Kael stood before the unassuming wooden door, his hand hovering over the brass handle. He didn't open it immediately.
He was taking a moment to mentally prepare himself for the sheer depression of what lay on the other side.
In the grand, illustrious ecosystem of the Obsidian Fang Academy, "Factions" were marketed to the public as brotherhoods.
They were sold to the wide-eyed first-years as bonds of eternal camaraderie, forged in the fires of adversity.
But Kael knew the truth.
He learnt it the hard way.
Factions weren't brotherhoods.
They were corporations.
And the Academy wasn't a school; it was a predatory government that taxed you for the privilege of breathing its air.
