It began with a simple gust of wind.
Gentle, cold wind that came from behind the thick stone walls of the last checkpoint.
With each push, it grew bigger yet increasingly brittle, like a tiny mirror in which he saw his warped expression.
The world spun from within, twisting into shapes that couldn't be succeded even with the power of flux.
And then came the cold stillness.
A boy appeared within that little mirror, staring through the reflection with his face twisted at unnatural angles.
His hair was as dark as winter tree bark, swaying within the warped world in all directions he imagined.
Pale face that accompanied his two deep eyes and a thin scar across his cheek, reflecting in the mirrored space like a broken line.
The reflection within the mirrored world started to tremble uncontrollably.
It looked like it was about to burst at any second, shaking violently yet unnoticeably to the naked eye.
"Did you know it's prohibited to use your flux publicly while under silver grade?"
- Pop!
And the world came back to normal as drops of water burst weakly to the ground, taking the floating bubbles down with them.
Marco looked up at Vlad with a short snort.
"A couple of bubbles never killed anyone."
"Anything's possible."
He took a few steps towards him and sat on the other side of the long metal bench, stretching his aching body over it.
"I guess you're one of the people I'm going to Frigora with."
Marco took a long look at him, then at his fingers, which he formed into a small circle, and then far into the fog-covered sky, where signs of the sun could be noticed from within the murky wall.
"Took you long enough to realise."
"You knew I was invited as well. Why didn't you tell me?"
"Why should I?"
He leaned back, putting his hands behind his head.
"It's not like you didn't know."
"I know more than I wanted now."
"Oh?"
*
He looked at me from the side, eyeing me curiously while putting one leg over another.
His watery hair flowed down his neck, cutting itself perfectly at the edges to make its shape appear hair-like in front of others. With clothes that didn't change a bit since we had left the train, and an empty expression I remembered him clearly watching me with from the side during the barriers backlash.
'Marco Wenric.'
The Tiny sapphire screen of flux flew in front of my face at the thought, showing countless lines of text about Marco.
From his age, weight, height, to more specific things such as family or religion.
'You're lucky I'm not Cesar.'
And his assets, which were close to hitting rock bottom, were balancing on the edge of some meager fourteen credits that would barely be able to afford a small meal.
"Let's see..." I looked closer at the text before pushing it to the side and facing Marco's calm face.
"Marco Wenric, born in the southern edges of Grondier and raised in a local orphanage under the care of some businessman before taking the delver exam and passing it on his first try, scoring top marks."
There was no change in his expression as I read his personal information aloud; it was like he didn't care at all about it.
"Records show that you..." My voice trailed off as soon as my eyes fell on the next sentence.
"Tier four awakened... at the age of nineteen? That's... Impressive."
Delvers aren't simply ranked in tiers like awakened, bronze, silver, gold, sapphire, emerald, diamond, and platinum.
There was a separate ranking between them to discern who was closer to surpassing their rank and who had just gotten their prestige.
'Ten stages of Ascension.'
Each stage represented something gained within the rift, be it something as small as killing a beast or as big as overthrowing entire countries.
'It's hard enough to get at least one stage with his circumstances, but four? And without entering the rift at that?'
Something didn't add up.
...
- Sigh.
But it wasn't my place to meddle in; he was Marco Wenric, while I was Vlad Mircea, two different people with completely different lives and circumstances.
It was sooner or later that we would meet; with his progress, it was already guaranteed that 'he' would invite him to propose a contract and make him a part of the citadel.
On the side, Marco stood up from the bench, startling me slightly.
He looked down at me without much of an expression and yawned to himself as if bored rather than tired.
"If you're done already, then I'll be going somewhere."
"Wait!"
He stopped and glanced at me with a gaze that seemed to be asking What?.
"I still have to escort you to your room-"
"No thanks, I know where it is."
"But-"
"Relax."
His voice came loud and clear.
I didn't notice him standing at my side, like a ghost; he vanished from where he previously stood with his hands over his head and now appeared behind the bench I sat in.
'So that's how he managed to run away from Cesar.'
"Don't get yourself killed."
- Pat.
Tapping a few times on my shoulder, he slowly turned away and strolled into the main building of the last checkpoint where his dorm was supposedly located.
***
- Swish.
The lightning express flew across the sea of dark, casually passing the fog walls and leaving the premises of the human world.
It took less than an hour for everyone to board the train and set out towards the last checkpoint, where their lives would finally blossom. It was only a matter of two days before they finally arrived and settled in there.
Inside the cabin, however, things weren't going as smoothly.
A curl of beet-red hair stuck out from the boy's scalp as he looked towards the three people opposite him and grinned, revealing his razor-sharp teeth.
"Would you like to hear a joke?"
No one answered his request; instead, he took the silence as the answer and spoke up with a melodic tone that reminded one of a broken recorder.
"Why can't train engineers be electrocuted?"
His tone took a sharp turn, swapping into that of a little child who was excitedly asking others for an answer.
The silence after his question made his seatmates feel awkward to the point that they just looked away and didn't bother to associate with the poor guy.
Who knew that people would hate jokes so much?
However, to everyone's surprised gazes and gasps of shock, a single person raised his hand, sitting in the corner where no one had previously noticed him before.
Everywhere he looked, people shook their heads at him with horrified expressions, as if finishing the bad joke was akin to a public execution where, instead of one person, everyone would suffer the same fate.
The comedian's eyes lit up after he noticed one raised hand tower over the quiet cabin, his eyes glistening with tiny stars.
"Why?"
The boy in the corner said as he looked at the comedian with a straight face.
"Because they aren't conductors-!"
The whole cabin was engulfed in the throes of agony.