"Are we shitting our pants yet?"
The grand double doors swung open with a groan that silenced the entire hall, and Proprietor Eddan Ghosthead stepped through them with the unhurried ease of a man who had never once in his life been the one waiting.
He was tall, elegantly built, and wearing a smirk that said he found all of this. The nerves, the sweat, the six thousand futures hanging in the balance, mildly amusing.
Proprietor Eddan Ghosthead. General overseer and Governor of Starfall Academy. The man who had come to deliver one of the most anticipated announcements in the entire city.
And the six thousand graduates packed into that ceremonial hall had no choice but to wait on his every word.
They had been standing there like cattle sorted for market, which was, in truth exactly what this was. A sorting. A grading. A public verdict on whether your entire existence had amounted to anything worth the Badlands' attention.
Amongst them was Roman.
He had been waiting for this day his entire life. The final proclamation. The certificate. And beyond it, the chance to enter the land of growth and opportunity that every graduate of Starfall Academy dreamed about from their very first year.
The Badlands.
Sitting beside him was Alby, his longest and closest friend with four years of shared classrooms, shared failures, shared late nights spent studying things neither of them fully understood. Today, finally, they awaited their destiny together.
"Are you nervous, Roman?" Alby gave him a long sideways stare.
"Not really." Roman shook his head. "Just... optimistic."
A lie, obviously. He had all sorts of feelings running through him right now, a tangled mess of hope and dread and something heavier than both that he didn't have a name for. All he wanted was a result that would give him something to stand on. Something to bring home.
He hoped so hard that it hurt.
As the Proprietor stepped forward, the murmuring in the hall began its natural settling. Some students laughing too loudly the way people do when they're terrified, others standing perfectly still, as though stillness were a form of prayer. And when Proprietor Eddan raised one hand, the silence that fell was immediate and total.
"Students of Starfall Academy." His voice carried without effort. "You stand at the end of your formation and the beginning of your reckoning. A new chapter opens today... For some, one of triumph. For others, of failure."
He let that land.
"Today, many of you will rejoice. Some will weep. Some will have to part ways with the people they have walked beside for years. That is the Law of Separation, and it is always bound to happen."
"Today, the Academy renders its final assessment. You will be called by name. You will collect your Certificate of Standing. And you will carry that standing with you into The Red Zenith, and whatever comes after."
"Those with the higher summoning chances listed are expected to be called into that great world of opportunity."
A gave a sharp, deliberate pause, and then continued.
"The Badlands."
He glanced down at the list in his hands, almost casually, as if what he held wasn't the compressed weight of six thousand lives.
"And what can I say? All I can say is... Good luck."
He added before commencing the announcement.
"Aiden Croft! Final Academic Standard, Second Class. Chances of Summoning, Sixty-nine percent."
The first name alone set off a wave of reaction. Eyes widened and heads turned as Aiden walked to the podium with his chin up and his chest out, the stride of someone who had prepared for exactly this moment, and the hall watched him the way they always watched the ones who'd made it.
Then the next name rang out, and so suddenly Aiden was forgotten.
"Sera Finn! Final Academic Standard, First Class. Chances of Summoning, Eighty-eight percent."
Nobody was really surprised because Sera had spent four years being the name everyone else measured themselves against. Her combat drills were surgical. Her Badland Survival theory scores were legendary. If anyone was going to walk out of Starfall with a First Class, it was definitely going to be her.
But hearing it confirmed out loud still made the room catch its breath.
However, she had one rival, though. And interestingly enough, he was next.
"Khan Mourne! Final Academic Standard, First Class. Chances of Summoning, Ninety-one percent."
The hall didn't just applaud, it erupted.
Ninety-one percent. The highest anyone had seen in years, and from the very best student Starfall had produced in a generation.
They could see the impressed look in the Proprietor's face.
The people beside Khan grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, and he let them, because even Khan, composed and unreadable, couldn't entirely contain the jump in his chest.
He didn't rush to the podium. He strolled. Because when you're at ninety-one percent, you've earned the right to let people look!
Roman watched it all from his seat, quiet and still, turning each name and number over in his mind like stones. Measuring the distance between them and himself. Hoping and willing the gap to be smaller than he feared.
And just then his name was called.
"Roman Rings."
His heart seized.
He looked at Alby. Alby was already looking back at him.
Alby gave him one short nod, one that symbolizes a cheer.
Roman let out a breath, long and slow, the kind that's mostly just fear wearing a calm expression.
"Final Academic Standard..."
He gripped the edge of his seat.
"Fourth Class."
And at that very point, his jaw dropped.
The murmuring rose instantly, not loud, but everywhere at once, the specific sound of a crowd processing something they'd half-expected and still found satisfying to confirm. Every face that turned toward him held a different variation of the same expression.
Roman felt them all.
"Chances of Summoning, Thirty-six percent."
He couldn't move. For a long moment, his legs simply refused.
The Proprietor didn't wait. He picked up the certificate, held it at arm's length, then set it aside with the brisk efficiency of a man clearing clutter from his desk.
When Roman finally managed to drag himself to his feet and walk to the podium, Proprietor Eddan looked down at him with an expression somewhere between pity and boredom.
"Well, Mr. Rings." His voice carried perfectly across the silent hall. "Good luck with being a fisherman in Lake Town."
The laughter came from everywhere at once, sudden and uncontrollable, the hall filling up with it like water filling a room.
Roman stood at the podium and felt the sound press against him from every direction. There are moments in a person's life that don't feel real while they're happening, that only become real later when you're alone and replaying them.
This was one of those moments.
He wanted the ground to swallow him whole.
He took his certificate with both hands and walked back to his seat, not daring to look up.
But somewhere in the wreckage of that walk, he held onto one thing... Alby.
His longest friend, who he hope would have a good result, who he hoped would be getting summoned, who he believed would still be there when Roman got back to his seat, because that's what four years of friendship meant.
That's what it had to mean, right?
Upon reaching his seat, he sat down and turned to Alby.
Alby said nothing, and in fact, his eyes were fixed on the podium, jaw tight, hands pressed flat against his thighs. But Roman understood.
Alby was nervous about his own result. Roman didn't push it since it wouldn't make any sense. He just sat and waited, holding himself together.
Soon enough, Alby's name was called.
"Alby Norlan! Final Academic Standard, Second Class. Chances of Summoning, Sixty-nine percent."
The tension broke from Alby's face like ice cracking in spring. He exhaled, closed his eyes for exactly one second, then stood and walked to the podium to the sound of genuine applause including, despite everything, from Roman.
Because what else could he do? It was Alby.
And so, the ceremony continued.
"Ren Bitters! Fourth Class. Thirty-one percent."
"Clara Beastborn! Second Class. Seventy-one percent."
"Tyler Strings! Fifth Class. Chances of Summoning... Tsk. Eighteen percent."
Name after name, number after number, until hours had passed and the last certificate had been collected and the hall finally began to breathe again.
The graduates moved in clusters, instinctively sorting themselves by result the way water finds its level. The high scorers gravitating toward each other, already loud and electric with the energy of people whose futures had just been confirmed.
The Red Zenith would begin soon. And when it did, figures from graduating academies all over the world would be pulled into the Badlands, the select few, chosen by whatever unseen force decided who was worthy. To have a real shot, you needed a Final Standard above average and a summoning chance above sixty percent.
Roman had thirty-six.
He'd given everything. Four years of everything, early mornings and late nights and skipped meals and borrowed notes and one more attempt at every exam he'd ever nearly failed. He'd given it all with one image in his mind.
His father, sitting in the dark of their kitchen, a bottle within arm's reach, the man his mother said used to have a dream.
His father had tried for the Badlands. Tried and failed. And the failure had broken something in him that never healed, turned him quiet first, then bitter, then absent in the way that's worse than actually leaving.
Roman had grown up in the shadow of that failure, had sworn since he was old enough to understand what he was swearing that he would fix it. That he would walk into the Badlands and bring back something the Rings family could be proud of.
Thirty-six percent.
He thought about his mother's face and couldn't finish the thought.
...
He found Alby near the east exit, surrounded by some other guys, Vardy and Finn, two of the better Second Class graduates, already laughing about something Roman hadn't been part of. He'd been looking for Alby since the ceremony ended and couldn't understand why Alby had left without finding him first. But he let it go.
He believed the results had been a lot, and everyone was processing.
"Hey," Roman said, approaching. "I was looking everywhere for you."
Alby turned.
And suddenly something happened in his face. A shift, quick and deliberate, like a door being closed from the inside.
"Why?" His voice was flat. "Am I owing you something?"
Roman blinked. "What? No... I meant so we could go home together..."
"Go home together." Alby said it back to him like he was tasting something that had gone off. He glanced at Vardy and Finn, then back at Roman, and when he spoke again his voice had something new in it, not anger exactly. Something more studied than anger.
"So you can feed me your bad luck? No thanks."
Roman went very still.
"Alby. What are you..."
"Nah, nah. Save it." Alby shook his head slowly. "You're not going to make this weird, Roman. I'm not doing this."
"I just..." Roman stopped. Tried again. "You're my best friend."
"Oh, snap out of it." The words came quick and flat, the way you say something you've been thinking about for a while. "You were never my best friend. You were just my seatmate. The guy that lives in the same town as me. That's it. There's nothing more to it."
The words hit with the specific force of something you don't fully register until a second later, when the meaning catches up.
"You're a failure, Roman. You can't be an Awakener. Your summoning chance is just thirty-six percent. That's not a chance, that's barely a number. Why would I want that following me into my future?" Alby's voice wasn't raised. That was almost the worst part.
"I have to be with people who are going to be on the same level as me. People who didn't fail their families. Unlike you."
Roman's jaw tightened. That certain line landing hard enough to leave a mark.
And just while things was getting tense, Vardy clapped Alby on the shoulder from behind, already moving.
"Gotta go, gotta go. The Red Moon's coming. You don't want to get summoned in the middle of the road."
"Right." Alby straightened and looked at Roman one last time. "Well. As the Proprietor said, good luck with being a fisherman in Lake Town."
He walked away with Vardy and Finn, and the crowd absorbed them, and Roman stood there watching the space where his oldest friendship had been.
He noticed eventually that people nearby were looking at him, and that was when he realised he had to leave the scene.
Going home alone felt wrong in a way that had nothing to do with the route. It used to be him and Alby every weekend, every end-of-term, every walk back from anything that mattered, and going alone today felt less like solitude and more like proof of something he didn't want proven.
Upon almost reaching his home, he decided to take a detour, diverting into his girlfriend's house to explain his misery.
Out of everyone in his life, Roman believed that his girlfriend Tessa would be the most understanding person after his mother.
They've been dating for almost a year, although Roman hadn't wanted to touch her, because he felt like it wasn't the right time yet... Something like that...
Or maybe he'll just say he's nervous about doing "it."
Tessa's apartment was three street away from his way home and she lived alone since her brother had awakened as had been in the Badlands for two years. They were orphaned, and her brother had been the one hustling to take care of her.
Roman was hasty enough to reach her apartment within a few minutes and after several knocks on the door, no one opened.
But he believed she was home.
Today was to be a global public holiday because of The Red Zenith, so there was no way she wouldn't be home at this time. And it wasn't like Tessa was the type that liked going out.
After several knocks again, Roman decided to go in since the door was open, and not sighting her anywhere around the living room made him walk straight to the bedroom, repeatedly calling her by her name the whole time only not to get a response.
And when he got there...
What he saw...
"Te... Tessa?"
This time, his stance was worse than an ugly statue.