That word was enough to break through the paralysis.
Bodies slammed into each other as everyone surged backward. The little girl from before began shrieking for her brother. Someone fell near me and got trampled before two others hauled him up. Nate grabbed my sleeve hard enough to hurt and yanked me sideways as the monster lunged again.
Its claws gouged the stone where I'd been standing half a second earlier.
The sound they made against the floor set my teeth on edge.
It turned toward us slowly this time, as if it knew exactly what effect it was having.
Blood streaked its jaws.
Its eyes locked on the nearest cluster of students, me, Nate, three others from our class, and Mr. Renlow trying to put himself between us and the creature with nothing but terror and stubbornness.
Mr. Renlow lifted both hands.
A ring of pale light burst from the floor in front of him, rising into a trembling barrier. It looked thin. Fragile. The kind of spell made by a man who knew it wouldn't hold but cast it anyway because there was nothing else left to do.
The panther-like beast lowered its head, shoulders bunching.
I couldn't breathe.
I couldn't move.
It was going to hit the barrier. It was going to tear through it. It was going to reach us.
The monster sprang—
—and a silver line flashed through the air.
For an instant, I thought lightning had struck inside the hall.
Then the creature was no longer whole.
Its body split across the middle in a blur so clean and fast that the two halves stayed together for a heartbeat before sliding apart and slamming wetly onto the floor.
Silence hit just as hard as the attack had.
The remains of the monster twitched once.
Then they were still.
A man stood where there had been nothing the moment before.
He had appeared between us and the dead beast so suddenly it barely made sense, like the world had skipped a piece of itself. He was tall and broad-shouldered, wearing a dark formal coat split open at the sides for movement, with silver-threaded armor fitted beneath it. His sword, a long, narrow blade with a faint white sheen running along its edge, hung loose in one hand.
Principal Vaelor.
I had seen him before, of course. Everyone had. But usually he was standing on an assembly
platform, speaking in that measured, distant voice powerful people seemed to learn somewhere.
He had always looked imposing.
This was different.
Now he looked like a weapon wearing a human shape.
There was no panic in his face. No hesitation. His eyes swept over the hall once, sharp and cold, assessing injuries, damage, exits, threats, taking in everything in a single glance.
When he spoke, his voice cut through the room with brutal clarity.
"All surviving students must go to a reinforced shelter immediately."
No one moved at first. Not because they didn't want to.
Because they were still trying to understand what had just happened.
Mr. Renlow found his voice before the rest of us found our legs. "Principal—"
Vaelor turned to him. "There are breaches across the district. Advanced-class beasts are getting through the outer wards." His expression hardened further, if that was even possible. "Stronger ones will follow."
A tremor ran through the room.
Everyone in the city knew the classification tiers. Even if you never saw a monster in your life, you knew enough to be afraid of the words.
Advanced class was already beyond what normal guards could handle alone.
And if stronger ones were coming—
My stomach twisted.
Mr. Renlow swallowed. "Understood."
Vaelor's gaze flicked over the students, then to the shattered entrance, where distant screams and horns still bled into the hall from outside. There was blood on the floor near his boots, some of it human, some black and steaming from the dead creature.
He didn't look at it twice.
"You," he said to Mr. Renlow, "take them west. Use the underground approach if the surface route is compromised. Do not stop for anything short of a direct collapse."
Mr. Renlow gave a tight nod.
Vaelor shifted his sword once, a single economical movement. "Keep them alive."
Then he was gone.
Not vanished, gone.
He surged forward in a blur of controlled violence, crossing the ruined entrance in less than a second and disappearing into the chaos outside, headed toward something none of us could yet see. There was no speech. No reassurance. Just purpose.
He stormed away like the city itself had called him to war.
For a long second, everyone stared after him.
Then the world rushed back in.
A girl began sobbing so hard she folded in on herself. One boy threw up near the wall. Another student was shaking uncontrollably, eyes fixed on the two pieces of the dead monster as if they might rise again.
Mr. Renlow spun toward us, his voice hoarse now. "Move! Right now! West hall, stay together!"
That got us moving.
Or trying to.
The hall had become a nightmare of broken order. Some students wanted to run for the nearest exit. Others clung to whichever teacher they saw first. The wounded needed to be carried or supported. A few stood staring blankly until someone physically pulled them along.
Nate had gone white as chalk. "Mark," he said, breathing too fast, "Mark, did you… did you see…"
"Yes," I said, though it came out flat and strange.
We stepped around blood.
I tried not to look at the bodies.
Failed.
The image burned itself into me anyway… the ruin of uniforms, the unnatural stillness, the bright red on pale stone. My chest tightened so hard it hurt.
Those students had been alive less than a minute ago.
Worried about tests. Whispering. Complaining. Breathing.
Now they were just—
I dragged my gaze away.
Mr. Renlow was herding us toward a side corridor that sloped downward beneath the western wing. More staff had joined him, gathering students from adjoining halls and forcing them into some kind of line. The school no longer felt like a school. It felt like a structure already halfway to becoming ruins.
"Head down!" a teacher shouted as another crash sounded somewhere outside.
A few students screamed and ducked instinctively.
The younger ones were crying openly now. Even some of the older students had tears running down their faces, too frightened to bother hiding it.
Nate stayed close at my side. I could tell he wanted to keep talking, wanted to say something useful or comforting or maybe just hear another human voice, but he kept failing to find words. Every few steps, he glanced back at me, then toward the windows, then back again.
My thoughts had started moving in a different direction.
Not the shelter.
Not the teachers.
Home.
The word came once and then wouldn't stop.
Home.
Mom in the kitchen this morning, pretending not to watch me too carefully.
Dad with his coffee, acting calm in that way adults do when they want you to borrow their calm.
Had they heard the alarms?
Were they already moving?
Did they even know how bad it was?
The thought hit me so hard I almost stumbled.
What if the tide had reached our district already?
What if monsters had gotten past the local wards?
What if they were waiting for me, thinking I was safe at school while something worse was happening at home?
My breathing sharpened.
No.
I couldn't just go underground and wait.
I couldn't stand in some reinforced shelter while not knowing.
Mr. Renlow kept urging us onward, pushing the group toward the west descent. "Stay together! Eyes forward! Keep moving!"
The corridor narrowed. Stone walls closed around us. Lamps set into iron brackets cast unsteady light across the students' faces, making everyone look older, hollower, and more frightened than they had ten minutes ago.
This was the point where it would get harder to leave.
Once we reached the underground route, there would be teachers at both ends. Too many students packed together. Too many eyes.
If I was going to go, it had to be now.
My pulse slammed against my ribs.
Nate was helping another boy keep his footing. Mr. Renlow was three rows ahead, focused on the front cluster. Behind us, students were bunching up again where the corridor bent, blocking clean sightlines for a few seconds at a time.
I looked once toward the line ahead.
Once toward the darker side passage that branched off to the old faculty wing.
My decision came all at once.
I slowed half a step.
Then another.
No one noticed.
Everyone was too shaken, too busy trying not to fall apart.
Nate was saying something to the boy on his other side.
Mr. Renlow had turned to shout an order at the back of the group.
The side passage opened beside me, unlit except for the weak spill of corridor light reaching a few feet in.
I slipped sideways into the darkness.
My shoulder brushed the cold stone. I flattened myself against the wall and held my breath.
The line kept moving.
Shoes scraped past the opening.
Voices echoed down the corridor.
No one called my name.
Not yet.
I stayed still until the last cluster of students passed, until the noise of them dulled and bent away around the curve, until Mr. Renlow's voice faded into the distance.
Only then did I ease farther into the side hall.
The alarms were still sounding somewhere above.
And home was in the opposite direction.