The cities path came to an abrupt end. Before him, spread across a wide valley, Maple Leaf Academy stood silent and still. The dawn sun had just begun to touch its white stone spires, as if painting them with liquid gold. Leo paused for a moment, taking it in. The place was so orderly, so perfect, that compared to the chaos within his own mind, it felt like an impossible dream.
There was no high wall, no guards. Only a stone pillar by the path, inscribed with the words: "Prepare to Comprehend." As he read it, a thought struck Leo: this was no ordinary welcome. It was a condition.
A little further ahead stood the main administrative building. A small room with flower pots on the windowsill. Inside, behind a large wooden desk, sat a clerk. When Leo gave his name, she opened an old leather-bound ledger and ran a finger down the page.
"Leo. Special admissions quota." She spoke without looking up, extending a key in one hand and a thin booklet in the other. "Room four-twelve. Dormitory Two. All the rules are written here. No classes today. Spiritual Foundations tomorrow at eight in the morning."
The whole thing felt absurd to Leo. A special quota without any test? He buried the questions rising in his throat and instead looked at the book.
On its cover, in golden letters, was written: 'Maple Leaf Academy: Rules and Guidelines.' It contained ordinary things—class times, library regulations, nighttime silence. But one line caught his eye: "Should spiritual instability or sensations of multiple identities manifest, it must be reported immediately to a teacher or the House Prefect. Concealment will be considered a betrayal of the Academy's trust."
A strange coldness settled in his chest. The clerk handed him the key. "Go, get settled. Use the rest of the day to familiarize yourself with the campus."
The campus was vast but impeccably organized. The cobblestone paths seemed to lead to specific destinations with deliberate intent. On one side was a sports field where a few students were exercising. On the other, a garden bloomed with flowers of various colors, yet they were arranged with an astonishing precision, as if each petal had been placed with a needle. Even the ancient trees standing between the large buildings adhered to the same silent discipline, their leaves seeming not to rustle too much.
On his way to the library building, a group of female students passed by Leo, laughing. Their eyes held no curiosity, only a comfortable absorption in their own world. A boy, probably a senior, stood in the corridor, running his finger along the lines of a large book, completely preoccupied. Everything was imbued with a deep, unshakable peace. This was the most unsettling part. While inside Leo's head a cacophony of dozens of voices raged constantly, the absolute silence of the outside world seemed to press against his eardrums.
Upon entering the library, the scent of old paper and binding leather filled his nose. The shelves reached for the sky. In one corner, a few students sat, taking notes with intense focus. Leo wandered slowly until he stopped at the 'Spiritual Studies' section. He reached out and pulled out books one after another—'Soul Signature: Identification and Classification', 'Ethics in Spiritual Practice'... Suddenly, his hand stopped over one particular spine. The book was older than the others, its leather cracked. The title: 'On Multiple Spiritual Inhabitance: A Containment Paradox' by Benjamin Cruix.
Opening the book, a thin cloud of dust rose from its pages. On the very first page was written: "My theory suggests that a carrier of multiple souls is never a stable entity. They are merely a moving battlefield."
Leo slammed the book shut. His palms had gone cold. He quietly took the book with him, slipping it away unnoticed, like a treasure hunter claiming a key piece of his hoard.
Dormitory Two was a three-story red brick building. Entering room four-twelve, he saw one bed already filled with belongings—books, some strange metal instruments, rolls of paper. The adjacent bed was empty. The window offered a view of the entire southern campus, all the way to the distant mountain line.
Just before dusk, his roommate arrived. He was older than Leo, with a sharp, intelligent look in his eyes.
"You're the new one?I'm Eliron. Second year."
"Leo."
Eliron began organizing his things."How does it feel?"
"Quiet.Very quiet."
"Yes,"Eliron smiled. "Compared to the outside world, everything here is... controlled. That is both the beauty and the punishment of this place."
Night fell. Eliron was busy with his studies. Leo lay on his bed, watching the fan rotate on the ceiling. Suddenly, without warning, a suffocating, unbearable pain erupted in his stomach. Hunger. But he had eaten dinner. This hunger was not his. It was much deeper, much older, much more agonizing.
Inside his head, very clearly, the voice of a little girl cried out. "My stomach is on fire... just a little, just a tiny piece of bread... Mama...?"
Silently, Leo rose from the bed and went to the window. Darkness had fallen outside. Soft lines of light emerged from the academy's windows. Everything was peaceful. But the agony of this foreign, ancient hunger coursing through his own veins made his teeth ache. He couldn't see it, but he could feel it—a frozen hut, a child shivering by a broken stove, and inside her belly, an empty, deep chasm. It wasn't just hunger; along with it came the cold fear of a profound loneliness, the terror of dying without anyone ever knowing.
---
The next morning, class was in room 104. Professor Helena entered—a middle-aged woman with hair in a tight braid and round-framed glasses. Her very presence made the room grow quieter.
"Today we begin by learning to recognize our own spiritual signature," she said, her voice clear and authoritative. "Everyone possesses one core soul. But in very rare cases, two, or even more souls can reside within the same body."
Leo stared at his own hands, the blue veins visible beneath his skin.
"The presence of multiple souls," Professor Helena said, adjusting her glasses, "creates a constant conflict. Each soul has its own will, its own memories, its own agony. If they are not brought into order, the carrier themselves becomes a battlefield, until everything... descends into storm."
At the end of the class, she opened a nearby cabinet and took out a black stone, veined with silver threads like a web. "The Spirit Stone. It will show a preliminary qualitative reaction to your spiritual essence. Touch it."
One by one, everyone went forward. Under one boy's touch, the stone glowed with a yellow light. Another produced blue. A girl's touch sparked a deep violet flash.
Leo's turn. The room was silent. Everyone watched. His hand moved forward. The moment his fingertip touched the cold surface of the stone—
The stone went out. Completely dark, as if it had absorbed the light.
Professor Helena slowly approached. "Again. Find your center and touch it."
Leo closed his eyes. A buzzing had started within. He touched it again.
This time, the stone erupted in color. But not a beautiful, peaceful color. A violent, blood-like red splashed across the canvas first. Then it hurriedly blended into a deep black—a black that wasn't just an absence of color, but an active void. Then came murky streaks of gray, many of them, tumbling over one another. Finally, a flash of white, pure and pristine, but it too was swallowed in an instant by the mixture of black and red.
The entire room was silent. No one moved.
Professor Helena stared at the stone and then at Leo for a long time. Her face showed neither fear, nor wonder, nor apprehension—only a very deep, very sharp curiosity. She wrote something in her notebook.
"Remarkable," she simply said, the word seeming to leap into the emptiness of the room. "A true manifestation of multiple essences. You are... special, Leo."
That word, 'special,' sent an icy current through Leo's body.
That afternoon, Leo spent his time in the library. He dug out more writings buried under piles of old books. One thesis: 'When Multiple Essences Unify: The Final Death of Personality and the Emergence of a New Entity.' Page after page of complex equations and philosophical reasoning, but Leo got stuck on one line: "The carrier ceases to be 'he' and becomes 'they.' In the end, even 'they' will not remain; there will only be 'it'—a force, a piece of unconscious history."
Closing the book, Leo simply sat for a long while. His hands were cold, his forehead damp with sweat. Could he not remain 'he'? Would the space called 'Leo' slowly be erased, only to be filled with the memories and agonies of others?
After the day's activities, Eliron asked that night, "Everyone's saying you changed the Spirit Stone's color. What really happened?"
"Nothing.They're exaggerating."
Eliron looked at him."Here, nothing is ever 'nothing,' Leo. Within these walls, many strange tales find their place, and every action has a consequence. What you have brought here, perhaps even you do not fully understand."
Sleep wouldn't come. After Eliron fell asleep, the real council within Leo began.
Beneath the pitiful plea of the starving child, another voice, hoarse and trembling with rage, spoke: "They are all enemies. Behind every face hides a dagger. Strike first. Or you will die." That was the knight, dead from betrayal.
Above it, a frightened, quivering voice: "No, hide. Get away from their sight. They will find out, they will devour you..."
And finally, from the deepest part, that cold, metallic voice rose, devoid of any human warmth, filled only with infinite patience and ice-cold logic: "Do not play by their rules, Leo. They do not understand you. They see you as a mystery, a subject for experimentation. They want to see how far you go, when you break. Your strength is this chaos. Do not fall for the illusion of control. You control. Strike first."
Arakin.
Leo's head throbbed with a splitting pain. He got up and went to the bathroom. In the blurry mirror, he saw his own face—that of a tired, frightened child. But in the depths of his eyes, if one looked closely... was it only him there? Or were those black, red, and gray hues swirling?
Before dawn, he made a decision. He would ask for help. Professor Helena was right. This academy might be the only place that could understand.
In the morning, he knocked on her office door. Inside, Professor Helena was present. She looked at him and smiled slightly. "I knew you would return."
"Inside me... there are many voices. Many people. I cannot recognize myself."
"Sit."Her voice was soft, but her eyes held that same insatiably curious gleam. "Maple Leaf exists for this very reason. We teach control. We teach order."
"But what if... what if there is no control? What if everything... starts to merge?"
"Then we will observe how it merges,"she said, leaning forward slightly. "To be truthful, you are a living research subject, Leo. A great truth standing upon a cremation ground. By working with you, we might learn how to save future carriers of multiple essences."
Research. Cremation ground. Work.
The words rang in Leo's ears like metallic clangs. This was not the language of help. It was the language of a scientist observing a specimen under her microscope.
Inside him, Arakin's voice seemed to let out a cold laugh.
Leo stood up. "I... need to think."
"That is natural,"Professor Helena said, though her gaze remained sharp. "But remember, the outside world will not accept you, but we will. Because we try to understand. You are safe here."
Stepping out into the corridor, Leo stood by a window. Below, the campus was alive—students heading to class, teachers conversing, leaves swaying in a gentle breeze. This was no dark ministry. It was a bright, clean, perfect institution that truly wished to know, to learn, to protect.
The problem was not out there somewhere. The problem was in his own blood, in the marrow of his bones, in every layer of his memory. The problem was Anya's hunger, the knight's betrayal, the coward's terror, and Arakin's silent, unwavering will.
The academy did feel like a cage, truly, but the cage was his own body. And the beasts within the cage were waking up, one by one, and they were hungry. Very, very hungry.