The wind moved through the empty street, pulling faint whispers from the leaves, brushing against the glass of shuttered windows. The pale light of early morning barely touched the ground.
A figure stood alone at the bus stop.
Black hair, shifting with each cold gust.
But he didn't move.
Light gray eyes stared ahead, empty — neither eager nor impatient. The wind pulled at him like it did the leaves and branches around him, yet he remained untouched by it. No tension in his shoulders, no shift of weight. As if he wasn't really there at all.
No other students waited with him. No passersby, no distant footsteps. The world felt half-asleep, the roads silent, the buildings watching.
And still, he waited.
There was no telling what for.
Or why.
A soft rumble broke the quiet. A white bus came into view, headlights dim against the pale dawn. It slowed to a stop, the doors sliding open with a faint hiss.
He moved without a word.
Without a flicker of emotion.
Past rows of students already seated, faces bright with nervous excitement or composed with forced calm. Some whispered, some laughed. None of them noticed him pass.
And if they did — they quickly forgot.
Like a shadow, he slipped to the back. Sat down. Straight, silent, still.
His gaze settled on the window.
The road outside rolled by in streaks of green and gold. Tall trees stretched skyward, their branches breaking the weak sunlight into flickering fragments. Creatures wandered through the undergrowth — foxes, birds, the occasional lumbering figure of something larger, darker.
Some snarled.
Some fell.
The quiet crackle of distant spells and steel echoed as figures in cloaks and armor brought them down.
The boy blinked.
Once.
No change in his face.
No trace of interest.
Nothing at all.
On the bottom edge of the window frame, faint words were etched into the metal — half-faded from years of exposure.
Where the stars write destinies.
His eyes lingered.
Another blink.
Then, as the bus slipped into a long, narrow tunnel — light swallowed by the sudden dark, the overhead lamps flickering and trailing like dying stars — his lips moved, a voice so low it barely left his throat.
"There is no destiny."