Temp kneeled above a shimmering puddle.
His lips trembled in the chilling room. His uniform now draped over his slumped shoulders, mirroring his broken will. His body limp–the skin on his fingertips now shriveled up, as if he had been drowning for the past week.
In front of him, the body of a frail, yellow haired girl lay. Her short ponytail was unraveled, cloaking her unseen face with a blonde curtain. She seemed to be breathing, though death may have been more merciful.
What the hell did that Wraith do?
A void surrounded the classroom, every heartbeat, every water drop, every breath.
Silence.
He was frozen, his mouth trying to utter a word, desperate for salvation from the freezing hell. His lips moved, he felt his voice box expand. No word came out.
Breathe, Temp, breathe.
Even that single act felt like an arduous journey, like Atlas holding up the globe, struggling against the weight of the world.
The constitution of the world had been rewritten, The Saviour as its author.
Temp stared at the water puddle, beholding his face. His eyes held a tint of fear in them, despite the clear fact that the dastardly Wraith was gone–for the simple fact that the primal fear which gripped his heart disappeared along with it.
Temp tried picking himself up, his breath deep and ragged. One hand laid on his knee, pushing off from its shaky support, slipping off of the knee and landing him closer to the floor, his chin impacting the ground first.
Even his ungraceful crash was silent.
Still in a state of shellshock–even with his exceptional perception of space–he did not notice that even the breeze of wind that had entered his ears left no sound.
No one heard anything, no one felt anything, but everyone knew.
I never want to fight a Class IV again, not now, not ever.
He did not even really fight it, his body sent straight through the bastard's intangible body.
He looked around the battered classroom, stained tiles and dust-covered lockers bore silent witness to the battle, the scent of iron and despair staining them forevermore.
He stole a quick glimpse at Solus and Sid, the former lighting a spark of mischief in his eyes, as if he had not come within death's grasp mere moments ago. The latter lay weak on the cracked tiles and shattered wall, almost like a silent plea for help.
Sid had been the only one to sustain an ounce of damage, even the Echoes of the students were left unharmed, crawling back towards their users and refusing to exit their dormant states.
Even the sword of Solus refused to unfurl back into its combat form. It maintained a strict reluctance to transform, spun around in the palm of Solus–who was now in the crowd of students after toppling the mountain of debris in front of the back door and running straight to Professor Lumi.
Oh, he was injured too.
Some blue blemishes surfaced on his skin, likely from crashing into the mound of chairs, desks and other exotic items found in the classroom. He was being healed by Professor Lumi, the mystical green from her palm silent but effective.
At the front of the classroom, the visualiser connected to the blackboard flickered to life, displaying one, single message.
Area Six breach status: Contained, Casualties: 0, Echoes escaped: Class IV The Saviour of the East. Lockdown Protocols can be relaxed.
If the students felt anything, they did not show it.
No sighs of relief, no cheers of joy.
Just silence.
Temp glanced around the room. His classmates wore mixed expressions. Some looked down at their feet, others up at the sky, palms together in prayer. Some stared blankly at Temp, others crowded around Sid and Solus, offering water and other basic first aid.
Why the first aid? Professor Lumi is right there.
The class was only on their third day of their first semester, and they had already experienced their first battle.
A devastating loss.
However, nothing built bonds better than war.
And in Pangea, the war against Wraiths was life.
***
The Scriptures only recorded this:
Once, Pangea was a lush world, filled with dense forests, towering mountains and aspiring Trailblazers.
The Balance bestowed upon them Echoes, fragments of past heroes and tamed monsters, used for defense and for a flourishing civilisation.
And then, it cried.
No one knew if the Balance wept for despair or for regret.
No one even knows when or why it began its descent into madness.
All the people and Trailblazers knew was that when their god cried, everyone felt the rain.
Its tears painted the landscape a lifeless grey, all that was hit petrified into a hard rock.
Each tear had carried divine madness, everything that entered slowly turning stone.
And from its madness came Wraiths, spawned from a crack in reality.
Smaller, lower Class Wraiths spawn en masse from these cracks, immediately running from the center to its outskirts, sometimes even into human populations, fearful of the Apex Wraiths which had sometimes emerged, preying on its weaker counterparts.
Only Trailblazers of high enough Step could even enter these Null Zones, defeat the Apex Wraith and destroy the rift.
And now, only one capital remains.
It was for this very reason Trailblazer Academy was established.
To encourage willing humans to undergo a Path they desired, Virtue–the Path of saving others, Sin–the Path of saving oneself, and Nirvana–the Path of saving the world.
Of course, each Path offered different Echoes, abilities and ways to progress, but in essence they were the same.
The further one walks a Path, the closer one is to the Balance, the more godlike one gets.
The madder one gets.
***
Solus grabbed a bottle of water from another male student and drank it greedily, the symbol on its plastic covering reading: Trailblazer Academy
Generic but effective, I guess.
Temp was not sure he could come up with a better name.
Speaking of Professor Lumi…
She was still tending to Sid, only administering the bare minimum care for Solus. Her brows furrowed, her mouth hung slightly open, showcasing her grit teeth. The purple dress now had a tiny tear running across its hem, tied around a particularly ghastly injury on Sid's abdomen.
Temp looked away instantly, the gruesome scene something a little too bloody for him to tolerate.
How does someone even see that without throwing up?
Temp finally picked himself up, cradling the girl in front of him in a princess carry. Her ID card dropped from her skort.
Lucia, huh? She's slightly heavier than expected.
He carried her down the short flight of stairs in the middle of the classroom, careful to match each step down with his balance. Approaching the student body, the smell of iron assaulted his nostrils.
Temp wobbled a little.
He placed Lucia down carefully in front of Sid and Solus, in what had become the makeshift first aid area directly next to Professor Lumi.
He decided to take a breather, strolling out the front door–the lower one, just beneath the upper back exit. Multiple students eyed him on the way out, their mouths moving but voices not.
Ignoring the stares, he strolled out the lecture hall, his hemophobia too strong to overcome.
I'm lucky I didn't take Biology. Balance knows how much I would've thrown up.
The white hallways greeted him, the deep red fur of the carpet sinking slightly beneath his feet. He looked both directions, the wide pathway's slope increasing to his right and decreasing to his left as if it was a giant staircase.
Statues of legendary Trailblazers littered the halls, some toppled over, some shattered into a million pieces and others standing perfectly, as if they did not just witness a stampede of Class I and II Wraiths parade across the halls, heralded by the fearsome Class IV.
At the very end of the hall, a screen displayed the same blaring message as the visualiser, its bold text a striking red.
Wow, that's the first time I haven't seen "To blaze a trail." plastered onto that old thing. I almost thought it couldn't change the text.
Also, isn't that motto really, really unimaginative? It's like someone spent less than a minute making that up.
He wandered down his left, towards the big red text. He noticed that even the halls were deathly tranquil, the absence of sound turning into a constant ring in Temp's ear.
He let out a sigh, or at least he would have if the sound could propagate.
Around him, stone statues gazed into his soul, their petrified eyes staring daggers at him.
I can never tell if these are statues of bodies.
Each statue had a plaque beneath them, listing their names and achievements, their date of death becoming earlier and earlier as one walked down the hall.
2105-2154, The Saviour of the East, 2008-2065, The Black Swordsman, 1604-1635…
Temp did not read the plaques of the statues that had fallen.
He walked further down the halls, some classrooms with their students playing card games, albeit more mechanical than social. Others were being rushed with medics and equipment, even with the Professor of the class being shipped out on a stretcher.
Even Professors can get overwhelmed by numbers… At least no one died.
That may have been more curse than blessing.
Eventually, he reached the statue of the first headmaster of Trailblazer Academy.
985-1006. The Light of Pangea. Achievements: Established Trailblazer Academy, walked seven Steps down the Path of Nirvana, closed most Null Zones in history.
Cause of death: Suicide.