I don't know when I first began to distrust Alpha Academy. Maybe it was that morning. Or maybe the feeling had always been there, tucked somewhere deep inside me, waiting for the right fracture to surface.
What I do know is that day, the hallways carried a strange brightness — too soft, too clean, almost artificial. As if someone had calibrated reality to feel "pleasant," but pushed the setting a little too far.
I walked toward Room 2-B with my hands in my pockets, mind drifting as usual.My name is Leymane: invisible when I want to be, transparent when I don't. An observer by nature. Nothing heroic in that.
They were already there when I reached the door. The other three. The silhouettes no one in this school could ever pretend not to notice.
The Four Greats.
We never chose that name. The Academy pinned it on us—like a label, or maybe a warning.
AYYI
The first thing you notice about him is the calm. Not a peaceful calm. A surgical one.Ayyi is the kind of person who can look at you once and understand the thing you've been hiding for years. A forced smile, a short breath, a glance you hold one second too long—everything is an index to him.
When I arrived, he barely lifted his eyes.
"You pulled another all-nighter."
I stopped. Exhaled.
"Just a little."
He tilted his head. He knew I was lying. I knew he knew. That was enough.
AMAD
The opposite of Ayyi. Walking sunlight. Human good vibes. The person who can turn any silence into something warm.
He sat on a desk like a cat who had already claimed the spot. When he saw me, he grinned.
"Leymane! I bet Bintou you'd show up at the last second. I won again."
I rolled my eyes.
"You've got a lateness radar or what?"
"No. You're just predictable. In a good way."
His smile was perfect. Sometimes too perfect. Over time, I learned to see the fractures behind it—tired eyes, a quiet "I'm fine" that never meant anything.
BINTOU
She arrived like a sudden shift in the wind—not violent, just enough to change the temperature of a room in one breath.Her bag on her shoulder, her gaze slicing through the hallway without apology.
Bintou never needed to raise her voice to impose her presence. She existed, and that was more than enough.
"Warning you now, surprise test today," she said.
"No," Ayyi replied calmly, still not looking up.
She narrowed her eyes. "And how would you know that? Reading minds now?"
"It's obvious. The teacher doesn't have the posture of someone who wants to evaluate. More like someone who wants to… observe."
A short silence followed — not heavy, just curious.
Amad laughed softly. "I just want to survive until noon."
He was joking, but something in his voice carried weight. Bintou heard it too.
And me, as always, standing among them. The fourth.
Ayyi: the Strategist.
Amad: the Pillar.
Bintou: the Forge.
And me… the Analyst.
I never knew if we were a group or an anomaly. But I knew the others saw us like an equation that shouldn't work — yet somehow did. Something that made sense only because it wasn't supposed to.
Everyone felt it.
And that morning, the feeling was even stronger, as if the air itself was holding its breath.
The bell rang — sharp, a little too high. We entered the classroom.Ayyi paused at the threshold, as if a thought had brushed his mind.
"Careful today," he murmured. "Something small is going to change."
No one answered. But all of us heard it.
I sat at the back. The teacher entered a moment later.
And then… something in his eyes. Not the usual morning tiredness. A look that measured, examined— like we weren't his students, but data points.
A shiver ran through me.
I couldn't explain it then, but that day, a sensation settled inside me: this wasn't just another class. It wasn't even a normal day at Alpha Academy.
It was a beginning.The beginning of something waiting for the smallest crack to open.
And the four of us were already standing too close to the breaking point.