Leo Vance didn't wear headphones for music; he wore them for silence. The faint, static white noise was a carefully constructed psychic barrier, a flimsy dam holding back a rising tide of non-existence. He sat at the furthest table in the library, not reading the advanced calculus text before him, but fighting it.
The power lived in his chest—a constant, cold pressure that felt like holding a fragment of the void itself. It was the legacy of that screeching, fiery afternoon four years ago, the moment Maria had died. Her final, gentle warmth had infused him, not just with life, but with a chaotic, god-like potential he had been desperately suppressing ever since. He was sixteen now, a cynical, detached high school legend known only as Prof, brilliant only because his brain was constantly calculating the optimal method of self-control.
His life was a calculated, empty shell, and the world was starting to scratch back.
"Dude, are you trying to fuse with the table? Move. It's lunch."
The steady, grounded voice belonged to Ampofoh, who slid into the seat opposite him. Ampofoh was the anchor, level-headed and observant, the one friend who suspected the 'Prof' facade hid something darker than teenage angst.
"I'm optimizing my suppression rate," Prof replied without looking up. "The ambient energy levels in this room are inefficiently high. I need quiet."
A beat later, Gomez bounded up, the necessary chaos. "Optimal suppression says you should be eating a burger and watching Christabel and Florence duel over who gets to breathe the same air as you. Look up, Prof."
Prof slowly lowered the calculus book. Across the cafeteria, his self-appointed "fan club"—led by the fiercely competitive Christabel and Florence—were watching him. They were typical, petty high school royalty, normally easily dismissed. But today, the combination of Gomez's noise and the unwanted attention caused the cold pressure in Prof's chest to spike.
Control. Suppress. Normal.
But the control failed. The world suddenly warped.
For a terrifying second, the vibrant, fluorescent chaos of the cafeteria muted. The colors bled out, turning the room into a high-contrast, black-and-white sketch. The sounds—the scraping chairs, the distant chatter—didn't stop, but they slowed down so severely that the noises stretched into a distorted, echoing hum.
Prof saw it all: the way the cafeteria clock hands weren't ticking but crawling, the expression on Ampofoh's face frozen in a millisecond of surprise, and the shadows.
The shadows were the worst. Beneath the tables, in the corners, the usual mundane darkness deepened, becoming something alive. They weren't shadows; they were Entities, tall, gaunt, and vaguely humanoid, shimmering like static on an old television screen. He saw them moving, not through space, but through the Void he was accidentally tapping into, drawn closer by the surge of his uncontrolled power.
The Reapers. They're here.
He squeezed the edge of the table, focusing every fragment of his will on his internal core. Stop. Stop. Stop.
With a sickening, internal lurch, reality snapped back into focus. Color flooded the room. The clock jumped forward three full seconds, and Ampofoh finished his sentence about Christabel in a rush of normal speed.
"...You can't stay locked in your head forever, Leo."
"I'm not locked in," Prof rasped, his eyes darting to the corner. The shadows were normal again. He must have successfully suppressed the surge. "I'm preserving stability."
He stood, forcing his legs to move with practiced grace, pulling his mask back on. He had to leave. The Entities were watching, and he needed to reset his barrier.
Just as he turned to exit, the main door swung inward, and a girl stepped into the cafeteria.
Sonia Alvares.
She was new. Not overly loud, but her presence was a sudden, clear bell chime cutting through the noise. She carried herself with an easy, quiet confidence. Her eyes, a striking shade of hazel, were scanning the room, taking in the scene with a perceptive, unnerving speed.
Prof, already reeling from the time distortion, bumped directly into her. His textbooks crashed to the floor.
"Watch it, Prof," he snapped, the irritation fueled by the lingering dread of the shadows. "The floor is not a variable you can ignore."
Sonia didn't flinch at his coldness, or even immediately look at the scattered books. Her eyes were fixed on his.
"I was watching," she said softly, her voice carrying a hint of confusion. "The whole room went… quiet, for a second. And then, you walked straight into me. You seem to be having trouble calculating distance, Leo." She paused, then tilted her head, her gaze piercing. "Or maybe you were looking at something I couldn't see."
She bent down, effortlessly gathering the scattered calculus pages and the fallen book. As her fingers brushed the cover, Prof felt another spike of power—small, contained, but noticeable. This time, it wasn't dread. It was a terrifying, fragile attraction.
"Focus on your own path, Alvares," Prof warned, retrieving his book from her hand, their fingers brushing for a fraction of a second.
Sonia smiled, a small, genuine spark that seemed to illuminate the dark corners of the room. "Oh, I intend to. Your path looks a lot more interesting than mine."