The moment the world went silent, and the Trance spook, Luca came to a realisation.
One that caused his once shaky gaze to turn firm as he stared at Liora– or what was left of her.
Overtaken by the same strange power that began their sorrowful fate.
'How… futile.' He thought to himself.
Shaking his thoughts away as the being's voice reached his ears.
"Choices define us. Fate, predestined not by a higher being, but by the actions we take."
Silence flowed as the world around Luca spun out of control.
Shifting in different shades of colour and texture. Assuming the form chosen by the beings and bent to the whims of the Trance.
"Courage is foolish, but foolishness doesn't amount to courage."
The voices boomed. Sparkling new life as the atmosphere shifted into a new form.
Luca was stuck in the middle of it.
"An interesting choice, yes."
Confused and disoriented, Luca glanced around. Unable to focus on the voice as it began to drift away.
'What happened to the hospital?' He wondered. 'The voice… Mother?!' He turned in the direction of where his Father had lain dead. His mother was standing over the child's limp body.
But they were gone… replaced by a raised wooden platform, a podium, and a marker board on the wall.
Foreign sounds reached his ears. One he soon recognised with ease as a loud ring echoed, and a door slid open.
Luca turned to his left. Recognising that ring as the sound of a bell as he watched a man. A familiar one, in his late thirties, walked into the room.
He bulged his eyes slowly in realisation as the sounds of tables and chairs shifted out of place.
Followed by the voice from a period he once dreaded.
"Claaaasssss Stand!"
Luca hesitated, but he joined in. His gaze froze on the table that appeared seemingly out of nowhere.
His arms curled into tight fists as his eyes bulged further.
The Homeroom teacher nodded in response, and the same voice echoed once more.
"Classss Sit!"
The chairs and tables shifted once more as they took their places.
Luca was the last as he observed his hands and arms more closely.
'Wha– What is it?'
His confusion lay adamant, but piece by piece, the young boy began to realise.
"Mr. Lucamir?"
Luca snapped out of his thoughts as Luca, a far younger version of his original self, looked up at the Teacher.
"M– Mister Orveth?"
The Teacher adjusted his glasses. Arching a brow as he looked the boy over.
"Is there something you would like to get off your chest instead of taking your seat?"
The class of students were between the ages of eight and ten. They giggled in the background.
Luca choked on his words before taking his seat. He ignored the voices generally.
'The scene changed… Does that mean I passed the first trial?'
Memories flooded back of the experience he had just gone through— The deaths and his mother's request.
He could still feel the resentment within her eyes when she had given him that gun.
And even the feeling of the blunt on his head.
Everything was vivid.
'Just like that?' He wondered as the Teacher began his lecture.
A seemingly normal teaching environment. One that no one would have suspected was all fake.
Luca had to admit. It was good enough to fool him.
'So what is it this time?' He sighed and looked around.
Faces came into view. Classmates he had not seen for a while. A year or two at most.
All of which should have either gone through the same ordeal as he did now.
Perhaps some had even been killed by it.
He wouldn't know. After all, he dropped out willingly to focus on his father's crops.
'Everyone is as is, in my memories…'
Far to the corner, a blonde boy with a pompous expression on his face came into view, with black eyes and a vicious smile for a boy his age.
The District Lord's son, as he recalled.
At the other corner were friends, neighbours, and acquaintances. Pupils he knew in passing, and such.
'I hope the trance doesn't go and tell me something dumb like murder them all.'
He turned away and focused on the board.
"So, in other words, anyone can harbour the intentions of a Null Spawn… bearing the possibility of becoming one."
Luca arched his brow. 'What nonsense is he saying?' he wondered as he turned his head slightly to the side in confusion.
"... And in this case, we have one amongst ourselves."
Luca's heart thumped while the classroom stirred.
"Is that really true, Mister Orveth?!" The Mayor's son spoke with his arm raised. "Do we have someone who could become a Null Spawn here?!"
"Oh, how scary"
"I wonder who that person is…"
"Does that mean we'll have to kill them… we have to protect ourselves…"
Luca felt like he needed to scratch his ears twice.
'What are they saying? Are they stupid?'
Noise rose from the questions and disorganised conversations between the students. Orveth ended quickly with a thump of his fist.
"Enough, enough." The man said as order quickly took its place in the class.
"I will not tolerate disorganised questions in this classroom."
A sigh escaped his lips as he turned to the blonde at the back of the class.
"As for your question, Daryon, yes… we unfortunately have someone harbouring a Null Spawn in this class."
Noise began to rise once more, but he quickly ended it with his next statement.
"And yes! We will kill them!"
The students went silent almost immediately.
An uncanny shift in the room that Luca felt at once.
He looked around as a result. Confusion and wariness began to take root within him. It felt like the classroom was at the precipice of chaos.
'... I… I don't like the direction this is going.'
He gulped.
"Now… concerning who that person is…."
In perfect synchrony, all Heads turned to Luca. Their eyes glistened with a malevolent hue as the shift grew dangerous.
Orveth's lips grew wide as the world began to thump with the beating of Luca's heart.
"Lucamir… I hope you understand… this isn't by our choice."
Luca jumped out of his seat immediately.
His skin crawled from the sensation of eyes all over him. Thinking would be futile at this point… and the door. The clear exit lay right next to him.
At that moment, the room hummed with movement.
Chairs and tables shifted from their corners. Sounds of rods and wooden sticks sang— Long sporks and even swords.
Where was this weapon coming from? Luca didn't know, and quite frankly, he didn't care to find out.
'There's a room like that here too…'
He thought of the panic room in the Hospital. 'Let's head there first.'
It was evident where this was leading to.
The Trance was playing coy with him once more. It was playing with his psyche and mental strength.
At this point, Luca was fed up.
"What is going on with you guys?!" He screamed. "Don't you know that all humans harbour it! Even Egoists! They can become conduits for even Null Borns!"
Null Borns were creatures leagues above Null Spawns.
While spawns were born from failed trials and humans corrupted by the Eidolon beam, Borns were born from Egoists.
"The Nullspawn is trying to deceive us," Orveth said. Ignoring the words of Luca. Watching quietly as the boy walked extremely slowly towards the door. "Don't let up, kids."
"YES, TEACHER!" The synchronised response was so jarring that one would think it was rehearsed.
But Luca knew. After all, this was simply a test… and soon, it would begin.
The tension crawled to an uncomfortable state. Tethering closer and closer to a full bash of chaos. Time went by quickly… and it finally did.
Students rushed with their weapons towards Luca like a stampede. The goal, clear on their faces… the chaos, controlled.
There was only one way out of this, and Luca took it, but in that moment, time froze. Once more.
"And so the second trial begins."
The same voice. Same authority. The Trance spoke.
"This is your test… in 10 minutes, you shall become the very thing that destroys the world."
Luca's thoughts jumped as he was frozen in place.
'This… this… Why?!'
"Save the world and let it end you… or stay alive and consume the World."
Silence hung like a guillotine as the tension kept rising.
"Let the Second Trance begin."
Time resumed as Luca narrowly escaped from the classroom.
Crashing against the adjacent wall and nearly falling off the window, he bolted forward.
Immediately, his classmates burst forth from the Class… as all hell went loose.