The morning cracked open with silence.
Nox was already awake before the sun ever touched the horizon. The faint hiss of water boiling, the soft scrape of metal against metal, and the sharp flick of a lighter — all whispered through the rooftop where he stood, bathed in half-light and cigarette smoke. His eyes, like twin shards of amethyst, peered across the awakening campus. This was his sanctuary. His ritual.
He drank his coffee black, acidic, the kind that burned going down. One arm rested against the concrete ledge as smoke curled past his lips, vanishing into the sky.
The weight of the sniper rifle from last night's job still lingered in his muscles. Precision. One shot. One life. The payment had already pinged his burner crypto wallet. Enough to place a custom order today — he'd already mentally assembled the specs: carbon fiber chassis, adjustable bipod, detachable suppressor, high-magnification scope with thermal overlay. Distance, silence, certainty. The rifle wouldn't forgive mistakes.
His breath hung in the chilled air. The body, now honed over five relentless months of high-impact training, bore the quiet definition of power. Six-foot-two, pure efficiency—every fiber of him carved into a tool meant to end lives.
Back in the dorm, he moved through silence. His bed, positioned beneath the wide window, stood beside modified closets and desk compartments. Each segment concealed weapons — blades, compact arms, a dismantled sidearm hidden behind false drawers. One corner held the almost finished sculpture: Romulus, chest carved open with a wolf's paw pressed against his heart.
Below the workbench, his laptop blinked in quiet rhythm. Night hacks from the previous hours still pulsed: surveillance feeds from around campus, backdoor access into administrative servers, and a tapped local police channel. Nox had eyes everywhere. This world — fiction though it was — demanded control.
Classes began after the usual sparing breakfast. Leo sat to the left in the lecture hall, pristine and cold, while Ash, always the first to try and pierce silence, occupied the right. The three of them shared every lecture, though it felt more like three separate existences held hostage by proximity. Nox wore his hoodie as always, face hidden, mask never leaving his chin. Only his eyes gave anything away, and even those remained unreadable.
Today, their professor assigned a group art project: an interpretation of myth in physical form. Romulus and Remus — Nox's idea.
Ash, ever the extrovert, chuckled awkwardly. "Seriously? Roman mythology? That's kind of badass, though. So we're going violent or emotional with it?"
Leo merely adjusted his cuffs. "Symbolism. Legacy through division."
Nox's voice was low, rasped slightly from disuse. "Duality. Founding through blood."
Ash blinked. "That's...dark."
Nox didn't respond. The concept sketch was already uploaded from his drive. The sculpture's base, heavy stone, would house the twins. One reaching upward, the other clutched by death. The wolf would bleed from the eyes.
They worked in silence. Ash occasionally spoke, mostly filler, and Leo would sometimes reply, short but polite. Nox responded only when directly asked — offering critiques on material density or flame molding temperature. A few quiet hours passed this way.
By late afternoon, classes shifted to electives. Nox tapped into the security feeds with his mobile rig, monitoring movement patterns near a suspected arms dealer front in the lower district. The payment from last night funded a new round of supplies. By sunset, he'd picked up the rifle components and a small batch of high-grade tranquilizer rounds — just in case.
Back at the dorm, he dropped the wrapped packages into a hidden panel under his bed. One knife, still bloody from the cage fight two nights ago, remained to be cleaned.
Dinner came and went without his participation. While Ash tried coaxing Leo into sampling some new curry dish in the shared cafeteria, Nox remained upstairs, sculpting. Stone dust clung to his hoodie and gloves. Romulus' mouth was beginning to form a scream.
When the door opened behind him, Nox didn't look up. He recognized Leo's boots.
A lighter clicked.
"Forgot mine," Leo muttered.
Nox reached into his pocket without turning. Flicked the silver lighter backward into Leo's waiting hand. Their fingers brushed — a second too long — before Leo nodded once and walked out to the balcony.
Nox exhaled slowly. Smoke burned down to the filter. He didn't follow. Instead, he rose silently, retrieved another cigarette, and climbed to the rooftop.
The sky was starless tonight. Just a vast black sheet stretching over fiction.
He didn't think. He just smoked.
Memories came like bleeding film. Elya — her sister in arms — laughing at the old paperback he'd smuggled in. A BL novel about tragic love and unwavering loyalty.
"You always choose the ones that break your heart," she'd said, fingers brushing his hair. "Maybe that's why you'll survive longer. You don't believe in endings."
But they killed her.
They made her kill her. After she hid her husband — a lover she was protecting — the organization gave Nyx the order. A lesson in loyalty. She obeyed. She bled afterward. She screamed in agony afterward.
But she obeyed.
He flicked the cigarette away. Muscles tightening as he turned and left the rooftop.
Down in the cage later that night, he didn't flinch when the blade sliced across his ribs. He didn't grunt when knuckles cracked his jaw. Precision. Repetition. Tolerance.
Pain was a language he had mastered.
By midnight, blood had dried on his hoodie. The sculpture waited. College notes were neatly stacked on his desk. His inbox pinged quietly with another request: another high-risk mission.
He accepted without blinking.
The night ended as it always did: with silence, the faint scratch of stone on stone, and the sky swallowing his breath.
Nox never dreamed anymore.
He couldn't afford to.
End of Chapter 20