Arya sat dazed beneath a pillar of the campus building. His body was still shaking badly. His breath came in short gasps, and his mind kept replaying what had just happened to him. A classroom full of strange people. A bloody handprint on the window. A woman jumping from the rooftop.
It all spun around in his head like fragments of a nightmare that had no business being real. His sanity felt like it was slowly slipping out of his own grasp. Arya clutched his head tightly, trying to convince himself that it was all just an illusion, a hallucination from lack of sleep, nothing more.
But the eerie air wrapping around his body, growing colder by the moment, felt far too real. So did the unsettling atmosphere that filled everything around him. In the middle of that silence, a quiet man's voice suddenly broke through.
"You're human, right?"
Arya flinched. He turned sharply toward the voice.
A man stood in front of him, upright but relaxed. He looked ordinary, dressed in a casual T-shirt like any other college student. But his gaze was sharp, as if he were examining Arya from head to toe.
Arya could only stare at him. Still confused and trapped in fear, all he could manage was a nervous smile. Then he slowly forced his mouth open.
"Of course I'm human. What did you think I was?" Arya answered, his voice trembling, yet firm.
There was no look of relief on the man's face. No smile either. He just kept staring at Arya with a serious expression.
"Get out of here. Keep running that way until you find a tree with glowing jasmine flowers," he said, pointing toward the campus gate, though his eyes never left Arya.
Arya's eyes followed his finger. The campus gate was slowly being swallowed by fog, which grew thicker and thicker. He looked back at the man, even more confused than before.
"What do you mean? Who are you?" he asked, trying to get an explanation.
The man let out a sigh before answering.
"Relax. I'm just like you."
That answer only confused Arya more. He stared at the man, his face full of questions. Just like me? What does that mean?
"What does that mean? Am I dead now? Or..." Arya asked.
His voice began to shake. The man slowly shook his head.
"I don't have much time to explain. Go, now. Something more troublesome is coming."
His tone was urgent. His eyes suddenly flicked toward a campus building not far from where they stood, showing a seriousness that couldn't be ignored. Arya didn't really understand what was happening. He didn't even know whether the man was helping him, warning him, or setting a trap for him.
Still, something in the man's words made him afraid to stay there. Without thinking twice, Arya got to his feet. He started running toward the campus gate, hoping it would lead him back to the real world.
Meanwhile, the man stayed where he was. He simply watched Arya's back slowly disappear into the fog.
A moment later, he let out a long sigh. Then he spoke in a low voice, almost a whisper, as if talking to someone unseen. He set his body in a fighting stance, facing the campus building across from him, though his eyes were fixed on the sky.
"Nagini, it looks like our guest this time is going to be a real headache."
At his waist hung a faintly gleaming keris. He gripped its handle with his left hand, while his right hand slowly formed a seal with his fingers. He was fully ready for battle, braced for something he seemed to have sensed from the start.