Zayn didn't sleep that night.He sat on the edge of the rusted academy bed, staring at his palm.The same palm that had touched the crystal.The same one where a faint red mark now pulsed like a heartbeat.
He'd tried scrubbing it.Cold water.Hot water.Scraping it with a chipped spoon.
It didn't fade.
Instead...it grew.
Not larger.Just deeper.It was no longer a mark on his skin.It was something beneath it.
"Devour and rise."
The voice again.But now it echoed not in his ears in his bones.
Zayn clutched his chest.The sensation wasn't pain.It was...hunger.
He hadn't eaten since morning.But this hunger wasn't for food.
It wanted something else.Something alive.Something valuable.
Footsteps outside.
"Zayn?You still in there?"
It was Keira.One of the few scholarship students who didn't look at him like trash.
He didn't answer.
"...Look,I don't know what happened today.But it's not your fault.Some people just"
"I heard a voice," Zayn said.
Silence.
"I touched the crystal.And something...spoke to me."
Keira's breath hitched on the other side of the door.
"That's not funny."
"I'm not joking."
"Zayn...don't say weird things now.They're already talking about removing you from the dorm.They think you're cursed."
He looked down at his hand again.
"They're not wrong."
That night, he left the dorm.
He walked past the edge of the academy grounds, into the forest.The rules didn't matter anymore.He wasn't a student.He was a number.Zero.
The forest air was thick with mist.Leaves whispered secrets above his head.
And then he saw it.
A creature.
It was small.Limping.Hurt.A wolf cub, barely larger than a backpack.Its leg was twisted, blood matting its fur.
Zayn approached it.
The hunger inside him screamed.
"Devour."
His hand moved on its own.He touched the dying creature.
And it dissolved.
No,not melted not disintegrated.
It was consumed.
Light flowed from its body into Zayn's hand.A red thread of something he couldn't name.
His body convulsed.
His eyes widened.
He saw visions.Fangs.Claws.Night hunts.
And when it ended...he stood straighter.
His wound from earlier a cut on his arm was gone.
His hearing sharpened.
His pupils...elongated.
He had devoured it.
Not just its flesh.
Its essence.
Its talent.
And inside him...the red mark pulsed stronger than ever.
[Talent Acquired: Wild Instinct (Beast Affinity - Grade E)]
Zayn fell to his knees,laughing softly through ragged breath.
He was no longer a zero.
He was something else now.
Something the world had never prepared for.