"This is… unexpected," Kael thought.
What kind of institution required its students to arrive by private jet?Was it merely obscene wealth—or something more deliberate?
Hours into the flight, the captain emerged from the cockpit and handed Kael a thin folder.
"Here is everything you will need. Welcome to Shrub Nigurith."
Then he stepped past Kael, opened the emergency hatch, and leapt into the void with the only parachute on board.
"I—what?"
Kael rushed to the cockpit. It was empty.
The jet flew on autopilot, steady and silent.But a timer pulsed on the main console.
30:00
Thirty minutes until manual override.
Meaning: if he failed to learn how to land a machine he had never touched… the sky would finish what the pilot had begun.
Kael collapsed into the pilot's seat, trembling fingers sliding over unfamiliar controls. He pulled on the headset and forced his voice into the comms.
"Mission Control, this is Kael aboard a private jet with no pilot. I request immediate assistance."
"Mission Control responding. State your location."
"I've passed a massive forest. Now I'm over a desert."
"Remain calm. Explain the situation."
"I was traveling to the Institute of Research and Development—Shrub Nigurith. The pilot exited the aircraft mid-flight. I have limited time before the autopilot disengages."
A pause.
"…I see. Did he provide you with any materials?"
"Yes. A manual. But the sections on autopilot have been torn out."
"But the rest remains?"
"Yes."
"Then why are you contacting us?" the voice snapped. "If the instructions have been handed to you, follow them. Whether you live or die is a matter of comprehension. Not our concern."
The channel went dead.
Kael stared at the clock.
25:00
"What kind of place does this?" he whispered. "What kind of school begins with a funeral trial?"
He forced the thought aside. Fear was a luxury he could no longer afford.
For a man who had always sat in executive seats—never touching engines, never knowing how flight truly worked—this machine felt alien. Too advanced. Too alive. His own body felt like the fragile component now.
His vision blurred.His heart misfired.His hands shook as if rejecting the future.
The words in the manual bled together.
Then—
A memory surfaced.
How long do you plan on burning?How do you make it stop?What was your body before the fire?
The voice of his other self, spoken in the white realm during his awakening.
"…This is the same," Kael murmured. "The burning. The narrowing."
He slowed his breathing.
Not by force.By surrender.
Just as Note had taught him.
The panic receded. The world sharpened.
Far away, in a chamber without light, a man spoke from the shadows.
"Have you ever wondered how humans survived when the world was ruled by monsters? Woolly mammoths. Saber-toothed beasts. Creatures that could end them with a step."
"No, sir," a figure replied.
"Instinct," the man said. "A state so pure it erases doubt. What athletes call 'flow' is only its shadow. True instinct strips the mind of everything except survival."
He continued calmly.
"But three conditions must be met."
"One: a singular goal."
"Two: desperation."
"Three: the task must be close enough to touch… and far enough to fail."
"When those align, dormant potential awakens. The impossible becomes necessary."
The figure bowed slightly. "So that is why he designed this test for the new students."
The man smiled in the darkness.
"So like him."
Back in the cockpit, Kael read clearly now. Balance. Descent. Alignment. He memorized what mattered and discarded what didn't.
00:10
"It's all or nothing," he whispered.
He followed the instructions. Pressed the sequence. Pulled the control column.
The jet shuddered.
A brief scream of turbulence.
Then—silence.
Stability.
Kael exhaled for the first time in minutes.
A thin smile formed on his lips.
"…Now," he said quietly, "I truly want to see what this institution demands of the living."