Deafening laughter crashed at the back of Leon's neck.
He stared at the smudged text, as if the words could shield him—especially from her.
"I mean, honestly," Vera's voice cut through the classroom chatter in a sweet and venomous tone.
"Does he think staring at the building will make his father's work any less pathetic? Or earn respect?"
Vera's voice pierced through Leon like a spear, causing his knuckles to tighten around his desk—almost cracking the metal surface of it.
In this glass-walled academy, he was the odd one out. The one whose father always came home smelling of sweat and the sting of solvent in his clothes, rather than money and power.
He focused his eyes on the distant needle-shaped structure, stretching to the sky. The Granum Tower.
His father was up there right now, on the scaffold, adding colors to its surface. Usually, his thoughts were only a mix of anxiety and pride. But today, under Vera's scorn, it was just shame.
'Dad… I'll make you proud, take you out of your work, and earn you respect.'
Tears dropped down on his cheek and fell with the drifting leaf outside the window.
A chorus of harmonized chimes erupted around the room, causing smart devices to light up on every wrist and desk. A low murmur of interest stirred, replacing the lazy hum of the afternoon.
Leon didn't need to look as a gasp cut through the air. He could picture her tossing her hair, soaking in the attention. With Vera, everything was a performance.
"Oh, my gods, guys, have you seen the news? A plane crash! Guess where this one landed?"
Leon just kept staring at the Granum Tower, at the speck he imagined to be his dad's scaffold, as he had no device to check.
Vera pulled his attention to her as she cleared her throat. But his gaze flicked past her just long enough to catch Zoe's steady and calm eyes. They looked as if she was holding something back.
Then, Vera's voice sliced through the numbness as her words struck like a poisoned dart.
"It says it hit a building under maintenance near an outbreak site." She said, and he could hear the ugly joy in it.
"They say the plane hit a building near an outbreak zone." She smiled. "Guess painters got more than paint on them—probably monster blood too."
Leon's chest froze. Outbreak zone. Granum Tower.
For a second, the classroom vanished. Every sound was drained out. Only Vera's smug face moved, but her words had become meaningless noise.
"Guess their families can pick up the brushes now." Her stare was like a polished and cruel weapon in Leon's mind, letting a cracking sound echo around him as he tightened his fist.
'No. Not Dad. Not there.'
Leon's breath clawed for escape as his chest locked, causing his book to slip from his hands and smack the floor.
"NO…"
He fumbled in his patched bag for the ancient, cracked communicator his family had shared through the ages.
His hands trembled so hard he nearly dropped the communicator.
With shaking breaths and tear-filled eyes, he hit the single speed-dial button, home. It rang and rang, but no response came.
He tried again countless times, but the empty tone that played turned like a nail in his own coffin.
The whispers around him felt distinct at first, then turned like a nuclear blast against his ears.
As he looked around nervously, he caught Jade's uncaring glance, Ver's venomous gaze, and Tiger's predatory grin, all staring at him with pleasure.
When his eyes flicked past Zoe, her eyes stopped him. No mockery. No pity. Just a steady look, he couldn't name.
Then, Vera's voice cut through in a sharp tone. "Some people are just born unlucky." Her laugh rang like shattered glass. "Guess that's what you get when your dad's nothing but a painter."
A shadow fell onto Leon's desk, followed by footsteps at the classroom door. The noise died down as they witnessed Mr. Lee standing at the door with a pale face.
In Leon's gaze, Mr. Lee's eyes seemed to be etched with a profound grief he'd never seen before.
"Leon," Mr. Lee said, his voice sounding in a mix of emotions Leon had never heard from him before. "A word, in my office. Now."
Leon felt every head turn, their stares glaring down on him brightly and mercilessly.
He pushed himself up from the desk, legs shaking, the room tilting in his sight. Somewhere deep down, he knew where this walk was taking him—straight to the truth he didn't want.
"Don't worry," Vera murmured as he walked by. "We'll be here for you. Just like always." She didn't laugh this time—only smirked, soft and sharp.
Every step Leon took seemed like a battle.
Mr. Lee didn't speak and didn't wait for him either as they walked through the hallway until they reached his office door.
"Leon," Mr. Lee whispered and placed a heavy hand on Leon's shoulder, then exhaled deeply. "I saw the news," he continued in a voice that carried a grief Leon had never heard before.
"I know your father was at the Granum Tower today. I am… so sorry."
The moment Mr. Lee's words faded, the last trace of hope in his heart died. He stared at the floor, unable to speak and unable to breathe either, as if his soul had been trapped under his feet.
"Let me take you home," Mr. Lee offered.
Leon nodded and followed Mr. Lee through the gleaming halls, a ghost in a world of vibrant, careless life.
Every window seemed like a prison gate as eyes drew to them like holes in a fishing net.
But among them, one stayed still, unblinking. Just staring like the destroyer of worlds.
'Why?! Until I see his body with my own eyes, I won't believe it.'
Leon covered his face with his palm as the sun's rays stabbed into his eyes when the door opened.
Mr. Lee's hand steadied him and kept pushing him forward as Leon kept buckling on his knees.
Each step seemed like a stumble through brightness and noise as the world stayed a blur in Leon's vision.
He barely noticed when Mr. Lee opened the sleek silver car, and he also barely felt himself slide into the seat.
His thoughts stirred only when the engine hummed as the city began to move past the window.
His vision came completely clear as they passed a military tanker streaked with ichor.
'Another outbreak?' The thought clawed in, but his mind couldn't hold it as it snapped back to the one truth he wasn't sure of.
'Dad. Tower. Crash.'
They climbed a high-arching bridge in a speeding silence as they drove past the military tanker.
The city unfurled like two separate worlds in Leon's gaze through the tinted glass.
Towers gleamed as floating gardens drifted on anti-gravity platforms on his left. And to his right, crammed into the river basin like an open wound, was Dusthollow. His very own birthplace.
A sprawl of cracked concrete, rust-stained beams, and laundry lines dropping between towers, ready to collapse.
Their height—it didn't look like home. It looked like a scar he wished he could scrub off the map.
Being the first place to experience the monster outbreak, it had secrets that the elders ran away from when asked for answers.