His uniform was a bit too big—the sleeves swallowed his hands, the same way the world soon would.
Today was Blaze's first day at Beastfall Academy, where they would teach him how monsters bled—and often how humans did too.
He laced his boots anyway.
Before leaving his room, he glanced to the mirror. It didn't show a hero, just a boy who was trying not to shake.
He stepped out the door, pulling it shut behind him.
The hallway was darker than it should have been for morning, shadows clung to the wall like they were afraid to be seen. Honestly, maybe they were.
His mother was already in the kitchen and he assumed his father was already at work.
The smell of iron drifted faintly through the air, metallic, sharp though there was no blood on the floor. Not today.
"Eat up," she said without turning around.
He did. He always did.
The food was warm, filling, and tasted like something he'd miss having once he stepped outside.
She adjusted the strap on his bag, fingers lingering a moment too long. There were old scars on her hands, pale lines crossing darker ones, the kind that never healed right.
"Please come back," she begged.
He nodded, even though he didn't understand why his chest hurt when she said it.
Outside, the village was waking slowly. Doors opened and shut. Somewhere down the road children bought pastries from a local merchant, the scent filled the air.
The scent followed him until the village fell behind.
Blaze made his way towards the route his father had taken him on the previous morning, avoiding a spider's web hanging from a tree branch as he left the village.
The path to the school cut through the outer fields, where the farmers stayed away from and the ground was uneven. He wasn't supposed to stray from it. Everyone knew that.
Something had crushed the grass during the night. Huge footprints sank deep into the mud, still fresh, still wet.
He counted them as he walked past. One. Two. Three.
On the fourth, he sprinted.
He didn't look back, he couldn't.
but he could have sworn he felt breath on his neck… just for a second.
He ran until two large stone pillars and a behemothic mediaeval-esque schoolhouse came into view. He normally would have been awestruck by the sheer scale of it but his mind was occupied with more… physical matters.
His lungs burned and his legs shook.
This was going to be a tough next four years of his life, he thought to himself.
He checked his shoulder.
No signs.
And just then the bell rang calling him forward to the main entrance.
Behind him, somewhere far off in the fields, something growled.