Hamelin, Germany.
The town where the children once vanished still whispers his family name.
Elias Krömer walked the cobblestone streets at dusk, a satchel at his side and a flute case clasped tight in his pale fingers. The bells of St. Boniface tolled overhead, heavy and judgmental. To the villagers, he was just another quiet boy from an old family—until the night of the festival.
It began as a game. He hadn't meant for them all to follow.
One sharp, curious note from his flute drifted through the summer air, curling between stalls of candied nuts and ribbons. The sound was soft—barely audible, like a breeze whispering through teeth. And yet the children turned. Dozens of them. Faces slack, eyes glazed, their sticky hands dropping sugared almonds as they began to move toward him.
Eli stopped playing, horrified, but the children didn't stop walking.
They followed him. Through the square, into the woods. Their footsteps echoed his own, like a dreadful parade of shadows. He tried everything—shouting, shaking them, even throwing the flute into the undergrowth. Nothing worked. The Piper's curse had awakened in his blood.
By dawn, they were found—alive, confused, and sleepwalking among the birches. No harm done, except to Eli's reputation.
His parents, pale and exhausted, did not scold him. They simply stared, as though history itself had come knocking at their door. They packed his bags before the sun had set again.
"You'll go where you belong," his father said, eyes darting anywhere but his son's face.
"Among the strange," his mother added softly, folding the black coat with silver buttons.
And so Elias Krömer was sent across the ocean, to a school with walls high enough to hold the odd, the cursed, and the dangerous.
Nevermore Academy.
He boarded the train alone, flute tucked safely under his coat, the faint echo of his ancestors humming in his ears. Somewhere deep inside, the Piper's song waited—hungry, patient, and terribly amused.