Ficool

Chapter 64 - Weight Of Attention [Part 3]

Seraphyne rose as well, the tension in her body audible in the slight creak of her joints, in the way her hands gripped each other. Her voice trembled with a mix of fear and determination, carrying through the sterile room.

"Wait…" she implored, taking a hesitant step forward. "What I mean is, let me get closer to them. At least let me have that relationship… the one between a teacher and her students."

Her words hung in the air, fragile and desperate, a small plea against the stone wall of his indifference.

Her voice shook, quivering under the weight of unsaid frustrations, but she pressed both hands firmly against the edge of the desk, grounding herself. "It's possible that the children are being violent to one another because they lack… affection. I want to be able to talk to them more often, not just about lessons, but… to be someone they can trust, someone they can tell what's bothering them. Please."

For a moment, the office seemed to still, the hum of the ventilation fading into the background. Drewman turned his gaze on her, a brief flicker of curiosity or perhaps surprise crossing his usually unreadable features.

Her words were raw, breaking in places with sincerity and concern, and for the first time, the barrier between their positions seemed to falter.

"Does it matter to you that much?" he asked quietly, his tone deceptively simple, yet carrying the weight of his authority – and perhaps a hint of the question itself: Why do you care so deeply?

Seraphyne's voice dropped, softening into a quiet plea, each word weighed with sorrow. "Yes… it does. I can't help but feel bad seeing them like that. They look hollow, even when they laugh. Their eyes don't shine, their words barely reach beyond a whisper when they talk."

She pressed on, "There's a boy – up to now, I don't even know his name. I've never seen him laugh, never heard him speak. Sometimes I wonder… if he's even mute." Her tone trembled, carrying the weight of someone begging to be heard, a whisper against the unyielding walls of authority.

But Drewman dismissed her without hesitation, his decision final. He told her he couldn't allow it; she couldn't get closer, couldn't interfere, and couldn't act.

That memory burned in her mind as she stood in front of us now, her eyes flicking over the room, landing on the sight she dreaded most. Almost five of her students were streaked with blood, their uniforms stained, their young faces stiff with something too old for them. And she, our teacher, our so-called guardian couldn't do a single thing. The contract bound her hands tighter than shackles ever could.

But the truth was crueler than what it looked like. The blood wasn't from all five of them. It was mine. Every drop, every streak.

I sat there at my desk, motionless, every breath steady but heavy. My chest and sleeves were painted in red, fresh and dried layers mixed together, sticky against my skin. I had taken another beating.

My crime if you ask! Was refusing to surrender the only seat I had grown attached to, and being unfortunate enough to draw too much of the teacher's gaze. The others made sure I paid for it.

But maybe the beating wasn't just about the seat. Maybe it was their way of paying me back for what happened every night. The protocols never changed; they were a ritual as old as our captivity. Every night they came for me and the room became a low-lit chamber of machines and clipped voices.

Tubing was taped and threaded like sinister vines: thin, transparent lines running from my arms and across my chest, slick with the metallic tang of blood.

I felt each cool probe, each practiced pinch, the steady, mechanical tug as my blood was siphoned and sent down those veins of plastic into other bodies.

They called it a transfusion; to me it was being unwound. Each heartbeat was a foreign metronome, measuring out how much of me could be taken. Sometimes I woke to the empty, and exhausted.

It broke them in different ways. For some kids the very night was the last: pale faces that never curved again, eyes slack with something final.

Others came back hollow, eyes dull and voices faint. Blinkless, and thin, like dolls that had been emptied and re-stitched as though something essential had been scooped out of them. They all knew I was the reason for their suffering.

They didn't all hate me openly; most of them only understood I was the reason they could still breathe, the reason their wounds closed faster than than of a normal person, the reason they were kept alive at a cost. But it still meant their suffering.

And so the classroom filled with a complicated, quiet cruelty, gratitude braided with accusation, survival braided with blame. I was the source, the vessel, the fault line they could trace with their eyes.

Alone in that circle, I learned how to carry a weight that belonged to all of us but that no one would acknowledge out loud.

Every night I was made to give blood to different children. There were so many of them that I had never even seen some faces in daylight or in my class.

The cycle repeated itself. I was linked to different children, the veins of tubing branching out from me like roots from a single tree. Due to the number, they had to be brought in different groups.

And Seraphyne… all she could do was walk among us when the sun was up. That was the limit of her reach. She was allowed no touch, no lingering, no questions beyond the lessons written for her. Outside the classroom, silence was her commandment, her concern a crime she was not permitted to voice.

But still, her steps always slowed near me. Even without words, even without permission, I could feel her eyes pulling closer, curiosity burning at the edges of her restraint.

She pressed on with the lesson, her voice carrying steady, though it was clear not every child was listening. Some of the children sat stiff and silent, their eyes fixed on the glowing screens of their tablets, pretending to be absorbed while their fingers lay still, their mind somewhere far away.

Others stared at her openly, eyes hollow and sunken, as if the lesson were just noise echoing off their skulls. They were there in body but nowhere else in spirit. The classroom felt split; half distracted, half empty.

Yet Serephyne's gaze kept drifting back to me. It wasn't favoritism, nor was it pity; it was curiosity sharpened by unease. My uniform told its own story – it was more stained than anyone else's. It marked me as different, marked me as the one she couldn't stop wondering about.

But even if she had come closer, she would have found nothing. No cuts, no bruises, no trace of the punishment. Vanik'shur – the demon bound inside me saw their violence too. He always healed me quickly, and silently, when no one was watching.

Flesh knitting together, pain fading before dawn. It wasn't out of mercy; he simply couldn't risk losing his vessel. But drawing too much attention would have been dangerous for both of us.

Luckily, our uniforms made it easier to hide. Long-sleeved, loose, and colorless grey fabric that clung like a second skin, not unlike hospital pajamas. They covered everything, my scars and his secrets alike.

But even if she had dared to check, she wouldn't have found a single wound. No cuts, no bruises, no traces of punishment.

Vanik'shur – the demon sealed inside me was always quick to erase them. Especially if they were hidden beneath cloth, or when no one else was close enough to see.

He worked in silence, unseen, because drawing attention was the last thing he wanted. Part of the reason I was trapped here was for them to drag him to the surface one day, but Vanik'shur was too cunning and mighty for that.

He would never risk exposing himself to the humans who watched me. He remained nothing but a shadow, quiet and waiting. For all his pride as the first demon king, he could not afford to lose his vessel.

No matter how weak I was, no matter how useless I seemed, I was still the only successful host he had. Healing me was less a kindness and more a necessity.

Still, I knew he would never lower himself to speak to humans, he would never surface openly to share a word or a thought, because to him none of the humans were worth his time and all he felt for any being was vengeance, resentment and destruction.

But if he did, it would risk unraveling everything, even his own hold over me.

So the wounds always vanished before morning or immediately. My classmates saw the blood, but not the proof. Seraphyne saw the stains, but not the pain. And the uniforms – long-sleeved and loose, no different from pajamas, helped hide the rest, disguising all that lived beneath the skin.

More Chapters