I've turned into a radioactive hazard. And I notice something strange for the first time.
I like it.
Midday training is replaced by mandatory diagnostics in the Testing Dome. All students are rescanned under the new "surge protocol"—a sweet euphemism to rescan everybody's power stats in case someone's hiding more than their designation.
I consider skipping. Vanishing. But that would lock up too much too soon.
So I go on.
The dome is white: walls, floor, sensors. No shadows. No doors are apparent after they close.
I stand on the center disc while the tech comes to life. Blue light surrounds me, and a robot voice begins its litany.
"Subject: Sera Vane. Rank: Null. Initiating reclassification scan…"
My heart rate elevates.
I attempt to control my breathing, but I feel it again—that spring in my chest. The one that unfurled itself when I was attacked. It starts to churn like it can feel what's coming.
The scanner falters.
"Reading. Broken. Recalibrating."
No.
No, no, no—
I clench my eyes closed, dig my nails into my palms, and shove everything down. Every thought. Every spark of recollection. Every warm thing in me that wishes to burst into flame.
The voice shudders.
"Secondary reading: Unstable. Recommend suppression injection."
Then another voice cuts in.
Human.
Female.
Smooth as oil on glass.
"Override," it says. "I'll take her from here."
I open my eyes.
Headmistress Calaine Voss stands at the observation deck above, hands clasped behind her back, eyes like mirrored ice. She doesn't smile. She doesn't need to.
"I've reviewed your scan history, Ms. Vane," she says. "Six years of anomalies. Inconsistencies. Failures to stabilize."
I don't answer.
She nods slightly. "Interesting. We had expected you to make an appearance earlier."
Appearance?
She waves her hand, and the wall behind me becomes transparent.
Behind it: students. Teachers. Security drones. Watching.
The test hadn't been private.
It was a set piece.
"You know what you are," she says softly.
My hands twitch. I don't talk.
"You've been hiding it." Her voice lowers. "And now we can't allow that."
I step back.
The wall solidifies again.
You'll be reporting to Sector 3 post-last bell," she directs. "Voluntary recalibration."
I try to keep my face neutral.
It has to work, because she nods and walks away.
No threat. No warning.
But the quiet is more frightening.
After diagnostics, I don't report to Sector 3.
I don't even stay on school grounds.
I break every barrier, override every door, and vanish into the lower levels of Lunaris—where the re-circulated air tastes of rust and the light flashes every seven seconds.
That's where I find Lio.
He stands in the access tunnel next to the waste chutes, his eyes like he has been waiting for hours.
"You're late," he says casually.
I regard him. "You knew."
"Certainly."
"You're not some rank wallflower, are you?
He smiles, a small one. "Neither are you."
A door swings open behind him. An elevator, old and buzzing with magnetic seals.
We get in.
It falls lower than anything in Lunaris should. Below maintenance. Below records. Into forgotten levels.
"I've seen the footage," he says. "You shouldn't have survived that attack."
"I didn't do anything," I lie.
"No," he says. "You just didn't."
We step out into a place that shouldn't be.
It's wide and hollow and full of people—all wearing civilian coats, all bearing strange silver marks on their necks or wrists. Glyphs. Symbols I've never seen in any academy files.
They all stop what they're doing when they see me.
Some stand.
One kneels.
My breath catches.
"You're not Zero," Lio says quietly beside me.
I can't stop shaking.
"You're the signal we've been waiting for."
In school, Calaine Voss sits alone, staring at grainy black-and-white footage of the scan. She zooms in on the briefest frame—the moment Sera's pulse hit 231 and her eyes turned white.
She speaks to no one in particular.
"She's waking up."
Behind her, a drone buzzes.
"Prepare the extraction team. If she won't surrender… she'll be claimed.".