"Shonte! Please come back!" Riri wept openly, the cloth in his hands completely soaked through with crimson as he cradled Shonte's face, his voice cracking under the weight of an unexplainable, desperate fear of losing someone else.
But Shonte didn't hear him.
As his mind absorbed the final echoes of the ancient memory step, Shonte's vacant, glassy eyes outside suddenly began to bleed. Trails of blood spilt from his eyelids, tracking down his cheeks like bloody tears.
His body finally went entirely limp, slumping forward into Riri's arms. His bleeding eyes finally closed, shutting close, leaving the common room in a deep, unbroken and deathly silence.
***
Luxor didn't speak as it lifted Shonte's limp, blood-stained frame from Riri's arms. Without waiting for the barrage of questions from the traumatised teenagers, Luxor carried the unconscious boy down the long marble corridor, heading straight for the med bay.
The others scrambled after him, their footsteps echoing loudly against the polished stone. The med bay was pristine, lined with glowing, soft-lit pods and velvet-cushioned recovery cots. Luxor laid Shonte down gently. Instantly, a faint, rhythmic humming sound filled the room as the room's energy began to cycle, trying to stabilise Shonte's breathing.
"What the hell did you do to him?!" Damian demanded, slamming his hand against the frame of a recovery pod. The fear was gone from his face, replaced by a defensive, sweating panic. "He saved us from those...things! And now he's bleeding!"
Elena stepped between Damian and Luxor, her emerald eyes cold and demanding. "Enough games, Luxor. Tell us exactly what is wrong with Shonte."
Luxor sighed, lowering its head slightly as it faced the aggressive circle of students. When he spoke, his voice lacked its usual grand certainty. It sounded hollow.
"A sacred book of the higher council physically bound itself to Mr Weldon'ssoul," Luxor explained evenly, offering only the surface layer of what he believed to be the truth. To Luxor and the council, Shonte was just a highly compatible human anomaly. "His human nervous system has never handled raw, celestial power before. I do not know if his mind will survive the night."
"You don't know?!" Adrian yelled, his sharp-tongued demeanour turning into genuine fear as he looked at Shonte's pale face. He aggressively ran a hand through his brown hair.
Malik didn't say a word. He placed a heavy, grounding hand on Adrian's shoulder, pulling the frantic writer back a step, though Malik's own jaw was clenched so tightly his veins showed along his neck.
"Everyone out," Luxor commanded softly. "He needs space. Go to your rooms and get ready for school tomorrow."
The students filed out of the Med bay in a heavy, suffocating silence. One by one, they disappeared down the marble corridors of the dorm, the reality of their dangerous new life weighing heavily on their shoulders.
Adrian marched straight into his private room, slamming the heavy door shut behind him, his hands trembling with a rare, volatile anger that he couldn't shake off. He began pacing the room dynamically, his face twisted in a bitter frown as he aggressively ran his fingers through his wavy, light brown hair.
"Stupid," Adrian muttered to himself, his voice cracking slightly in the empty room. He leaned his back against the wall, sliding down until he was sitting on the floor with his knees pulled tightly to his chest. "I'm so stupid."
For all his raw vocal confidence and sharp wit, Adrian was suffocating under a massive wave of guilt. He was the literature club captain. He was the one who knew the book. He was the one who claimed to understand the plot, the setting, and the monsters. Yet, despite all his pride, he hadn't anticipated the distress signal of the dying wolf. He hadn't been careful enough. Because of his oversight, the pack had gone feral, and Mia had been bitten, and Shonte had been pushed to a physical limit that left him bleeding from his eyes, nose and ear. He felt completely responsible for the blood on the floor.
A heavy, slow knock rattled his bedroom door.
Adrian didn't move. He didn't want anyone to see him with his defensive walls completely knocked down. "Go away," he called out sharply, trying to force his confident tone back into his throat.
The door opened anyway.
Malik stepped into his room. He didn't have his phone out for once. He closed the door quietly behind him, his deep amber eyes instantly locking onto Adrian sitting on the floor. Malik didn't say a word at first. He walked over, his heavy footsteps muffled by the soft rug, and sat down on the floor right next to Adrian, his long legs stretching out in front of him.
"I told you to go away, Renn," Adrian muttered, staring stubbornly at his own knees, though he didn't actually move away.
"You were thinking too loud," Malik said evenly, his low, rumbling voice carrying its usual detached, calm rhythm. "I could hear your brain melting from down the hall."
"I messed up, Malik," Adrian whispered as he finally looked up, his grey eyes wide with a rare, breathless vulnerability. "I knew the book. I knew the Whispering Wilds arc. If I had remembered the howl, we could have done so much to protect ourselves earlier. Mia wouldn't have gotten hurt. Shonte wouldn't be floating in a medical pod right now. I was supposed to know more about the book, and I almost got them killed."
Malik stayed quiet for a few seconds, letting Adrian's frantic words dissolve into the room. He reached out his large hand and dropped it heavily on the back of Adrian's neck, squeezing gently. The solid warmth of the grip instantly grounded Adrian's racing panic.
"Shut up, Adrian," Malik muttered, his face completely deadpan, but his eyes turning incredibly intense. "You didn't get any killed. You threw your cufflinks to buy us a running start. You figured out the chocolate thing. We survived because of your nerdy logic."
"But Shonte—"
"Weldon chose to blast that light," Malik interrupted firmly, his grip on Adrian's neck tightening just enough to keep the writer focused. "He did it to protect us. Just like I used to protect you. We're a team now. Stop carrying so much worry on your shoulders, Cross. It makes you look smaller than you already are."
"I am not small, Renn," Adrian rolled his eyes, trying to force his signature confident smirk back onto his face. "I am compact and aerodynamically superior. Learn the literary terminology."
"Whatever," Malik shrugged, a ghost of a smirk playing on his sharp jawline.
But as Adrian reached out to playfully knock Malik's hand away from his neck, his fingers began to tremble again. The residual adrenaline from almost losing his classmates—and the sheer weight of the world they had been thrown into a book—suddenly crashed over him all at once. His grey eyes widened slightly, his breath catching in his throat as the reality of his fear finally made tears fall.
Malik didn't say a word. He didn't mock him or pull away. He knew Adrian better than anyone else alive. He knew the exact moment his best friend's confidence crossed the line into fear and hidden panic.
Instead, he shifted his body forward—reaching out with his broad, powerful arms—pulling Adrian into his space and wrapping him in a heavy, solid, and protective hug.
Adrian froze in shock for some time. Malik's chest was broad and warm, blocking out the cold, dark shadows of the room, smelling faintly of ozone, rain from the forest and his favourite cologne. Slowly, the tension drained out of Adrian's shoulders. He leaned forward, his hands gripping the back of Malik's jacket tightly as he let himself rely on Malik's strength.
They stayed like that for a long, quiet moment in the dim starlight of the dorm, their lifelong history turning into an unspoken promise that they would always have each other's backs, no matter how dangerous the world would be.
When Malik finally loosened his grip, he clapped a heavy hand on Adrian's shoulder, his expression returning to its usual deadpan, calm look. "Just stop stressing, Cross. We're going to school tomorrow, and I need you to be annoying so I don't have to talk to people."
Adrian wiped his eyes quickly, his confidence returning in full force as he offered a genuine smile to his best friend. "Fine. But you still owe me a new pair of silver cufflinks for my birthday again."