He stood there panting for a second too long.
In that brief moment, he was swallowed by a sea of students and carried forward with them, his feet barely his own as the tide pushed him into the school.
By the time he emerged from the crowd, he found himself in the academy's main hall.
Many of the students around him looked just as lost as he felt. The sight brought a small, unexpected comfort.
At least misery was shared in this unfamiliar place.
The halls buzzed with commotion. Students hurried past, instructors cutting through the flow with sharp purpose. Doors opened and closed. Voices echoed and overlapped. Time stretched strangely, until what felt like an eternity later, an instructor finally gestured toward a set of massive doors.
"This way."
Blaze stepped inside.
The hall was too large to feel real.
He stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other first-years, all of them dwarfed by the vaulted ceiling far above. The walls were carved with claw marks and runes, rising like the ribs of something ancient and long dead. Banners hung motionless despite the draft curling through the room, heavy with age and meaning he didn't understand.
He clenched his hands at his sides, afraid they'd start shaking if he didn't.
"Welcome to Beastfall Academy."
The voice carried effortlessly across the hall. An instructor stood at the front dais, silver-threaded robe pristine, posture immaculate. Her expression was calm, too calm, in a way that felt practiced.
"You are here because you survived long enough to arrive," she continued. "That alone places you above most."
A few students let out nervous laughter.
Blaze didn't.
"Tch. Survival's a must," he muttered under his breath. "Not a prerequisite."
A couple of heads turned toward him. After a moment, they faced forward again.
The instructor spoke on.
She spoke of rules. Of dormitories. Of classes and schedules and curfews. Of safety protocols and emergency bells.
The words sounded normal enough, comforting.
That is if Blaze ignored the scars cut deep into the stone floor beneath their feet...
His focus began to waver, a deep innate sense of dread washed over him.
And that's when he heard it.
The scream came from the front of the hall.
It cut through the orientation speech like a blade, high and raw, and for half a second Blaze thought it was part of the demonstration. That thought died the moment the hall erupted in the screams of his peers.
The runes beneath their feet flared.
Blaze felt it before he saw it. The air thickened, pressing against his chest like an invisible hand. His heartbeat stuttered.
"This is just a controlled—"
The instructor's voice cut off as the circle at the center of the hall darkened, swallowing the light. Something pushed up from below, slow and wet. Its clawed limbs scraping against the floor as it forced itself into the hall.
A monster.
Armoured, intimidating.
It exhaled a breath of steam, molten rock dripping from its jagged plates of obsidian.
Students surged backward in panic, bodies slamming together. Blaze was shoved off balance, boots skidding across scarred stone. Someone grabbed his sleeve and tore it half off before disappearing into the crowd.
"Remain where you are!" an instructor commanded.
No one listened.
The creature lunged.
Blaze didn't run fast enough.
He felt it rush past him instead, close enough that the wind of its movement snapped his jacket and sent him stumbling. A heartbeat later, blood sprayed across his arm. Hot, slick, real.
The scream beside him cut off.
Blaze froze.
The monster turned.
One of its eyes locked onto him, unblinking. His thoughts collapsed into noise. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't even scream.
This was it.
The creature hesitated.
Just a fraction of a second, but Blaze felt it stretch, heavy and wrong. Its head tilted, nostrils flaring, as if it had caught a scent it didn't like.
Then it looked away.
It leapt back into the crowd, chaos erupting all over again.
Blaze dropped to his knees, gasping, staring at the blood on his hands that wasn't his. His whole body shook, teeth clicking together so hard it hurt.
Light exploded across the hall.
Instructors moved at last. Freezing spells tore through the air. The monster screamed, shrill and furious before being frozen into an obsidian statue and then dragged back into the dark circle it came from.
Silence fell.
"Orientation will continue," the instructor said calmly.
Blaze didn't hear the rest.
All he could think was that he hadn't survived because he was strong.
He'd survived because something had decided—just for a moment—not to kill him.
And whatever reason it had scared him more than the monster ever could.