The rain never really stopped in Sanctum City, it only learned to fall quieter.
It whispered against the chapel windows like an unending prayer, silver streaks tracing over carved angels that had long lost their faces.
Aiden Kael walked alone through the marble corridor of the Academy, his reflection fractured across the puddles beneath his boots.
The hallway lights flickered, sterile, white, merciless, and for a heartbeat, the shimmer around him bent, forming something impossible.
A faint ring.
A halo.
He blinked, and it was gone. Just another trick of exhaustion, he told himself. Just the glass catching the light wrong.
Still, something about this place made his pulse stutter. The air smelled of incense and disinfectant, holy and clinical at once. Every breath felt like confession.
"Late again, Kael."
The voice came from behind him, Professor Havel, lab coat fluttering like a priest's robe. "You may think you're above the rules, but remember… Sanctum doesn't forgive curiosity."
Aiden offered a shallow bow, eyes lowered.
"Yes, sir."
He didn't tell him that he'd been standing outside the morgue door for almost ten minutes, listening. Not to the professor, but to the silence on the other side. A silence that wasn't empty, it hummed, faint and electric, like a heartbeat waiting for a cue.
The morgue was colder than usual. Stainless tables gleamed under harsh light. Students stood in a loose semicircle, white masks covering their expressions, scalpels lined like rosary beads.
Today's lesson: Dissection of the human chest cavity.
Aiden's fingers twitched as he picked up his scalpel. He'd done this dozens of times, anatomy was his comfort zone.
But something felt wrong today. The air around the cadaver rippled faintly, and the faint hum he'd heard earlier… grew louder.
He leaned in.
And then
Light.
A thin beam of gold burst from the cadaver's sternum, bright enough to burn through his eyelids. The students screamed. Metal clattered. The body convulsed once, and from its cracked ribs rose a faint, translucent shape, wings of pure light, trembling, fading, gone.
The room fell silent. The hum vanished. Only Aiden remained frozen, the scalpel shaking in his hand.
He could still hear it though, a whisper buried beneath the chaos. A voice like a hymn sung backward:
"Welcome back, Fallen One."
THE GİRL WHO HEARD THE HYNM
The courtyard was empty when Aiden stepped outside.
Rain fell in slow, deliberate sheets, washing the blood from his thoughts but not from his hands. The stone tiles glistened like a mirror cracked by heaven itself, reflecting arches, candles, and a sky too heavy with clouds to hold its secrets.
He stood there longer than necessary, coat unbuttoned, breath shallow.
It wasn't real, he told himself.
Hallucinations under stress. Temporal lobe misfire. Classic response to sensory overload.
Science had answers. It always did.
"Lies are louder when you say them to yourself."
The voice came from beneath the old bell tower.
Aiden turned sharply.
She stood barefoot in the rain, as if the weather had simply chosen not to touch her. Long dark hair clung to her back, damp but unmoved by the cold. Her uniform was different, black instead of white, the insignia of the Choir Wing stitched at her collar.
She was smiling.
Not brightly. Not warmly.
Like someone who had already forgiven him for something he hadn't confessed yet.
"You were in the lab," she continued, stepping closer. Each footstep made no sound. "When the light broke through."
Aiden stiffened. "You shouldn't joke about things like that."
"I'm not." Her eyes lifted to his hands. "You're still shaking."
He clenched his fists.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Seraphine Vale." She tilted her head. "And you heard it too."
The rain seemed to hush around them, as if listening.
"Heard what?" Aiden demanded.
"The hymn." She placed two fingers over her heart. "Under the flesh. Under the bone. The song angels sing when they fall."
His chest tightened.
"No one else reacted like that," he said. "If something happened, it was neurological. Stress. Projection."
Seraphine laughed softly, a sound like glass chiming underwater.
"Then why did the cadaver whisper your name?"
The world tilted.
Aiden took a step back. The courtyard lights flickered, shadows stretching unnaturally long. For a moment, he thought he saw wings folded behind her silhouette, torn, scorched, beautiful.
"Careful," she said gently. "If you deny it too hard, it hurts more when you remember."
"Remember what?"
She reached out.
Her fingers brushed his wrist.
And suddenly,
His heart beat out of rhythm.
Not faster. Not slower.
Wrong.
Images flooded him: burning feathers, a tower in flames, a halo shattering like glass against stone. And beneath it all, a feeling so ancient it made his throat ache,
Loss.
Seraphine pulled her hand away.
"You're not sick," she said quietly. "You're awakening."
A bell rang in the distance, sharp and final.
Her expression darkened.
"They're calling us," she murmured. "The sermon."
Aiden swallowed. "Us?"
She turned, rain parting as she walked.
"They'll try to cure you," she said over her shoulder. "They always do."
He watched her disappear into the archway, heart still misfiring, mind unraveling.
For the first time in his life, science failed him.
And in its place, something terrifying bloomed.
Hope.
THE SERMON OF THE UNBROKEN
The chapel of Sanctum Academy was never truly silent.
Even now, as students filed into the pews, the air hummed faintly, not with prayer, but with expectation. Candles lined the aisles like watchful eyes. Above them, stained-glass saints looked down with fractured expressions, their halos cracked by centuries of smoke and neglect.
Aiden sat near the back.
Seraphine stood across the aisle, hands folded, eyes closed, not in prayer, but in listening. As if something beneath the stone floor was breathing.
The doors at the altar creaked open.
Father Lucien emerged.
He was tall, impossibly still, dressed in layered robes that blended priestly black with the sterile white of a lab coat. A silver cross hung at his chest, transparent, hollow, filled with something that shimmered faintly when the candlelight touched it.
"My children," he began, voice smooth and unhurried. "Today, Sanctum was reminded why faith must never wander without guidance."
His gaze swept the hall.
Aiden felt it linger.
"There are those among you," Lucien continued, "who believe they have seen angels."
A murmur rippled through the pews.
"Do not be afraid," the priest said gently. "The mind is a powerful instrument. Under pressure, it sings illusions and calls them revelation."
Aiden's jaw tightened.
Lucien raised one hand. Behind him, a screen flickered to life, scans of human brains glowing with unnatural light. Halos of activity burned at their centers.
"This," Lucien said, "is the Divine Disorder."
The word settled heavily in the chapel.
"A neurological-spiritual anomaly," he went on. "Hallucinations. Auditory delusions. A false sense of divine purpose."
False.
Seraphine opened her eyes.
"Sanctum exists to heal," Lucien said. "To purify. To return wandering souls to silence."
Aiden's heartbeat stuttered.
Silence?
Was that what they planned to give him, emptiness?
"All affected students," Lucien concluded, "are to report for evaluation at dawn."
The candles flickered violently.
For a moment, just one, Aiden saw it again.
Wings.
Not behind Lucien.
Behind himself.
A sharp pain burned into his shoulder. He gasped, clutching at it beneath his coat.
Seraphine looked at him.
Her eyes widened, not in fear, but recognition.
When the sermon ended, the bells rang low and mournful. Students rose, whispering, confused, afraid.
As Aiden stood, something brushed his shoulder and drifted to the floor.
A feather.
White at its core, blackened at the edges, still warm as it burned a faint mark into the stone.
Seraphine knelt beside it.
"They've marked you," she whispered. "The Choir will hear you now."
Aiden stared at the feather, pulse roaring in his ears.
"What am I supposed to do?" he asked.
She met his gaze, voice steady, unkindly honest.
"Break," she said.
"Or become."