The moon hung low over Aethenhold Academy, a red, baleful eye staring down on the sleeping towers like a warning. The air was still. Too still. A silence so deep it hummed in Callen Ward's bones.
He stood at the edge of the courtyard, frost crackling underfoot, staring up at the dark shape of the central spire—the Arcarium, where the Headmaster's quarters lay buried among books older than most nations. He'd been here before. Every year students were forbidden to enter past curfew. Every year, some idiot did it anyway.
But tonight, everything felt… wrong.
"Callen," a voice whispered beside him.
He turned. His roommate, Rhoan Keld, leaned against a lamppost, breath misting the cold night air. He looked pale. Afraid. Sword drawn. Rune-crusted iron glinting faintly in the moonlight.
"You feel it too?" Rhoan asked.
Callen nodded slowly, fingers tightening around the wand holstered on his belt. He hadn't drawn it yet—habit, maybe. Denial.
"I think this is it," Callen said quietly.
Rhoan laughed, but it was hollow. "You always say dramatic stuff like that."
"No," Callen said. "I mean this is it. The end. Something is coming."
The moment he said it, the world shivered.
It was subtle—like the shift in pressure before a storm. Then the wind rose all at once, roaring through the arches of the school like a beast awakened. Lights across the Academy blinked out. Magic lamplights. Barrier runes. Every protective spell that had stood untouched for a century—gone in the blink of an eye.
Callen's heart thudded.
"No," he whispered. "That's not possible."
A scream echoed across the courtyard. A long, high, wet scream. Another followed it. Then a third. Then dozens.
They came pouring through the cracks in the world—shadows made of teeth and smoke, monsters with no eyes, no faces, only mouths and claws and long black tongues that sang when they tore into flesh.
The first of them leapt from the outer garden and landed atop a student running for the dorms. The sound of bones snapping was deafening. Blood sprayed across the flagstones.
Rhoan raised his sword. "We have to go!"
But Callen didn't move. He was rooted in place, his thoughts racing, too many variables. Where were the teachers? Where was the alarm? Where was the Headmaster?
He barely noticed as Rhoan shoved him aside, the monster's claw slicing through the space where he'd just stood. He hit the ground hard, rolled, scrambled to his feet.
"Get up!" Rhoan shouted, swinging his sword with a roar. The blade sliced through the creature's neck—but it kept moving. The head split like smoke, the body regenerating.
"We can't fight them!" Callen shouted.
"No kidding!"
They ran. Through the outer halls of Aethenhold, past corpses of students they knew. Past Professor Tilwin, his throat torn out. Past Isora Gray, the fourth-year alchemist with the crush on Rhoan, whose face was frozen in terror beneath broken glass.
By the time they reached the eastern stairwell, Callen was shaking. Not from fear—but from the overwhelming realization that nothing made sense. Magic didn't work. The Academy's wards were gone. The monsters defied every rule of this world.
"This isn't just an attack," Callen panted. "It's something else."
"We're going to die," Rhoan said quietly. He wasn't looking at him. He was looking behind Callen.
The shadows had returned. Half a dozen this time. And behind them, something larger. A figure in dark armor, helm smooth and reflective like black glass. No face. No insignia. No voice.
But power rolled off it like heat from a forge. Ancient. Wrong.
It raised its hand. A long, black sword slid from the air like oil forming into steel.
Callen reached for his wand—but it shattered in his grip. Shattered. The rune-core cracked like glass.
The shadow knight stepped forward.
There was no point in running.
Rhoan screamed and charged.
Callen didn't even see the blow. One second Rhoan was alive. The next, he was falling in pieces.
Then the sword turned on Callen.
He didn't beg. He didn't cry. He simply watched as the blade came down, and whispered, "Why?"
The world ended.
And Callen woke up.
---
The birds were chirping. The sun was shining.
Callen Ward bolted upright in his bed, gasping, drenched in sweat.
His sheets were twisted around his legs. The familiar dorm room was quiet, bright with morning light. Across from him, Rhoan was snoring softly, mouth open.
It was a dream.
No—it wasn't.
Callen's heart thundered. He jumped out of bed, staggered to the window. Outside, the gardens were alive with color. Students laughed, walked in groups, books in hand.
The Academy was fine.
"Rhoan!" he shouted.
Rhoan snorted. "What?"
"What day is it?"
Rhoan blinked blearily. "The… 4th? Why?"
"The 4th of Ember?"
"Yeah. What the hell, Callen? You forget your own birthday?"
Callen froze. "My… birthday?"
He didn't have a birthday on the 4th. He remembered that clearly. His birthday was the 18th of Frostmarch. His mother always mailed him licorice cakes.
But it was the 4th. He remembered being late to Fire Runes last time. The way Professor Tilwin shouted at him.
His fingers trembled. "This is before. Before it happened."
"What happened?" Rhoan asked, sitting up.
Callen stared out the window. "The world ended."
---
He spent the whole day walking in a fog. The classes were the same. Professor Tilwin did shout at him. The food at lunch was still overcooked mushroom stew. Students gossiped about the Spring Trials coming up. Life was normal.
But Callen knew it wasn't.
He'd died.
He remembered everything. The monsters. The sword. The man in the black glass armor.
No dream could feel that real. The broken wand in his hand. The warmth of blood spraying his face. Rhoan's last look—angry and brave.
By evening, he couldn't bear it anymore.
He skipped dinner, climbed the tower steps to the restricted level of the library, and broke in using a trick he'd once read in a discarded book about lock-binding runes. If he was going mad, he'd find out soon enough.
There, among dust and cobwebs, he found a shelf on temporal anomalies. None were exactly like what he'd experienced. But some… were close.
> "The Yoral Paradox," he read aloud. "The theory that a soul forcibly separated from linear time may be drawn into a recursive loop unless anchored by death or destiny…"
His fingers trembled as he flipped through pages. Half were metaphor. Others pseudoscience. But some—some felt like truth.
> "Only those with unfulfilled potential may retain memory across iterations."
Was that it? Was he in a loop?
Did he get a second chance?
His stomach turned. He remembered Rhoan being torn apart. He remembered Isora's frozen face. Professor Tilwin's body.
He gripped the edges of the table.
"I can stop it."
If this was real—if this was really a second chance—he couldn't waste it. He couldn't be the boy who ran and watched everyone die again.
But how?
He needed more. More knowledge. More magic. He'd never been top of his class. He'd coasted. Been average. Unremarkable.
That had to end.
Because the next time those shadows came, he wouldn't run.
He would be ready.
---
Over the next three days, Callen changed everything.
He rewrote his class schedule. Begged old professors for private lessons. Read three books a night. Slept less. Ate less.
He learned to hide it, though. Act normal. Smile when expected. He didn't want attention.
He started learning rune theory again from scratch, this time paying attention to the deep structure—the core of spell logic. Not just casting, but understanding.
He re-learned wand crafting. Refused to use prebuilt ones. Made his own with dual-cores and complex binding sequences, using knowledge from books he'd once found boring.
But time was running out.
Each night, he stood at his window, watching the moon rise higher, redder. Waiting.
Until it came.
---
The night of the Cataclysm returned, just as he remembered.
This time, Callen was ready.
He was waiting at the western courtyard, where he knew the first breach would occur. He cast three wards—sparse, complex, layered in anti-shadow runes copied from the forbidden grimoires.
The monsters came—screeching, faster than memory—but they slowed at his wards.
He grinned.
Then one lunged, faster than the others. Its claws tore through the outer shell of his defense.
Callen raised his wand and shouted, "Fragmenta Lux!"
A white beam split the air—and the creature exploded into ash.
He stared at the wand. It worked.
It worked.
He fought. Hard. Smart. Tactical. He used the same layout of the Academy to funnel the creatures through narrow corridors, cast trip-runes, and dropped entire shelves of enchanted books as traps.
But there were too many.
Eventually, they surrounded him.
His wand cracked.
The shadows surged.
Then the knight came again.
Callen smiled through bloodied lips. "I'll see you again."
The blade descended.
The world ended.
---
And Callen Ward woke up.
Again.
Same bed. Same birds. Same sun.
This time, he didn't panic.
He got up. Took a deep breath.
"Loop two," he whispered.
"Let's get to work."
---
End of Chapter 1