The gates of St. Aurelius Academy were nothing but twisted metal and shattered planks. Screams, smoke, and the metallic stench of blood filled the air. Kael stopped for a few seconds, his hands still trembling from the run; his eyes burned from the dust and the tears he held back.
In front of him, parents and students ran in disarray, pushing carts with backpacks, dragging makeshift belongings.
"Stay back!" shouted a guard, trying to impose order. "Don't push! Anyone forcing their way will be detained!"
Kael fixed his gaze on the second–floor windows, where moments earlier he had recognized silhouettes that could only be his children.
The crowd blocked his path; a teacher tried to lift a jammed door; a student fell and someone helped him up. Everything moved in a choreography of fear.
He, however, had only one purpose: to break through this chaos and reach them.
I won't stop. Even if they tear me apart. If I don't go… what kind of father am I?
He shoved his way forward, his feet striking the wet ground. A piece of debris grazed his leg, and hot blood ran down his calf. He registered it only as an external detail; inside, a storm of images pushed him onward: Matt's focused face as he studied, Lily's timid eyes hidden behind her glasses, Emma's anger whenever someone insulted them.
All of it condensed into a single command: reach them.
When he entered the courtyard, the scene struck him with brutal force.
A rift in the air, pulsating and viscous, tore open above the science building. From it, monsters leapt like deformed hounds: elongated bodies, eyes without irises, mouths full of jagged teeth.
They weren't wolves; they were beasts born of the void, hungry for human flesh.
"This way!" shouted a teacher. "Line up toward the west exit!"
Children ran in a frantic tide, shoving each other. Among them, three small figures struggled forward: Matt, his glasses fogged and his backpack hanging loosely; Lily, dragging a case with wide, terrified eyes; Emma, scowling as she pushed classmates out of the way.
One of the hallways collapsed, and the exit was blocked by timber and dust. Panic devoured what little order remained.
"Jump it!" Emma yelled, tugging at a teacher's sleeve. "We can't get out through there!"
A heavy thud shook the building; something had crashed into the side corridor. Voices screamed; someone cried. The beasts' footsteps echoed like drums.
"Dad's coming," Matt whispered, more to himself than to the others.
"He has to…" Lily replied, her voice breaking at the end.
In an instant, one of the creatures smashed through a broken window; a child screamed as it was dragged into the shadows. Lily's grip on Emma's shoulder tightened, trembling.
Everything happened too fast.
Kael saw it all from the courtyard, terror hammering his chest.
There they are! The thought cut through his mind with sharp clarity. I don't care if I'm useless. I don't care if they laugh. Nobody touches my children today.
A vision of himself appeared in his mind: the laborer forever mocked for having only one point of mana. The voice from his childhood echoed, sharp and cruel: "You'll never amount to anything. You're a one."
And yet, another voice—Jule's voice, his wife—resonated with warmth: "You are their father. That is more than any number."
He charged through the collapsed main doors.
The first beast noticed him and lunged. The impact slammed into his shoulder like a mass of leather and bone. Kael stumbled, the rusty chain he'd picked up from the street clattering against his chest. Instinctively, he wrapped it around his wrist.
"Stay back!" he shouted, his voice raw. "Run toward the side gate!"
A teacher stared at him, uncertain, as if torn between helping or pulling the children away. Kael didn't let him decide. He shoved the man aside and dashed toward the corridor where he'd last seen his children.
If I can't be a hero, I'll be a wall. But better a wall standing than a coward hiding in the shadows.
The monster snarled, exposing strips of meat in its jaws. Kael swung the chain. The metal whistled through the air, slamming against the beast's flank.
A crack like breaking bone echoed, and the creature staggered back. For a heartbeat, hope ignited in Kael's chest.
"Dad!" Matt and the girls screamed at once, voices striking him like arrows straight to the heart.
He rushed forward. The chain sliced through the air, trailing dust. A claw raked across his side, flinging him against a pillar. Pain seared his ribs, sharp and merciless.
Kael forced himself to rise, the chain dangling from his hand like an extension of his fury.
It hurts. God, it hurts. But I can't fall. Not now. Please, not now.
A smaller beast darted toward the children. Kael turned, slamming the chain into its neck. The creature crumpled with a wet thud.
He looked at his kids: Matt holding trembling Lily, Emma standing firm with a broken but defiant grin.
"Through the back door!" Kael ordered. "One by one!"
"We can't—the door's jammed!" a sweating teacher shouted. "A pillar collapsed!"
Time was collapsing. Screams, dust, suffocating breaths tangled in the smoke.
Kael looked at the chain, at his hand, and at the cursed yellow indicator always flashing in his mind:
Mana: 1
The number burned like both a sentence and an opportunity. If he used it, maybe he could open a path. Maybe not. Maybe he would die.
Thoughts cascaded through his mind: Jule, the bills, the mocking stares, the jeers thrown at Matt, the endless feeling of never being enough.
Is this suicide? What kind of father burns his only spark not knowing the outcome?
But another voice cut through: If I don't use it, what hope do I leave them?
There was no anesthesia for this choice. Kael drew in breath, pressed his hands together, and unleashed everything he had guarded in his ribs: his single point of mana.
He didn't think of it as magic. He didn't name it. It was instinct, urgent and raw, all he had to buy a single second.
The chain tightened around his fist, his knuckles whitening. His breath stormed; his chest heaved as though carrying tons.
The largest beast, towering over the others, opened its jaw wide, rows of wet fangs glistening.
If I miss now… there won't be another chance.
He looked through the smoke at his children. Matt trembling as he held Lily, Emma screaming at others not to move.
In their eyes, Kael saw everything he had lost over the years—respect, dignity, the right to dream… and everything he would never allow to be taken: his family.
"No!" he roared, wrapping the chain around his arm and charging straight at the monster.
The beast's claw swung, but Kael raised his fist, reckless and desperate. In that suicidal instant, his single point of mana exploded. The chain crackled with lightning, his entire arm glowing with power.
"Die with me!" he screamed, slamming his electrified fist into the monster's face.
The impact was cataclysmic. A surge coursed through the beast, which howled, half its face blackened and smoking.
Kael barely stayed on his feet; his knees buckled.
No… is this it? Is this all I have to give?
The world spun around him. Screams faded into a distant tunnel. His breath sliced through his throat.
I'm useless… I've always been useless. What was I thinking—that I could change fate with one point of mana?
His vision dimmed, and in that void he heard the voices that anchored him.
"Dad!" Matt's desperation.
"Dad, don't leave us!" Lily's broken sob.
"Get up! Get up!" Emma's furious cry.
Their voices speared his chest. His body collapsed, falling toward the ground with no strength left.
But before his head struck the floor, his palms slammed against the ground in one last surge of instinct.
"NOOOOO!"
The roar tore from his soul.
And something shattered inside him.
It wasn't the end—it was the beginning.
Mana, more than he possessed, more than he'd ever dreamed, burst forth from somewhere unknown, infinite, answering his cry.
The ground quaked. A blinding shockwave exploded from his hands: a wave of thunder rippled outward, lighting the courtyard as though a lightning strike had hit dead center.
Demons shrieked, ripped apart by sound and light; their bodies convulsed and fell, charred before they even understood what had happened.
The air stank of ozone and ash.
The flash was so intense that even the students covered their eyes, blinded for seconds.
When it faded, silence drowned the screams.
Kael knelt in the courtyard's center, smoke curling from his body. His arm still sparked faintly, the chain dropped at his side.
He smiled faintly through split lips as the echo of his roar faded.
In the end… I saved them…
Darkness claimed him, and he collapsed unconscious.
Around him, children wept, teachers crawled to reestablish order.
The three siblings rushed to their father's body, trembling, not knowing if he still breathed.
And among the dust and tears, no one yet understood what had just happened.