The ticked start in 5:30 morning.
The kai Relven opened his eyes to darkness, broken by the dim glow from the broken wall across the room-clock across the room it twitching, shuttering back and forth as if caught between the moments.
It shouldn't be ticking. Not after what happened.
He sat up slowly-his room was quite-but not silent. In the house, silence was never real time always made itself known.
Creak! Tick! Whisper!
The old house groaned like a tired beast. Wind rattled the shutters. But that wasn't what made this skin crawl.
It was his broken clock under his pillow. That clock broke the night his parents vanished.
Still cold, broken, not ticking.
The moment he touched it, the second hand of the wall-clock move forth. Once, Twice. Then Stopped.
His heart tightened.
He sat up, walking downstairs avoiding the blanks photo frames on the wall- where his parents' faces used to be. He remember them. But no one else did. Not even their neighbors. not even official who took their names out of registry.
That's what happened when you rewind time beyond what you can handle.
Downstairs, the house felt different then usual. the light flickered when passed. the kitchen radio buzzed with whispers he didn't dare understand.
He stepped outside, into a grey morning where the sky looked like a cracked lens-clouds hanging heavy, stitched together with veins of faint purple light. A glitch in the sky, just like the last week.
Just like the one from back then.
He reached for his bag, hesitated, then checked the time.
6:01 a.m.
Too early to academy.
Too early to pretend Everything was normal.
Kai looks toward a place on the horizon where time is breaking down and reality feels distorted. He senses change, danger or a powerful force calling for him-possibly connected to his Chrono-Blood powers or his missing part.
By the time he reached for the carriage, the world already felt... bent.
He turn his gaze towards horizon- where times bled into itself, where air felt thinner, tighter.
The wind whispered again.
"Rewind, Kai..."
A voice? A memory? Or a ghost of time itself?
His jaw tightened, clenched his fist.
Not today. Not unless someone dies.
He stepped off from the carriage, in front of him is AetherveilAcademy. Stood like a monument to myth-Its towering spires gleamed with crystal-tinted steel, and arched windows shimmered under the sun like ripples in water. Recently renovated for the newly gifted student, the entire campus smelled of fresh marble polish and new books.
But beneath the campus has a high-tech ward hide the academy's secrets.
Those who born with divine gift are chosen from the havens. Here, raw talent not just trained-but weaponized. Students wield fire with flick, bent wind into walls, and called down thunder with spells. Their names were legacy-bound, their destinies already inscribed in the hall of ascension.
And there is kai Relven.
No magic. No Bloodline. No divine marks. Just a perfect test score and government- scholarship. A mistake in the system-or maybe a test. No one know why a powerless boy get admitted to this academy, But everyone noticed. And someone wanted him gone.
Kai stepped through the freshly polished corridors, the click of his shoes echoing against the marble floors. Everything was here pristine-almost unnaturally so. Golden chandelier floated mid air, casting halos of spot light against the ivory-colored walls. Arcane engravings pulsed faintly across the ceiling like constellations frozen in a spell.
He passed by many student: Girls with wind swirling at their heel, boys with faint spark from their fingertips. Fire. Water. Earth. the gifted.
But not him.
"UPCOMING"
"The clock tower ticked once-then backwards. Kai froze. Someone else noticed this time".