I never thought exhaustion would take me the moment my eyes closed.
When I woke, pale morning light leaked through the curtains. I lay there for a moment, waiting for hunger to claw its way up my spine. It never came. My stomach was quiet, almost indifferent. Maybe dinner had been enough. Maybe Cerberus was too drained to demand anything. Either way, I wasn't complaining.
I sat up and checked the hood and pants Tristan gave me. The tears—where blades and needles had kissed too close—were gone. Not stitched. Not patched. Gone, as if they had never existed. My fingers lingered on the fabric longer than necessary.
The notes were another story. Still damp, ink feathered and pale, but readable. Barely. I sighed. Four subjects. I'd have to rewrite them all. It felt unfair, getting punished for surviving.
I grabbed a spare backpack, packed blank notebooks, then took a long shower. When I stepped out, towel around my waist, I stopped in front of the mirror. No bruises. No cuts. No scars. Last night's pain had already become a memory my body refused to acknowledge. That scared me more than the wounds ever did.
Downstairs smelled like breakfast. Normal. Too normal.
Dad sat at the table with his newspaper. Mom hummed softly as she moved between the stove and the counter.
"Perfect timing," she said brightly. "Come eat."
We did. Quietly. Painfully normal. I chewed, swallowed, nodded at the right moments. No one mentioned Nihilkin, murders, and missing people. It felt like pretending gravity didn't exist.
The drive to school was silent. Dad didn't turn on the radio. Didn't speak. I filled the space with my phone instead. Mae's messages stacked like unread apologies. I ignored them and searched for Hephaestus.
It was everywhere.
"Infernoman clashes with Polios gang."
"Forest partially destroyed after heat anomaly."
"Authorities report no survivors on the part of the Polios Gang."
"Infernoman remained at large."
I closed the article before the images loaded.
I needed those artifacts.
When the car stopped, I thanked Dad. He glanced at me once and said, "Be careful."
I didn't know if that was advice or a warning.
The classroom buzzed louder than usual. As I walked in, I saw why. Mae's desk was covered in words—angry, sloppy, cruel. The biggest one screamed BITCH in thick black strokes.
I sat down without a word. Jerry was slumped over his desk, eyes closed. Never knew is asleep or just pretending.
Mae came in a few minutes before the bell rang. While John was absent.
She looked… wrecked. Pale skin, hollow eyes, mud caked on her shoes, her uniform wrinkled like she'd slept in it—or not slept at all.
Did she get bullied?
Like reading what's on my mind. Jerry lifted his head slightly. "When she was with you," he muttered, "she used your name to bully people. You heard the rumors. Guess karma clocks in on time."
Mae glanced at me. Our eyes met. She smiled—just her lips.
Then she went to her desk, pulled out a bottle of alcohol, and started scrubbing the words away with her own handkerchief.
Whispers crept in first, low and sharp, like insects crawling between desks.
"Did you see that?"
"She actually came to school?"
"I heard she deserved it."
"Isn't that a bit much…?"
Some classmates pretended not to look, eyes glued too hard to their phones or notebooks. Others didn't bother hiding it at all. A few openly stared, elbows nudging friends, mouths curling with a mix of satisfaction and curiosity, like they were watching something they'd waited for.
One girl near the window crossed her arms and scoffed. "Karma works fast these days."
Another muttered, "Still, that's brutal," but she didn't move. No one did.
Mae kept scrubbing.
The alcohol soaked into the wood, the handkerchief darkening in her fingers. Her shoulders were tense, drawn tight, like if she relaxed even a little, she'd fall apart. When her hand slipped and smeared the ink instead of wiping it, a few quiet laughs broke out. She froze for half a second, then kept going, harder this time.
Jerry glanced at me. "You okay?"
I nodded, though my chest felt strangely hollow. Watching this was harder than I expected. Not because I felt sorry for her—at least, not entirely—but because I recognized that look. The way she made herself small. The way she pretended the room didn't exist.
A boy from the back muttered loud enough to hear, "Guess being queen doesn't last forever."
Someone else snapped back, "Shut up," but there was no real heat in it. Just noise.
The teacher hadn't arrived yet. No authority. No interruption. Just a room full of teenagers deciding, silently, who deserved mercy and who didn't.
Mae finally finished. The desk was cleaner, though faint shadows of the words still lingered, like scars that refused to fade completely. She sat down slowly, hands folded on her lap, staring straight ahead.
For a moment, her eyes flicked to me again.
This time, there was no smile.
Just something tired. Something broken.
The bell rang, sharp and sudden, slicing through the tension. Everyone snapped back into place like nothing had happened—books opened, chairs scraped, voices died down.
Painfully normal.
I leaned back in my chair, staring at the ceiling.
Cerberus' raw and primal voice echoed in my head.
'Looks like this world didn't need monsters to be cruel.'
I didn't respond because I know deep inside he was right.
***
Mr. Topaz arrived exactly on time. He paused at the doorway, his eyes sweeping across the room—too slow, too deliberate. They lingered on Mae's desk, on the faint stains that no amount of wiping could fully erase. His jaw tightened, just a little. Then he said nothing.
He turned to the board, picked up a piece of chalk, and began the lecture as if the air hadn't been poisoned moments ago.
I felt something cold settle in my chest. He knew. Everyone knew. And yet the lesson mattered more than the mess left behind by his students.
Mae sat rigid the entire period. She didn't raise her hand. Didn't whisper. Didn't even shift in her seat. When the chalk squealed against the board, she flinched. I noticed. I hated that I noticed.
Noon came quickly. The bell rang, sharp and merciful. Chairs scraped back, voices surged, and the class dissolved into movement. I stood and headed for the cafeteria, bought a sandwich I didn't want, paid for it with money that suddenly felt pointless. Eating was just another performance now—proof that I was still normal.
As I turned into the hallway, I saw her.
Mae stood near the lockers, hands clasped around two lunchboxes, her shoulders slightly hunched. She looked like she'd been waiting for a verdict. I kept walking, eyes forward, pretending she was just another face in the crowd.
Footsteps followed.
I didn't stop. I went past the main building, out toward our usual spot near the soccer field, where the grass thinned, and the noise faded. I sat on the grass and unwrapped my sandwich. The bread tasted like paper.
She appeared a moment later and placed the lunchbox beside me, careful, almost ceremonial. Then she sat a short distance away—not close enough to touch, not far enough to leave. A compromise, like everything else she did.
Neither of us spoke.
I ate. She opened her lunchbox and ate too, slow and quiet. I could feel her glancing at me, once, twice, more than that. I never looked back. The box beside me stayed closed. Untouched.
When I stood to leave, she didn't follow. Her voice came out small, but steady. "I'm not going to give up on us."
I paused, just long enough to let the words hit.
A bitter smirk pulled at my mouth. Shameless, I thought. Or desperate. Maybe both.
I didn't turn around.
As I walked away, I felt eyes on my back—hers, and maybe others.