The sky over New Griza was a swirling canvas of blue steel and smog-filtered sunlight, casting a mechanical sheen over the school's rooftop.
Castor leaned against the rooftop fence, his long black hair swaying slightly in the breeze. Misha stood beside him, arms folded, her green eyes unusually serious.
"I don't like this," she muttered. "Ethan's been gone since yesterday and there's been nothing. No calls. No texts. No footprints online. It's like he vanished."
"I'll look into it after school," Castor said quietly, gaze steady. "He wouldn't disappear like this without a reason."
Misha sighed. "Just don't do anything reckless."
He gave a faint smile. "Have you met me?"
"Unfortunately."
They shared a brief smirk before the bell rang again, dragging them back into the flow of classes.
Later that day, during break, Castor spotted Isla standing near the shadowed edge of the science wing, sipping from a vending machine drink. She stood alone, her posture rigid, her long purple hair perfectly still despite the breeze. He approached.
"Isla," he said calmly.
She didn't look at him.
"I wanted to talk."
"No."
He raised an eyebrow. "Just like that?"
"Whatever you think you saw earlier," she said, voice flat, "It wasn't real. I was lying—"
Castor didn't move. "You mean the invisible force that shoved that man away from the bus? Come on, you even admitted it earlier."
She turned her head slightly, giving him a withering stare. "..."
"People hide things they're afraid of," he countered, folding his arms.
Isla looked away again, biting the rim of her can. "You don't know me."
"You're right. I don't," he said. "But I've… been there. Maybe not the same thing, but… something like it. When something changes inside you. When you start feeling like a glitch in the system."
Her gaze flicked to him—sharp, but curious.
"I know what it's like to feel broken. Like you don't control what's inside you. Like it's not even yours. And I know what it's like when everyone around you either ignores it or calls you dangerous. At least, you used that power to save a human life. You're in control of your own fate. You're capable of so much more then this..."
She was silent.
"I'm not here to judge you," he said, voice softening. "I'm just here to help."
Slowly, Isla's defensive shell cracked. "You really don't get it."
"Try me."
She clenched her hands around the can, her nails scraping against the aluminum. "It's like… I feel everything around me all the time. Emotions. Pressure. Fear. It's like being in a room with a thousand screams, and every time I try to shut it out, something breaks. I break."
Her voice trembled, but she didn't stop.
"My parents don't believe it. The school just thinks I'm weird. I've scared people. Lost friends. I don't want to be… this. I just want to be normal."
Castor looked at her, genuinely, without a trace of pity—only understanding.
"You don't need to be normal. You just need to stop seeing yourself as a mistake."
A tear escaped the corner of Isla's eye. She brushed it away quickly, annoyed at herself. "Why do you even care?"
He answered without hesitation. "Because someone should."
She didn't reply. But her silence wasn't cold anymore. It was something else—something warmer. She turned slightly toward him, the distance between them no longer so sharp.
After class, Castor met with Aria in the Gardening Club greenhouse, where the air smelled like nectar and bio-grown soil.
"Thanks for coming," Aria said, brushing orange strands of hair behind her ear. "Sophia's… not doing great."
"What's going on?"
"She's been different lately. Talking about seeing people's emotions like colors. Saying things that… she shouldn't know. And yesterday, a tree branch moved on its own when she got upset."
Castor nodded slowly. "Phenomenal Paradox Spectrum."
"You also think she's affected?" Aria asked.
"I think it's worth looking into. Let's set up a meeting somewhere neutral. There's a quiet restaurant near East Plaza. Tomorrow evening?"
Aria looked concerned, but nodded. "Alright. I'll tell the others."
When Castor returned home that evening, the air shifted the moment he opened the door.
His apartment was in disarray. The table had been overturned. His chair slashed. The bookshelf was half-emptied and broken glass glistened on the floor.
He stepped inside carefully, shutting the door behind him.
"Cassie?" he called, panic welling.
No answer.
He fumbled for his phone and called.
She picked up immediately.
"Cassie, where are you? Are you okay?"
"I'm fine," she said, confused. "I'm still at the library. Why?"
"Someone broke into the apartment."
A pause.
"Is anything gone?"
"I don't know yet."
He ran a hand through his hair, heart still hammering. "Just… be careful. Text me before you come back."
"Will do. Don't die, idiot."
He smirked faintly despite everything. "Not planning to."
He hung up and looked around at the wreckage.
Something had been looking for something.
Or someone.
The moon hung low in the sky, casting pale shadows across the city of New Griza. The air felt electric, charged with an unspoken tension that Castor couldn't shake, despite his attempts to distract himself. After everything that happened last night—the broken apartment, the haunting feeling of being hunted—he couldn't stop thinking about one thing: Ethan.
The thoughts gnawed at him. What was happening? Why was Ethan missing? Was it all connected to the strange events unfolding around them?
Castor stepped out of the elevator and onto the quiet floor of the apartment building, the weight of his troubled mind heavy in his chest. He knew he had to talk to Snowflake. She was the only one who might have answers or, at the very least, offer some sort of comfort amid the chaos.
He knocked on the door to her apartment, his knuckles sounding louder than expected against the steel surface. Moments later, the door creaked open, revealing Snowflake in a cozy black hoodie, her usual cold expression softening for a brief second as she saw him.
"Castor? What's up?"
"Can I come in? I need to talk," he said, his voice tight with the tension he felt.
Snowflake stepped aside, allowing him in. Her apartment was as neat as always, the dim lights casting an almost serene glow against the stark white walls. Snowflake's eyes, red and glimmering in the soft light, studied him with mild curiosity, though it was clear she could tell something was wrong.
"What happened? You look like you saw a ghost."
Castor ran a hand through his hair, looking down at the floor, his jaw clenching. "You could say that," he muttered, walking past her into the living room. He sank into the couch, shoulders heavy with the weight of everything he hadn't been able to process.
Snowflake hesitated before sitting beside him. "Alright, talk. What's going on?"
"Last night," Castor began, his voice quieter now, "my apartment was destroyed. Broken things, furniture overturned. Whoever did it was looking for something. Or someone."
She raised an eyebrow, her gaze hardening. "You didn't tell the police?"
"I couldn't. I think whoever did it knows exactly what they're after." He paused. "And it's not just about me. It's about Ethan."
Snowflake was silent for a moment, her sharp eyes narrowing slightly. "What do you mean, it's about Ethan?"
"Ethan's been gone for two days," Castor said. "I tried to reach him, but he's not answering. No one knows where he is. It's like he vanished."
Snowflake leaned back, her eyes flicking across the room thoughtfully. "This is getting more serious than I thought. What exactly happened to him? How did he get involved in all of this?"
Castor hesitated, glancing at her. "I don't know. Ethan… well, he's been dealing with his own stuff for a while. But this feels different. I think he might be involved in whatever's happening to me, to the city. And if what I think is true…" He trailed off, unsure whether he should say it out loud.
"If what?" Snowflake pressed, her tone sharp.
"I think he's the reason things are escalating. He's the reason people are disappearing."
Snowflake nodded slowly, her expression unreadable. "Alright, we need to find him. And fast. But let's talk about you for a second."
Castor turned to her, confused. "What?"
"Isla," she said, her voice a little softer now. "You said you talked to her?"
Castor stiffened slightly, the memory of the conversation flashing through his mind. He hadn't meant to tell her about Isla, but Snowflake's gaze was piercing, and she had a way of drawing the truth from him whether he liked it or not.
"Yeah," he said, after a beat. "I talked to her today. She does have telekinesis."
Snowflake raised an eyebrow. "That's not exactly a run-of-the-mill ability."
"I know," Castor replied, voice tight. "She's been hiding it. She's afraid of it. She thinks it makes her dangerous."
Snowflake's lips curled into a small, amused smile. "And you offered to help her?"
"I didn't want her to feel like I did when I… when I couldn't control what was happening to me." Castor paused, looking down at his hands. "I don't want her to hate herself for something that's a part of her. Something that could help people. If she lets it."
"Sounds like you're playing the hero again," Snowflake said with a teasing smirk, but there was a flicker of something else in her eyes, something softer.
"I don't know," Castor said. "I just—she's been alone with this for too long. I don't want her to feel like there's no one to talk to. Like I did."
Snowflake shifted closer, her eyes not leaving him. "You really do care about her, don't you? I feel a bit jealous."
"Not like that," Castor replied quickly, almost too quickly, then laughed nervously. "I just—what if it's all connected? All of this? Everything that happened 2 years ago... Ethan, Isla, the Phenomenal Paradox Spectrum…"
"You're overthinking it," Snowflake said, her voice low and reassuring. "We'll figure it out. But for tonight, we can't solve everything. So how about we forget about the world for a few hours?"
Castor met her eyes, and for a moment, he felt the weight in his chest lift, just a little. He didn't want to think about Ethan or the chaos. Just for a moment, he wanted to feel normal again.
"That sounds good," he said, settling back into the couch.
The evening passed in a comfortable, almost mundane silence. They ate takeout and watched some ridiculous movie that Snowflake insisted was "culturally significant" even though it was just a mindless romcom. Castor found himself laughing, the tension in his shoulders easing little by little.
It wasn't until much later, when Snowflake handed him a blanket and turned off the lights, that he realized just how exhausted he was. He had always kept himself on edge, but now, for the first time in a while, he allowed himself to just… sleep.
Castor woke in the middle of the night, his body drenched in sweat, his heart pounding.
He was a child again, standing in the middle of a dimly lit street, shadows stretching unnaturally across the pavement. The distant sound of footsteps echoed, sharp and unforgiving. He turned to find Ethan standing before him, his face empty of emotion, his eyes cold and calculating.
"What are you doing here?" Castor asked, his voice shaking.
"I'm not the Ethan you knew," came the reply, a voice hollow and distant, like the whisper of wind through the trees.
And then, Castor was fighting. With every ounce of his being, he struggled against the version of Ethan in front of him. But the pain was too much. His body couldn't keep up. The weight of his past came crashing down around him, each punch a reminder of something lost, something broken. And in the final moment, the face of the boy he once called a friend twisted, his eyes gleaming with something darker.
"You don't get to decide anymore," Ethan said, voice distant but laced with bitterness.
And then, everything went black.
Castor woke with a start, gasping for breath. His heart was still pounding, and the images of the dream clung to him like wet cloth. He blinked in confusion, trying to orient himself in the unfamiliar room. His eyes met Snowflake's, who was sitting on the edge of the couch, watching him intently.
"You okay?" she asked softly.
"Yeah," Castor muttered, rubbing his eyes. "I—I just had a weird dream."
Snowflake's lips pressed into a thin line, though she didn't say anything else. The clock on the wall ticked loudly, the only sound in the room. But as Castor tried to shake off the last remnants of the nightmare, the reality of the situation hit him with brutal clarity: Ethan was still missing.
And now, things were about to get even worse.
The next day, Castor and Misha met up before school, both of them wearing matching expressions of concern.
"We need to go to his place after school," Castor said firmly. "I don't care what it takes."
Misha nodded, her brows furrowed in worry. "I've been thinking the same thing. We have to do something."
After school, they rushed to Misha's apartment, the urgency in their steps increasing with each passing moment. But when they arrived, Misha froze.
Her door was wide open, the locks mangled. The inside was a disaster—furniture smashed, broken glass littering the floor.
"Someone's been here," Misha whispered, her voice trembling.
"I think we're next," Castor muttered, dread coiling in his stomach.
They exchanged a look, a silent agreement forming. Whatever was happening, it was no longer just about Ethan. It was about them, too.
They reached Ethan's house just as the sun was beginning to dip below the horizon, casting long shadows over the streets. Castor's heart thudded in his chest as he approached the door, feeling a chill creep over him.
"Ethan?" he called out, stepping over the threshold.
And that's when everything went black.