The Academy always felt too bright for her taste.
Its towers reached toward the sky like polished spears, every window washed clean, every hallway buzzing with students too consumed by their idealism to realize how fragile they were. Second years milled around the courtyard, laughing about training sessions and club competitions. A normal morning.
Love adjusted her collar, smoothing down her uniform jacket as her reflection flickered across the glass corridor.
Black hair to her shoulders—her default look. Her safe look. The Church liked it when she looked "reliable".
She liked it because it hid everything else.
Drawing attention wasn't why she was here.
She was here to listen.
The Church taught her that silence revealed more than questions.
And silence, today, was echoing loudly.
Two second-years whispered near the stairwell.
"The first years came back… they're already healed."
"Except that one boy—Solace. He hasn't woken yet."
She paused mid-step.
She slipped closer, letting my steps lighten. Eavesdropping worked better on anxious kids.
"They say they fought something big."
"But the teachers are hiding the details."
The students walked off, leaving their rumors floating behind them.
The Church hated "unknowns".
She loved them.
She was informed of what happened, A group of six students and one instructor somehow got stranded behind Ishtara. Furthermore, she also knew that the first year's field trip had turned into a nightmare when a layer 5 suddenly broke through the wall of the stronghold and started a massacre. Some students and Even Teacher and Instructors got killed. But whether this was planned by church or purely an accident, she didn't know.
Not only they escaped that nightmarish mountain but had escaped with a runaway experiment. And that's not even the crazy part, apparently church recently found out that the woman who ran away was the mother of one of the students. And later she was killed by a local gang hired by church.
'I mean, what are the chances'
But deep down in her soul, she felt a tick. Her mind raced and she clutched her fingers.
She remembered a time she wanted to run away, a time when she wanted something more than getting tortured, molested and experimented on. But of course no can escape church.
'Been there, Done that'
Love had received orders, to observe the survivors, get close to one of the two boys, Nolan or Solace and avoid the one with strong political backing. In simple Terms, that meant minimal contact with the students named Vivi, Lily, Lex and Phoebe and go for a commoner like Nolan Goodwill or an average middle class boy Solace Wright.
All the students involved in the incidents were healed. Except The guy named Solace, he was in coma.
'Well, nothing that mattered, I just gotta do my homework'
Well Revaluation is coming up she would see them eventually, And The Academy will probably keep the second years with first years after their fumble in Ishtara.