The arrow vanished.
Then it was there again.
Gone.
There.
Gone again.
It didn't move so much as refuse to commit to being anywhere at all—like a cosmic act of gaslighting, denying the very idea that it ever had an original position. It didn't acknowledge displacement. It didn't respect sequence. It simply flickered between states, as if reality itself was negotiating with it and losing.
Henry froze.
Every time he prepared to switch, his mind betrayed him. The place he thought the arrow had been dissolved the instant he focused on it, leaving his perception grasping at an afterimage that no longer existed. The moment he adjusted, the arrow reappeared—somewhere else, or maybe nowhere else at all.
He stood at the peak of a floating platform, suspended high above the beach. Below him, the other students watched, their silhouettes outlined by the blue glow of the water and the drifting flames overhead.
"Oh my gosh," Henry muttered, teeth clenched. "Stay still, damn it."
Jack took a step forward, anticipation and unease tangled tightly across his face.
"Uh… what's going on with him?"
His analysis eyes flared instinctively, scanning Henry's state, tracing potential contradictions before they could solidify. Nothing screamed failure—but nothing suggested progress either.
Sonia's gaze sharpened. "It's the arrow," she said. "It refuses to stay still."
"C'mon, Zappy, you got this!" Kennedy called out.
Charles chuckled despite the tension. "Zappy? Wow. You're really committing to these nicknames."
Kennedy waved him off. "Hey, it fits the electric vibe. Besides, not important right now."
Yyvone folded her arms, eyes fixed on the arrow's erratic existence. "He needs to synchronize with its speed," she said quietly. "That's the only way he can switch."
Ian nodded. "That's exactly what he's trying to do."
Jack didn't look convinced. His eyes continued to glow faintly. "So far, he's just… standing there. Completely lost. I don't think this is ending anytime soon."
Osei remained silent.
His posture was calm, unreadable—but his eyes tightened just a fraction, a subtle tension betraying concern he didn't voice.
The teachers watched from a distance.
Aprexion's brow creased. "What is he doing?"
Kainen didn't answer immediately. His gaze remained fixed on Henry, unblinking.
"This stage of the training," he said finally, "is among the hardest. Give him time. He may need more than we'd like."
Aprexion exhaled slowly. "You're right. This isn't something to rush. If he fails—"
He stopped himself.
"The consequences," he finished, "will be unpredictable."
Kainen nodded once.
"Even I wouldn't know what happens this time."
His eyes lowered.
Memory crept in uninvited.
Faces. Names. Students who had stood where Henry now stood—confident, terrified, hopeful. Some had passed. Many hadn't. Those who returned were never the same. And those who didn't…
The gnaw of the Ghouls had been merciless. Unforgiving. Final.
Kainen's expression hardened as the past loosened its grip.
Above them all, Henry remained still.
Too still.
His mind raced, desperately trying to map patterns where none wanted to exist. He searched for rhythm in the arrow's flickering, for logic in its refusal to obey cause and effect. But every attempt collapsed under its own weight. The arrow wasn't random.
It was indifferent.
And that made it worse.
Henry swallowed, fingers twitching at his sides.
He wasn't failing yet.
But time—whatever time meant here—was slipping through him like sand.
And the arrow watched.
Or didn't.
Or both.
Henry's breath steadied.
Not calm—never calm—but deliberate. Loud in his ears. Slow. Controlled. Erratic at the edges, like a storm pretending to be a lake.
The voices of his friends began to recede, not because they stopped speaking, but because he was walking away from them without moving. Their sounds stretched thin, dissolving like echoes down a long hallway.
When his eyes opened, violet electricity ignited within them.
Not wild.
Focused.
The kind of glow that didn't ask for attention—
it claimed it.
This is my moment.
Then, softly but with absolute certainty:
"Pulse Reversal."
The air answered.
Henry began pulling electricity into himself—not in careful threads, but in great, hungry gulps. Static peeled from the sky, from the floating flames, from the charged silence itself. If he was going to match something that existed and didn't, something that moved without moving—
this was the only way.
Jack and the others fell silent.
They understood now.
Henry spoke again, voice steady.
"I'm finishing this. For me."
A breath.
"And for me alone."
He moved.
Not running.
Not teleporting.
Velocity bent around him like a question mark snapping straight.
From the students' perspective, reality fractured into violet and gold streaks—lines tearing across space in impossible loops, appearing everywhere at once and nowhere long enough to follow.
Jack's analysis eyes burned bright.
Osei's instincts strained toward precognition.
And still—
they couldn't track the arrow.
Only Henry could.
Which meant one thing.
He still wasn't fast enough.
So he pushed harder.
Faster.
Faster.
Until something broke.
"Avian Compression… level zero."
The words landed like a dropped blade.
Full release.
His dimensional form peeled open, no longer compressed for safety, no longer bound by restraint. This wasn't training anymore. This was exposure. Truth without padding.
Gasps rippled through the students. Even the teachers stiffened.
Jack's voice cracked. "Henry—you don't have to—"
But Henry was already gone.
Speed abandoned sequence.
Before the arrow could decide to move, Henry had arrived.
Before it could vanish, he was already standing where it would be.
And wouldn't be.
At the same time.
The arrow reacted.
It tensed.
Then it changed.
Red.
Not danger.
Not blood.
Freedom.
A growl tore through reality—not a sound, but a declaration. The arrow surged past the fifth dimension entirely, slipping upward into something else.
Henry's eyes widened.
Even this—
even this—
wasn't enough.
And he knew it.
But refusal burned brighter than fear.
He reached inward.
The Dream Stone answered.
Its bolt formed in his grasp, unreal and undeniable. A relic that granted not desires, but necessities.
And what Henry needed—
was to go further.
A voice spoke.
Not aloud.
"You don't want to win," it said.
"You want something else."
Henry shouted into the void, "I wish to move faster—faster than I ever have—faster than—"
"Henry, STOP!" Jack screamed. "It's not worth it!"
Henry didn't hear him.
"—faster than the arrow could ever be."
The wish ignited.
Green light flared.
Then red.
Then—
nothing exploded.
Because explosion still implies location.
Henry vanished.
Not displaced.
Surpassed.
Beyond the fifth dimension entirely.
Only the teachers could still perceive him.
Aprexion staggered back. "I—I can't control it. My arrow—it's not responding. Something's hijacked it. No—no—no—"
Kainen snapped, fury cutting through dread. "What do you mean hijacked?"
Aprexion swallowed. "Something else has taken control. Whatever it is—Henry is alone."
Henry was still moving.
Still chasing.
Still refusing.
He calculated where the arrow might be—where it would choose to reassert itself—and threw everything into that single instant.
He arrived.
The arrow appeared.
"Got you," Henry breathed. "I can't believe I did all this just to swap with you."
He initiated the switch.
His inner realm flared—exposed, raw, unguarded.
And that's when he understood.
The arrow had never been fleeing.
It had been watching.
Studying.
Learning him.
This was a feint.
An illusion.
A sentient trap.
The explosion wasn't loud.
It was absolute.
The platform was empty.
Silence devoured the beach.
Jack reached out—
and touched nothing.
"I can't see him," Jack whispered. "No. No. No—NO!"
The scream tore out of him.
The others stood frozen, restless, unable to sit with the idea of Henry being gone.
Kennedy's voice shook. "What… what just happened?"
Then—
electricity sparked.
A shape assembled itself backward—outline first, substance second. Violet lightning stitched a body together piece by piece.
Henry.
Jack didn't hesitate.
He ran.
The hug hit like survival instinct, crushing, wordless, desperate.
Henry smiled faintly. "Don't worry," he said. "I'm fine now."
But his voice—
wasn't quite his.
Jack didn't care.
Not yet.
The silence stayed.
It wasn't awkward.
It wasn't empty.
It was earned.
Jack finally pulled back, just enough to look Henry in the face, hands still firm on his shoulders as if letting go might undo reality.
"Don't ever do that again," he said quietly.
A pause.
"Alright."
Kainen exhaled like a mountain learning it could breathe again.
"Thank goodness," he said, voice rough. "We thought you were gone… again."
Henry's breath hitched—not from pain, but from the weight of the word.
"Nah," he said, forcing a grin. "You're not getting rid of me that easily."
Relief rippled through the students in strange, uneven ways.
Sonia felt it before she could name it. It wasn't green. It wasn't blue. It wasn't even warm.
It was transparent.
As if giving relief a color would make it heavier than it needed to be.
Then—
silence returned.
Not the good kind.
Aprexion hadn't relaxed. Not even slightly. His posture remained locked, eyes sharp, as if something invisible was still moving.
A long beat passed.
Too long.
Then he spoke.
"Henry," Aprexion said slowly, carefully,
"where's the arrow?"
Henry opened his mouth.
Nothing came out.
The answer never arrived.
Instead—
BOOM.
The explosion wasn't just force.
It was entry.
Reality folded inward as if punched from the wrong side. The red flash erupted again—not light, but intent—tearing through space with invasive hunger.
Henry screamed—
not in pain—
but in recognition.
He wasn't a portal.
But something was using him like one.
The pull was instant.
Violent.
Absolute.
The students didn't fall.
They were taken.
One blink—
and they were gone.
All of them.
Henry included.
The beach stood empty.
The glowing water stilled.
The floating flames flickered, uncertain.
Kainen and Aprexion stood frozen, mouths open, eyes wide—not in shock alone, but in something far worse.
Loss.
Not of students.
Of a generation.
As if history itself had slipped through their fingers instead of children.
No one spoke.
Aprexion looked down, fists clenched, voice barely a thought.
"I should have known sooner."
The silence refused to end.
Then—
space tore again.
A portal opened.
But not for the students.
That would have been mercy.
That would have been too soon.
A figure stepped through.
No.
Two.
Their forms were wrong—too deliberate in their distortion, too confident in how little they needed to obey shape.
A ghoul emerged first.
Then another.
Malgroth.
Orazhul.
Danger-level.
Old hunger.
Ancient arrogance.
The kind that doesn't rush because it has never had to.
Malgroth's grin split wider than anatomy should allow.
"Surprise!" he crowed, laughter dripping like poison. 😈😈
The night flared red—
and the real war finally announced itself.