The morning rolled in quietly, sunlight pouring faintly through the academy windows as the bell signaled the start of another day. Rei sat at the long wooden table in the dining hall, a steaming bowl of porridge in front of him. Regulus was already halfway through a plate stacked with bread and eggs, chewing aggressively like he had something to prove even while eating.
Across from them, Leo lounged in his seat, as casual as ever. He still wore his knight's helmet, the polished steel catching the morning light, making him look both ridiculous and oddly intimidating at the same time. He hadn't bothered taking it off once since he showed up.
Rei stared for a moment, spoon halfway to his mouth. Why is he even here?
Leo leaned back on the bench, arms behind his head.
"Guess I'll be stuck with you two for a while," he said again, the same smug line from yesterday, only this time with even more of a smirk in his voice.
Regulus narrowed his eyes, swallowing down bread. "Do you ever do anything? Or just sit around trying to look cool in that helmet?"
Leo tilted his head, the helmet clinking softly. "Looking cool is doing something."
Rei sighed, pushing his porridge around with his spoon. He wasn't in the mood for this—his chest still faintly ached from the memory of Kaizer's hit, and the flashes of his death from the reset still haunted him in silence. But seeing Leo lounging there, perfectly unbothered, almost made him feel like maybe things were normal for a moment. Almost.
Mimi sat down on the bench beside Rei with her tiny plate, legs swinging. "Good morning…!" she chirped, her small voice bright. Then she glanced at Leo's helmet and tilted her head. "…Why are you eating with that on?"
Leo raised a spoon full of food dramatically, letting it clang against the mouth slit of his helmet before tilting it just right to slide the porridge in. "Because mystery makes people talk."
Regulus groaned and slapped his forehead.
Rei sat quietly, spoon in hand, trying to tune out Regulus and Leo's back-and-forth bickering. But as he glanced down at his bowl, the porridge rippled. Just faintly—like someone had tapped the table. Only…no one had.
He frowned, looking around. Nobody else seemed to notice. Mimi was happily swinging her legs, carefully blowing on her bread before taking small bites. Regulus kept mocking Leo's helmet, and Leo answered each jab with a dramatic pose.
But Rei's eyes stuck on the bowl. The ripples were gone.
"Rei? You gonna eat that, or just stare at it?" Regulus asked with his mouth full.
"…Yeah." Rei forced a bite, the taste dull, his stomach tight. For just a moment when he looked at the spoon, he swore he saw blood dripping off the metal instead of porridge. But when he blinked, it was gone just his own pale reflection staring back at him.
Across the table, Leo tilted his helmet ever so slightly toward Rei, as if he'd noticed his hesitation. But he didn't say anything—he just gave that low chuckle of his, muffled by steel, before leaning back again.
Rei's grip tightened on his spoon. …What is happening to me?
Rei excused himself from the mess hall, muttering something about air. His chest still felt heavy, like those ripples in the bowl had sunk into his stomach.
The base courtyard was quiet, only the faint crunch of gravel under his boots. That's when he saw him.
A boy. Couldn't have been older than sixteen. His hair was a dull gray, limp and unwashed, his skin so pale it looked half-dead. His clothes were little more than shredded rags hanging from his frame. And yet…his smile was calm.
"You look tired," the boy said, his voice soft, almost too soft for someone who looked like that.
Rei froze. "…Who are you?"
"Just someone passing by. Walk with me."
Against his better judgment, Rei found himself following. Their feet carried them up the sloping path of a nearby mountain, silence broken only by the wind hissing through the pines. When they reached a ledge, the boy stopped. His pale eyes turned toward the horizon.
"There's a legend," the boy began, his tone eerily casual, "about a ritual from long ago. People would gather around a chosen person. They tied them up. They burned them alive. And when the body was nothing but charred meat…"
Rei's stomach churned.
"…they ate it."
The boy's smile stretched wider, disturbingly serene. "The best part is everyone was laughing. Smiling. Children. Parents. No one was sad. It was a feast."
Rei's voice caught. "…Why are you telling me this?"
The boy slowly turned, his rotted features shadowed by the setting sun.
"Because…" He tilted his head, smile never faltering. "…it just felt right."
And in the blink of an eye, he was gone. The air was empty. Rei stood alone on the mountain path, his heart pounding, the echo of that smile burned into his mind.
Rei stayed rooted on that mountain path long after the boy vanished, staring at the empty space where he had stood. His breath came in shaky bursts, the wind cold against his skin, but inside he felt feverish, unsteady.
A ritual… burning someone alive… eating them like it was nothing.
He pressed his hand against his face, trying to push the words out of his head, but they kept repeating. The boy's pale eyes. That smile.
Rei sank down on a nearby rock, burying his face into his hands.
"Why me?" he whispered. "Why show me that?"
The image of laughing faces around the fire wouldn't leave him. It was too vivid, too real. He could almost smell the smoke, the ash, the sickly-sweet stench of cooked flesh. And the way the boy had said it—it just felt right—sent chills crawling down his spine.
Rei clenched his fists, nails digging into his palms.
"Is that… what I'm supposed to become? A monster like that?"
The thought cut deep. He remembered the flickers of his old self in the mirror, the way his reflection sometimes didn't look like him anymore. What if the boy wasn't warning him… but showing him a glimpse of what was waiting inside?
He shook his head violently, standing up and stumbling back down toward the base. His legs felt heavy, his chest tight.
"I can't… I can't tell anyone," he muttered to himself. "They'd never believe me. They'd think I'm insane."
The boy's words still echoed, however faint—like a curse stitched into his thoughts.
By the time Rei returned to the dorms, the warmth of the lamps and the distant laughter of others felt wrong. Alien. The world felt a shade darker, as if that smile had followed him back. "Am I going Insane?" Rei whispered.