A torrential rain fell without mercy.
Kayden had arrived late that night. He cast a brief glance around him, soaked, uneasy.
He knew it the instant the corridor of the north wing felt different, as if the air itself had grown heavier. There were no voices, no footsteps, none of the usual murmurs at that hour. Only a dense, unnatural silence.
The door stood ajar.
He pushed it open carefully, expecting to find the teacher reviewing documents, perhaps annoyed by the interruption. Instead, the first thing he noticed was a metallic scent, along with a large red stain spreading across the floor.
It was not an exaggerated pool nor a theatrical scene, but there was enough blood to make him shudder. Darkened, thick, it formed an irregular trail that led to the motionless body lying a few meters from the entrance.
And standing before it, was her.
With her platinum hair stained with blood, her cold red eyes fixed in place, Professor Seris stood rigid, her hands trembling at her sides. Her breathing was shallow, uneven. Her gaze remained locked on the body, as if looking away were impossible. Her clothes were splattered, not soaked, but more than enough to leave no doubt.
Kayden felt the world slip out from under his feet.
"Seris…"
She turned her head slowly. When their eyes met, there was no anger, no cold detachment in her gaze. Only fear. A deep, desperate, almost childlike fear.
"Kayden… it wasn't supposed to end like this."
He wanted to step forward, to say something, to deny what he was seeing. But his legs would not move. Something inside him split in two: the woman he knew, the one who had made him feel seen, and the scene screaming a truth impossible to ignore.
Behind her, the bloodied body lay still, a mute witness to a decision that could not be undone.
In that moment, Kayden understood there was no turning back.
That temptation had claimed its price.
And that he had just become part of the punishment.
Seris was the first to move.
She did not step toward him; instead, she lowered her gaze, as if the weight of the scene had finally settled onto her shoulders. They sagged slightly, a minimal gesture, yet heavy with defeat.
"This isn't how it was supposed to happen," she repeated, her voice breaking. "I just… wanted it to stop."
Kayden swallowed. The sound was far too loud in the silence.
"What did you do…?" he managed to ask, though the answer lay there, stretched out on the floor.
Seris shook her head slowly, desperately, as if refusing the question could erase the act itself. She took a step back, away from the body, not from Kayden.
"He knew," she said. "He knew things he shouldn't have. He threatened to reveal everything. To destroy it all."
She looked up at Kayden then, and there was no calculation, no coldness in her eyes. Only a naked plea.
"If it came out… I would lose everything. My job. My name. And you."
That final word fell like a sentence.
Kayden felt a knot tighten in his chest.
"There were other ways," he murmured, more to convince himself than to accuse her.
"I tried," she replied quickly, clinging to the words as if they were a lifeline. "I asked for time. I offered silence, money." Her hands trembled harder now. "But he wouldn't accept it. He smiled. He told me he enjoyed seeing me like this."
Seris pressed a hand to her chest, struggling to breathe.
"I didn't plan this. I never… never meant for him to die." Her voice shattered completely. "I just wanted him to stay quiet. Just for tonight."
Silence fell between them again, heavier than before.
Kayden looked at the body, then at her. Seris's words did not erase the blood, nor undo the dark trail on the floor. But they did not sound like a simple lie either. They were the confession of someone who had crossed a line without realizing how deep it truly was.
"And now?" he finally asked.
Seris took a step toward him. Just one.
"Now don't abandon me," she whispered. "Please."
Kayden understood the real trap then.
It wasn't just the crime.
It wasn't just the blood.
It was that by listening to her, by staying, by not fleeing immediately…
he was already choosing.
And he knew, with terrifying clarity, that any decision from that moment on would stain him just as deeply as it stained her.
Kayden did not step back.
He looked at the body with contained coldness, assessing the scene not as a horrified witness, but as someone who understood consequences before emotions. The blood on the floor did not make him retch; it made him calculate.
This could not leave this room.
He raised his eyes to Seris. She was still trembling, caught between shock and fear. For a brief moment, Kayden saw with absolute clarity that if he did nothing, she would break completely. And broken people always leave traces.
"Close the door," he said.
It was not a plea. It was an order.
Seris obeyed without thinking. The sound of wood fitting into the frame sealed the room off from the rest of the world.
Kayden moved to the window and watched the rain lash violently against the glass. No one outside. No one watching. The storm was a gift.
"How long have you been like this?" he asked without turning around.
"I don't know… minutes…" she answered uncertainly.
"Then we're still in time."
He rolled up his sleeves and returned to the body. He crouched down, inspected the position, the visible wound, the angle. He didn't need morbid details; he needed to understand what story the scene was telling… and how to change it.
"This wasn't an outburst," he said calmly. "It was someone who knew too much and pushed you until you broke. That's what we'll say, if we ever have to say anything."
Seris opened her mouth, but Kayden raised a hand.
"Don't explain anything else. Every extra word is a risk."
He took a clean cloth and began wiping away the most obvious traces. Not frantically. Methodically.
"I'm not a good man," he continued, without looking at her. "But I'm not stupid either. If this comes out, you fall… and I fall with you." He paused. "And I don't intend to allow that."
Seris stepped closer, still trembling.
"Kayden… I—"
"Listen." This time he did look at her. His eyes were steady, dark. "From this moment on, you didn't do this alone."
The words hung between them, heavy, final.
She swallowed.
"Why…?" she asked softly.
Kayden straightened slowly.
"Because the world doesn't punish the guilty," he replied. "It punishes those who break."
The rain roared outside, swallowing any sound that might escape the room.
And as Kayden continued to rearrange the scene, no longer as a witness but as an accomplice, it became clear that his decision was not born of fear…
but of a twisted morality that knew exactly what it was doing.
And still, it did it.
Years earlier
Kayden had not always been this way.
There was a time when he was just a quiet child, newly arrived, burdened with too many questions and no roots at all. Seris was the one who signed the papers. The one who gave him a provisional surname, a room, schedules, discipline. Not out of pure kindness, but because she knew how to recognize something that could be shaped.
And Kayden learned quickly.
He grew under her constant gaze: first as a student, then as a protégé, and finally as something that had no clear name. He called her teacher in public. In private, sometimes, simply Seris. Never mother. That word never crossed his lips, even if the world assumed otherwise.
The years passed.
Kayden stopped being small. His voice changed. His presence changed with it. He no longer lowered his gaze when Seris entered a room; he held it. Not in defiance, but with an attention that was uncomfortable, far too aware.
Seris noticed.
Of course she did.
But she chose not to correct it.
She taught him to think before acting. To lie when necessary. To understand that morality was not a straight line, but a tool the world used against the naive. Kayden absorbed every lesson without question.
He trusted her.
She trusted that he would never cross the line.
They were both wrong.
With time, their conversations grew longer. Doors remained closed longer than they should have. There was no inappropriate contact—not yet—but the space between them became dangerous: too charged, too intimate to be called mere education.
Seris told herself it was temporary.
Kayden understood that it wasn't.
When the world began to suspect, it was already too late. Not because of what they had done…
but because of what they could no longer undo.
And years later, when blood stained the floor of the north wing, Kayden did not hesitate.
Because that night, he did not decide to become an accomplice.
He simply acted as he had always been taught to do.