The train window ghosts a reflection of his collar as the city slides by.
On the platform billboard, a familiar crest flashes between ads—laurel leaves circling a stylized omega, enamel-white, too clean. OMEGA ACADEMY: ENROLLMENT OPENS—SAFETY FIRST.
Adrian stops walking before he realizes. The chemical tang of the station disinfectant rises, thin and sharp, and his lungs forget the rhythm they learned in Eterna. Somewhere, a filter exhales. Somewhere, a bell taps metal.
The poster's white bleeds into a memory.
That fence is still in my head.
—
Morning at the academy begins with lines.
White tape bands the courtyard, straight as a ruler. The gate is a throat of chrome and glass. A scanner arch hums, patient. The floor ticks under shoes in measured beats. Above everything, the speakers breathe a hymn in a polite volume you can't escape.
The Matchmaker binds. The Matchmaker knows.
Adrian stands where the tape tells him. Everyone stands where the tape tells them. A duty teacher in a pale mask moves down the row with a tablet, stylus clicking as the device receives pheromone readings in neat green bars.
"Chin up. Collar visible." A gloved hand skims the air near his neck, never touching. "Don't hold your breath, Vale."
He exhales on command. The white bar on the tablet crawls. BEEP. A soft green checkmark blinks under his name: Adrian V. He doesn't know if the V belongs to him or to the registry.
"Proceed."
Rules arrive as choreography, not lectures. Don't run. Don't touch. Don't ingest suppressants except at scheduled time in the infirmary—beta staff supervise dosage. Don't speak while the anthem plays. Don't say assign—
He swallows every time the word passes, even as a whisper from older boys. The act is automatic, a small betrayal of throat to fear.
On the field, pale uniforms file into formation. The lawn is shaved so evenly it looks unreal. The fence gleams. Windows stare with frosted lids. When you sit in class, your reflection is always a blur you can't quite fix.
Adrian copies formulas, the ones they say will make him useful. He learns etiquette, the one they say will make him safe. He learns to take up less space in his chair. He learns to tuck his hands beneath the desk so they don't shake when the PA chimes for compliance check.
Between periods, he and Jae share a corner under a non-camera blind spot they mapped on day three. Jae has a ridiculous pencil with a cat eraser that squeaks. The squeak sounds like rebellion.
"Want the lucky cat?" Jae asks, pretending to toss it and tucking it back. Their eyes grin, because smiles are easy to store in eyes.
"I'd get you demerits," Adrian says.
"Already have them," Jae says—like weather, like nothing that can be changed.
The bell kisses the air. They separate down white lines, heads straight, the cat eraser a bright dot in his peripheral vision until the next corridor swallows it.
—
Rain brings the smell up from the seams of the building.
The Quarantine Wing fogs at the edges, panes of glass turned to ghosts. The corridor is colder here, conditioned like a lie that calls itself care. Signs bloom on the doors: SAFETY FIRST, NO ENTRY, STERILE ENVIRONMENT. Cameras tilt with clinical interest.
"Jae," someone whispers. The word drifts like steam.
He looks up just as two attendants in white step into the hall. Their masks hide their mouths; their eyes don't. They speak gently, always gently. The gentleness is heavier than a shout.
"Pheromone spike," one says. "We'll monitor."
"It's because it's raining," Jae says, hands flat at their sides, working not to tremble. "I promise I— it's the humidity, not—"
"Of course," the other murmurs, as if promising a favor. The gloved touch to Jae's sleeve is careful, two fingers pressing through fabric, a cue for motion rather than comfort.
The door at the end of the hall inhales. A seal breaks with a delicate hiss. Air moves like a living thing, brushing Adrian's face as Jae walks into the wing and vanishes behind frosted glass.
Adrian stands outside awhile because leaving feels like betrayal. He eyes the small metal drawer set into the wall—the drop box for family deliveries, labeled INSPECTED ITEMS ONLY. He scribbles for when you get out—cat says hi on a note ripped from the back of his workbook. He adds a candy he saved from lunch. He slides both in.
Hours later, his drawer slides back with a sticker slapped across the note like a hand. DENIED.
The candy is missing. He imagines it melted into a clinical trash bin, a sweet turned evidence.
When he sleeps that week, doors breathe and swallow the shape of his friends. He wakes with his heart loud and his throat raw. He forgets for a second where the windows open. He remembers there aren't any.
—
They call it a review, which is another word for decision already made.
The Matchmaker binds. The Matchmaker knows. The hymn is a whisper today, as though ashamed to be heard. In homeroom, a list pins itself to the digital board with a cheerful chime that curdles as you read it. PRE-ASSIGNMENT REVIEW: SELECT STUDENTS REPORT TO GUIDANCE.
Adrian's eyes run the columns before his brain can prepare. Names sit on the light like moths: Shirin L., Onyx M., Cato R., Rowan S.
Rowan's pencil falls. It clatters too loud for such a small thing. Their hand shakes when they pick it up. They look at Adrian. It isn't a question. It isn't anything you can refuse.
Jae leans across the aisle until their shoulder almost breaches the no-touch line. "Maybe it's just paperwork," they stage-whisper. "Maybe they just need—"
"—signatures," someone else says, too brightly, like a teacher's assistant trying out hope as a lesson plan.
A hall monitor clears their throat. The sound is a stamp.
Adrian's mouth fills with that disinfectant ghost again. He swallows. He tries to anchor himself to a physical thing, any thing, and finds only the ribbon tied to Rowan's locker handle—blue, fraying at one edge. He makes himself name the color. He makes himself breathe.
The PA clicks. "Guidance office now, please. Rowan S."
Rowan stands. Their chair sighs back into the desk. The white lines on the floor glitter with polish.
Adrian lowers his head so the camera won't catch his eyes.
The door opens with a soft vacuum hiss.
—
The counseling office is colder than the Quarantine Wing—white walls, a table too large, documents stacked like walls. An officer from the Omega Board sits opposite Rowan's parents; Inspector Holt watches from the corner, pen ticking like a clock.
Rowan's voice is small. "I'm not ready."
His mother smooths her skirt, eyes red but lips sealed. The officer speaks instead: "This is for your safety and the safety of the public. The match has been reviewed. It is favorable."
The contract lands with a thud that doesn't fit paper. The pen gleams on top, heavier than any chain.
"I'm not—" Rowan starts, and the words collapse.
A nurse enters with a tray. The faint sting of antiseptic lifts into the air as she cracks a cap. "Just to keep things calm," she says, almost apologetic. No one uses the word sedation.
Adrian wants to move, to speak, but his shoes feel nailed to the tile. Holt's gaze dares him to cross the yellow line. He doesn't. He can't.
The needle slips into Rowan's arm. Their eyes flutter once, twice. "Adrian—" barely a sound, more air than word.
Signature by proxy—stamped neat as a verdict.
When they guide Rowan up, two guards take an elbow each, as if lifting cargo. Something slips from their pocket: a strip of pale blue ribbon. Adrian palms it before the cameras can. Outside, a white van idles. The door opens. The door closes. The seal kisses the frame. Air is taken and returned.
After last bell, he walks to the lockers and unties what remained from Rowan's handle—does it fast, so the monitor won't mark it as vandalism; does it gentler than he's ever done anything. He tucks the ribbon into his pocket, where the cameras can't catalog it.
He goes home inside the fence that follows him.
—
The fence is still in my head, present-tense again.
Back in the station, the train thunders and the poster glows. Adrian takes a step but not forward. He lets the crowd draft him toward the exit. Outside, the air is damp; rain threatens but doesn't commit. He touches the seam of his pocket like a talisman. It finds the shape he knows: a soft, worn loop of blue.
He can still smell the Quarantine Wing when he thinks hard enough. He can still hear the anthem. He can still see the list.
He can still see Rowan's lips forming I'm not ready in a room where readiness isn't a category you're allowed to choose.
The station speakers announce a delay. A stroller squeaks. A guard murmurs into a radio. The city continues, full of people who call confinement protection because the word cuts less that way.
Above the ticket machines, a screen flips to a local news segment. Uniforms. Crests. A bright headline: PRE-ASSIGNMENT REVIEWS EXPAND SAFETY MEASURES FOR YOUTH. The word safety shines like enamel.
His tongue tastes metal. The smell of cleaner tightens the back of his nose. His hand closes around the ribbon until the edge bites his palm, a small pain that reminds him he gets to feel.
The PA in his memory speaks at the same time as the announcer overhead.
"Pre-Assignment Review," the past says.
"Mind the platform gap," the present says.
Adrian looks up just in time to catch Jae's name—no, a message from Jae, flashing on his phone; a meeting later, a café near the river. He stands for a beat longer, pinned between a poster and a memory, between a new appointment and an old list.
Behind his ribs, something steady decides to beat anyway.
—
The academy's bell rings in his head. The board refreshes. Names don't unwrite themselves.
That afternoon, the station smells like bleach and rain deciding whether to fall. He counts three security domes above the turnstiles and looks away before they can learn his face again.
"Adrian?"
He turns. Jae is there, older now but with the same worried eyes. They haven't spoken in months, maybe years—not really. But the world has forced their paths to cross again—in the crowd after the ceremony, and now, here.
Jae's gaze drops to the collar at Adrian's throat, to the newsfeed still running on the wall: Vale Omega Assigned to Lucien Duskborne. Pride, duty, headlines of honor.
Jae's mouth tightens, then curves in something meant to be a smile. "You're lucky. To be chosen by him. By Duskborne. You'll be safe now."
Safe. That word again. Adrian's hand goes automatically to his pocket. The ribbon is still there, edges frayed after so many years.
He wants to scream. Safe meant Rowan never walked free. Safe meant Jae repeated what the Academy drilled into them until it became truth. Safe meant no one asked if he wanted any of this.
But the cameras above the station blink red, recording every twitch of expression. His mother's voice echoes in memory: Smile. It's honor.
So he smiles faintly. He says nothing.
Jae, mistaking his silence, pats his shoulder. "Really, Adrian. You're lucky. Don't waste it." His voice softens, genuine. He believes it. He thinks he's comforting.
Adrian nods once. It's easier than arguing.
The train roars past, wind whipping his coat. Adrian presses the ribbon tight in his fist, nails digging through the fabric. His throat burns with words he can't say.
Tears prick the corners of his eyes, invisible in the station glare. He bites down hard, whispers only to himself, a secret no camera can record:
"Lucky? I've never chosen a damn thing."