I hit the ground hard.
Air slammed back into my lungs. Sound returned all at once—gasps, shouts, the scrape of boots on stone.
The Spiritstone chamber snapped into focus above me, the ceiling spinning. My back burned against the cold floor. My hand had been torn from the stone.
I wasn't standing.
I wasn't glowing.
There was no spirit behind me.
Silence pressed in.
I rolled onto my side, coughing. My chest felt hollow—like something had reached inside and taken a piece of me with it.
Mr. Renlow was already moving. "Mark." His voice was tight. Controlled. "Step away from the stone."
I pushed myself up on unsteady arms. My legs trembled as I stood.
The Spiritstone was dark.
Completely dark.
No swirling clouds. No pulse.
Nothing.
For half a second, nobody moved.
Then the whispers started.
"Another failure."
The words were quiet, but not quiet enough. They slipped through the chamber like knives, low and sharp and impossible to ignore.
I stared at the dead Spiritstone, waiting for something, anything, to happen. A flicker. A pulse. A mistake being corrected.
But it stayed dark.
Cold.
Empty.
My empty reflection stared back at me from its dull surface.
A hand touched my shoulder.
"Mark," Mr. Renlow said, softer this time.
I flinched without meaning to.
His hand withdrew.
"It's all right," he said, though his voice carried that careful tone adults used when nothing was all right at all. "Step back. Take a breath."
A breath.
Yeah right, like a breath is all I need. I thought sarcastically.
I dragged one in anyways, but it scraped all the way down my throat.
From somewhere to my left, Nate pushed forward through the crowd. His face looked wrong, too pale, too wide-eyed, like he was more shocked than I was.
"Mark," he said quickly. "Hey, don't listen to them, okay? This stupid test doesn't mean—"
It means everything.
I didn't say it out loud. I didn't trust my voice.
The room had gone strangely far away, even though everyone was still standing there, watching me. Their faces blurred together into a wall of eyes and half-hidden expressions. Pity. Curiosity. Disappointment.
I hated all of it.
Mr. Renlow said something else, but the words didn't reach me properly. They broke apart before they got there, swallowed by the rush in my ears.
Another failure.
The phrase kept repeating.
I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.
All those years.
All those nights imagining this moment turning into something more.
All the times I told myself that when this day came, everything would change.
That Josh would shut up.
That people would stop looking at me like I was small.
That I'd finally matter.
And instead—
Nothing.
The hollow feeling in my chest deepened until it felt like I was caving in around it.
"Mark," Nate said again, closer now. "Say something."
I couldn't.
If I opened my mouth, I thought maybe everything inside me would come pouring out.
So I moved.
At first it was just one step backward.
Then another.
Then I turned and ran.
I heard someone call my name behind me, maybe Nate, maybe Mr. Renlow, but I was already shoving past the edge of the crowd, past the stone archway, past the chamber doors.
My feet pounded against the school's polished floors.
I ran without thinking, without seeing much beyond the blur of halls and corners and stairwells. Students jumped out of the way as I tore past. A few voices rose behind me in confusion, but I didn't stop.
I couldn't stop.
The school became a maze of empty corridors and narrow passages, the quieter parts of the building where almost no one ever went. Old classroom wings. Storage halls. Places where the lamps buzzed faintly overhead and dust gathered in the corners.
I finally stumbled into a dead-end passage lined with shuttered windows.
No one else was there.
Good.
I braced both hands against the wall and bent forward, sucking in ragged breaths. My whole body trembled.
Then I slammed my fist into the wall.
Pain shot through my hand, but I ignored it.
I hit it again.
And again.
A broken sound tore out of me, half laugh, half gasp, half something uglier.
"Of course," I muttered, my voice cracking. "Of course."
I hit the wall one more time, then slid back against it and dragged a hand down my face.
The corridor felt too tight. My skin felt too tight. I wanted to scream. I wanted to tear something apart. I wanted to go back five minutes and step away from the stone before it could tell me what I already feared.
Worthless.
My breathing turned sharp and uneven.
I squeezed my eyes shut, but it only made the whispers louder in my head.
Another failure.
Another failure.
Another—
A sound ripped through the school.
I froze.
It was loud enough to vibrate through the walls, a long, shrill metallic cry that seemed to come from everywhere at once.
An alarm.
Not the usual bell. Not anything routine.
This was harsher. Urgent.
My eyes snapped open.
For a second, the whole building seemed to hold its breath.
Then came shouting.
Distant at first. Then closer. Doors opening. Footsteps pounding. Voices rising in confusion.
I pushed off the wall immediately.
The storm inside me didn't vanish, but something colder cut through it now.
Fear.
I ran back the way I came, feet hammering against the floor. The school that had felt empty moments ago was now alive with motion. Students were spilling into the corridors, some trying to find teachers, others staring around in panic. More alarms joined the first, overlapping in a jagged chorus.
I rounded a corner hard and nearly crashed into a group of younger students being hurried along by an instructor. Their faces were pale.
"What's going on?" someone shouted.
"No idea!"
"Was that the city alarm?"
City alarm.
My stomach dropped.
I ran faster.
Down one stairwell. Through the main academic hall. Past windows where I caught flashes of movement outside, guards running across the school grounds, teachers gathering students, the distant ringing of something larger than the school's own alarms.
By the time I reached one of the central corridors, I finally saw familiar faces.
Nate was there, breathing hard, along with several of our classmates clustered near the front entrance. Mr. Renlow stood ahead of them, his posture rigid, one hand pressed to the small communication crystal fastened at his wrist. Whatever message he had just received had drained the colour from his face.
For the first time since I'd known him, he looked afraid.
I slowed to a stop, chest heaving.
Nate turned. "Mark—"
I ignored the look he gave me and stared at Mr. Renlow.
Outside, beyond the glass doors, I could hear it now—the distant blare of the city's warning horns rolling across the skyline.
Every conversation in the corridor died beneath that sound.
Mr. Renlow lowered his hand from the crystal.
His jaw was tight.
His eyes swept over all of us, and when he spoke, his voice was grim enough to make the air feel heavier.
"Listen carefully," he said. "This is not a drill."
A chill slid down my spine.
I took one step forward.
"What's happening?" I asked.
Mr. Renlow held my gaze for a brief, terrible second.
Then he said, very quietly, "A monster tide is coming for the city."