The first rule of the Freezer was simple.
Do not trust silence.
Kael learned this within the first minute of waking up.
The room had no alarm. No lights to signal morning. No windows to suggest the passage of time. He woke because the hum in the walls changed—a subtle shift in frequency that made his bones vibrate and his teeth ache.
For a moment, he didn't know where he was.
Then the cold pressed in.
Not sharp. Not biting. Just… present. Like a concept instead of a sensation.
The Freezer didn't freeze you.
It erased warmth.
Kael swung his legs off the bed and immediately felt it—the way the air resisted him, thick and slow, as though movement itself had to be justified here. His breath fogged faintly, then vanished before it could disperse.
Six hours, he thought. They said orientation in six hours.
How did he know six hours had passed?
He didn't.
That bothered him more than the cold.
A chime echoed through the room. Soft. Polite.
"Subject F-117," a calm voice said from nowhere and everywhere. "Please proceed to Orientation Hall C."
The door slid open without waiting for confirmation.
The hallway beyond was already occupied.
Kael paused.
There were others standing there—boys and girls his age, some younger, some older. All of them wore the same plain gray uniforms, identical down to the stitching. No ranks. No names. Just numbers printed faintly on the collar.
They didn't talk.
Some stared straight ahead, eyes unfocused. Others leaned against the wall, arms crossed, expressions guarded. A few glanced at Kael as he stepped out, their gazes sharp and assessing.
Unrankables, he realized.
Not hypothetically.
Not as a concept.
These were the ones who hadn't fit.
A tall boy with white-blond hair stood near the front of the group, posture relaxed to the point of arrogance. He glanced at Kael, smirked faintly, then looked away like Kael had already been categorized and dismissed.
A girl near the back caught Kael's eye.
Dark hair pulled into a loose braid. Sharp eyes. Alert, but not panicked. She studied the hallway itself more than the people, as if searching for patterns.
When their gazes met, she didn't look away.
Kael felt something twist in his chest—recognition, maybe. Or tension.
The doors at the end of the hall opened.
"Move," the voice said.
They moved.
Orientation Hall C was enormous. A circular chamber carved into the bedrock, its walls lined with thick transparent panels behind which machinery pulsed with cold blue light. The temperature dropped another degree the moment Kael stepped inside.
The group spread out instinctively, forming loose clusters without speaking.
The doors sealed shut.
A platform rose from the center of the floor.
The woman from the evaluation center stood atop it, hands folded behind her back. Beside her was the gray-haired man. Behind them loomed a massive screen, currently blank.
"Welcome," the woman said. Her voice carried effortlessly. "To the Freezer."
No one spoke.
"You have been brought here," she continued, "because you are anomalies. Not defects. Not failures. But deviations."
The screen behind her flickered to life.
Graphs appeared. Lines spiking erratically. Readings collapsing in on themselves.
"These," she said, gesturing, "are standard Hunter metrics. Fire output. Aura stability. Mana coherence."
The graphs warped.
Then shattered.
"And this," she said calmly, "is you."
Kael felt a ripple of unease pass through the room.
"You are Unrankables," the gray-haired man said. "Which means the system does not apply to you. That makes you dangerous."
A murmur spread through the group.
Dangerous.
The word settled into Kael's gut like a stone.
"Our goal," the woman said, "is to make you useful."
The murmurs stopped.
"You will be trained," she continued, unperturbed. "Conditioned. Pushed beyond thresholds Rankers never encounter. In return, you will receive protection. Resources. A place in the future of this nation."
The screen changed again.
Images flashed past—Unrankables in combat, their forms blurred by heat and distortion. Cities defended. Monsters incinerated.
Heroes.
"However," the woman said, "there is something you must understand."
The images froze.
Then inverted.
The same Unrankables appeared again—this time restrained, screaming, eyes hollow. Medical beds. Restraints. Blank stares.
"The longer you exist outside the system," the gray-haired man said, "the more it will push back."
Kael's hands curled into fists.
"What does that mean?" someone demanded.
The woman's gaze swept the room. "It means that power exacts a toll. And that toll is paid in… stability."
The word hung in the air.
"You will experience disorientation," she continued. "Hallucinations. Emotional blunting. In some cases, identity fragmentation."
A chill crawled up Kael's spine.
Schizophrenia, he thought. Dissociation.
They didn't say the words.
They didn't need to.
"The Freezer," the woman said, "exists to delay that outcome. To condition you to cold so that when you burn, you do not burn out."
Kael blinked.
"Burn?" the blond boy scoffed. "Is that supposed to be poetic?"
The gray-haired man turned his gaze on him. "No."
The screen shifted again.
A thermal diagram appeared—an Unrankable body glowing white-hot at the core, surrounded by blue.
"Your abilities," the man said, "will only manifest fully when your internal temperature exceeds safe parameters."
The diagram flared.
"You will need to burn yourselves to fight."
Silence.
Kael felt the embers in his chest react violently, flaring as if in agreement.
"And the cold?" Kael asked before he could stop himself.
Both officials looked at him.
"The cold," the woman said, "is what makes that possible."
The realization hit him slowly.
They weren't training them to endure cold.
They were training them to need it.
"Orientation complete," the voice announced.
The floor beneath them shifted.
Panels slid open.
Ice baths.
Dozens of them.
Steam curled upward from their surfaces, the water inside unnaturally still.
"Lesson one," the gray-haired man said. "Adaptation."
The blond boy laughed. "This is it? Just cold water?"
"Enter," the woman said.
No one moved.
The girl with the braid stepped forward first.
Kael watched her lower herself into the bath without hesitation.
Her breath hitched.
Her teeth clenched.
But she didn't scream.
Something in Kael snapped.
Fine.
He stepped into his own bath.
The cold hit instantly.
Not like ice.
Like absence.
His muscles locked. His lungs seized. The warmth in his chest flared reflexively, surging outward in a desperate attempt to protect him.
Pain lanced through his nerves.
The water around him boiled.
Alarms blared.
Kael gasped, heart pounding, as heat and cold collided violently inside his body.
Too much—
"Contain it," the voice commanded.
The cold intensified.
Kael screamed.
The fire recoiled, compressed inward by sheer force, forced to retreat instead of explode.
Minutes passed.
Or seconds.
Time lost meaning.
When Kael was finally dragged from the bath, his body shook uncontrollably. Steam rose from his skin.
He lay on the floor, chest heaving.
The girl with the braid knelt beside him.
"You didn't pace it," she said quietly.
Kael laughed weakly. "Wasn't aware pacing was an option."
She studied him. "It always is. You just didn't know it yet."
"What's your number?" he asked.
She hesitated, then glanced at her collar.
"F-093."
"Kael," he said. "F-117."
She nodded once. "Try not to burn yourself to death, 117."
As she stood and walked away, Kael stared at the ceiling, body aching, mind buzzing.
The Freezer wasn't about strength.
It was about control.
And Kael had just learned how little of that he had.
Somewhere deep inside him, the fire whispered—not a promise, but a warning.
And the Freezer listened.