The moment we secured the door, it felt as though gravity had suddenly doubled.
Aurora dropped first. Her knees hit the floor with a heavy, hollow sound that made me wince. She braced herself against the cold concrete, her hands trembling so violently that the smears of blood she left behind looked like jagged, red wings on the grey surface. I collapsed a second later. My back hit the tile wall, and the impact sent a jolt of pain through my spine, but I barely felt it over the fire in my lungs. Each breath was a desperate, agonizing effort to replace the oxygen debt my body had accumulated during our flight through the halls.
We sat there for a long time, just breathing.
The sound filled the small, cramped room. It was a cacophony of harsh, ragged gasps that gradually slowed as our pulses began to settle. Above us, the world was ending in a chorus of screams and breaking glass, but down here, the only movement was the dance of dust motes in the beam of a single, flickering light bulb. The basement remained indifferent to the apocalypse. It smelled of damp concrete, old grease, and the metallic tang of the blood drying on our clothes.
Aurora was the first to break the silence. "What the fuck was that?" she whispered.
Her voice was raw and scraping, barely audible over the distant, mechanical hum of the building's generators. The profanity sounded wrong coming from her. It was a jagged crack in the perfect, disciplined facade she had maintained since I met her. I turned my head just in time to see her sword fade. It did not vanish in a shimmer of light like a special effect. It simply ceased to be. The solidified moonlight dissolved into a silver mist that momentarily illuminated her outstretched hand before dispersing into the stale air.
"I don't know," I admitted.
My voice felt like it was being pulled through gravel. I noticed her shoulders then. They were not just shaking from exhaustion or the lingering rush of adrenaline. It was the uncontrollable, rhythmic trembling of someone holding back a tidal wave through sheer force of will. In the harsh, yellow shadows cast by the overhead bulb, I saw her jaw clenched so tight that the bone looked ready to snap. Her eyes were squeezed shut, and her lips were pressed into a thin, bloodless line.
She was terrified. No, she was more than that. She was traumatized. The composed kendo champion and the girl who never seemed fazed by anything had been stripped away. In her place sat someone painfully human and incredibly vulnerable.
"Hey, Aurora." My voice was quieter now, gentler than I thought I was capable of being. "Come here."
I did not wait for her to answer. I reached out and pulled her into a hug, wrapping my arms around her before the rational part of my brain could protest. She was wound tight, her muscles vibrating like a guitar string pulled to the breaking point. She smelled of sweat, copper, and that strange, sharp ozone scent that had clung to her since the sword appeared. But underneath it all, I caught the faint, lingering trace of her shampoo. It was a normal, everyday smell that grounded me in a reality that felt a thousand miles away.
We held onto each other in the gloom. The warmth of another person was the only proof I had that we were still alive. I felt a dampness against my shoulder where her face was pressed, but I said nothing. I just held her until the trembling slowed to a faint shiver.
Eventually, she pulled back. She wiped at her eyes with the back of her hand, leaving faint streaks through the dried gore on her face. I watched her reassemble herself piece by piece, her composure returning like armor being donned before a battle.
"Sorry," she muttered, finally meeting my gaze.
"Don't be," I said. "None of this is normal."
She took a deep breath, her eyes hardening with a new, sharp purpose. "We need to figure out what is happening. We need a plan."
Survival always came first. I nodded and ran a hand through my hair, grimacing when I felt the tacky, metallic stickiness of half-dried blood. "We have some sort of system now. Stats, classes, and powers. Some people got them, and the others..."
I trailed off, the image of Professor Langley sprawled across the podium flashing in my mind.
"The ones who did not get a class turned into those things," Aurora finished. Her hands unconsciously mimicked the grip on a sword that was no longer there. Her fingers curled around phantom weight.
"Yeah. Which means this is structured. It has rules. It's a system. Like something out of a game."
Aurora gave me a wry, exhausted look. "A pretty fucked-up movie."
"Yeah," I agreed. "But if it has rules, it can be solved. It's like an equation, Aurora. We just need to find the variables."
She shook her head, tucking a stray strand of rose-gold hair behind her ear. "Anyway. What are your stats?"
I blinked, the academic part of my brain finally stirring to life. "How do we see them? I saw the screen earlier, but it's gone now."
"Maybe we just say it?" she suggested. "Hey, System."
The basement remained stubbornly silent.
"System, open," she tried again, her voice louder. Still nothing.
I thought back to the lecture hall. I had briefly held a quill of starlight, but it had vanished the moment I lost my focus. If this system was as integrated as it seemed, it probably worked on intent rather than verbal commands. I closed my eyes and cleared my mind, focusing entirely on the concept of my own status. System. Stats. Show me the numbers.
The moment I opened my eyes, a translucent blue screen hovered in the air. It cast an ethereal, cool glow across my spattered hands and the grey concrete floor.
Nathaniel Moretti
Level: 1
Main Class: Astral Equationist (★★★★★)
Stats: CI: 20, CON: 11, INT: 15, STR: 12, AGI: 11
I exhaled slowly, the sight of the five gold stars sending a fresh wave of vertigo through me. Aurora's voice pulled me back. "I have 20 Strength, 22 Agility, 17 Constitution, and 9 Intelligence."
I looked at my own numbers again. "I have 12 Strength, 11 Agility, 11 Constitution, 15 Intelligence, and 20 Cosmic Insight."
Aurora tilted her head, her tactical mind already analyzing the disparity. "CI? What is that?"
"I was going to ask you the same thing," I said, frowning. "You don't have it?"
She shook her head. "No. Just the standard four. What is your class?"
"Astral Equationist," I replied. "Five stars."
"Mine is Lunar Knight. Four stars." She studied her own screen with focused intensity. "Maybe that unique stat is tied to the fifth star? Or maybe it's your astrophysics background. You've spent years looking at the stars, Nate. Maybe the system recognized that."
"Maybe," I muttered. "You're level three, right?"
Her eyes widened slightly, the full weight of the kill count hitting her like a physical blow. "Yes. I... I guess I really killed that many of them."
"You saved us," I said, my voice firm. "Don't look at it as a body count. Look at it as a reason we are still breathing."
She didn't respond, but she didn't look away either. "What do you get for leveling up?" I asked, pushing us back to the logic of survival.
"I have 10 stat points to assign," she said, tapping at the air. "I'm putting three each into Strength, Agility, and Constitution. I'll put the last one into Intelligence."
I watched as she swiped at her screen, confirming the allocation with a decisive gesture. Her face was set in grim determination now. She was no longer just a student, she was a player in a game with the highest possible stakes. She turned back to me, her lips parting as if she were about to ask me what my plan was.
The words never came.
The door rattled.