There are moments when the atmosphere shifts without warning. No sound, no gesture, no spark. Just a tilt — subtle, but enough to make your pulse stutter.
The afternoon looked ordinary: a too-white sun hanging over the courtyard, students drifting toward their classrooms with that slow, lazy rhythm that belongs to school days. Everything seemed routine, harmless even… yet underneath, something vibrated. A faint tension, as if the day itself was holding its breath.
We were heading to 3-C, a group class where we were expected to "collaborate" and think together. The Forge walked ahead of me, tense and silent, her pace too sharp to be casual. The Pillar stayed close, doing his best to keep the mood calm. The Strategist said nothing, but I saw his eyes moving— calculating something he hadn't shared.
And me… I felt the old uneasiness rising again.The same one from that morning, but amplified, like a thin electric wire buzzing beneath the ground.
When the Forge pushed open the door, everything shifted.
The room was empty.
Not just empty — silent. The kind of silence that feels wrong. Heavy. Expectant. There should have been bags, scattered chairs, murmurs, movement. Instead, everything was arranged perfectly, disturbingly perfect.
Messy is normal. Perfect is suspicious.
We stepped in slowly. None of us spoke. Then the Strategist murmured :
"Something's wrong."
The Forge scoffed. "No kidding. They switched our room, it's — "She stopped mid-sentence.
Because she felt it too.
That strange aftertaste in the air.Like someone had just left the room a heartbeat before we entered.Or worse — like someone was still inside, unseen.
"We should've gotten an email, right?" the Pillar asked.
"This has nothing to do with an email," Ayyi replied.
He touched a desk, cautious. His fingers slid across the surface, almost as if testing something invisible.
"The air is different."
The Forge frowned. "The air? Seriously?"
"Yes. It's tense. Like something altered the room."
I felt it as well — a faint vibration beneath my shoes, as if the space was trying to hold itself together.
The Pillar sat down, uneasy. "So what do we do? Wait? Leave?"
Before anyone could answer, the door closed.
By itself.Slowly.With the smooth confidence of an invisible hand.
The Forge immediately jumped back. "WHAT THE HELL?!"
The Pillar recoiled. My heart hammered.But Ayyi didn't move. He stared at the door, then at the ceiling, then at the center of the room.
"It's starting again," he whispered.
The words hit me like a punch.
Because he was right.Because we had lived this before.Because that prickling on the back of my neck, that silent pressure, that subtle distortion in the air…
It was the same feeling we had just before the event.The same feeling we had sworn to forget.
The Forge spun around. "If this is some prank from the Pack, I swear—"
"It's not the Pack," Ayyi said sharply.
His voice was too calm. Too certain. It chilled me more than the closing door.
The air thickened. My ears buzzed.The Pillar pressed his temples. "My head… everything's spinning."
The Forge clenched her fist. "What is this?!"
Ayyi didn't hesitate."It's not a joke. It's a signal."
The word made my stomach drop.
A blurred silhouette.A cut-off scream.A crash.Red.Silence.
My breath shortened. Memory clawed at the edge of my mind like a shadow trying to get in.
For the first time in a very long while, the Strategist looked genuinely worried.
"We need to stay calm," he said. "The space is unstable."
"The space?!" the Forge exploded.
The Pillar tried to soothe her. "Bintou, breathe—"
"DON'T TELL ME TO BREATHE, AMAD!"
Her voice cracked—not with anger, but with raw fear.And that crack was enough to break something in the room.
A sound resonated. Not a tone, not a noise — something deeper.It felt like the world itself clicked.
The light shifted by a fraction.Walls seemed to inhale.The floor pulsed under our feet.The air rippled.
Reality stopped holding its fracture.
It opened.
I didn't even have time to scream.
One moment I stood in 3-C.The next, I fell into a space without weight — pulled through something narrow and cold, like slipping through a crack in the world.
A jolt.A white flash.A deep thud.Then a voice.
A voice I had never heard.
"You have been summoned."
I opened my eyes.
We were no longer at Alpha Academy.
We stood in a vast, white, empty expanse — an impossible space, like a waiting room built before creation itself. The Forge shivered. The Pillar clung to her arm. The Strategist watched silently, but even his eyes were different now.
And I whispered:
"Where… are we?"
The answer came without sound — just a vibration in the air, a name that existed before it was spoken.
The Arena.