In a somber tone that reflected the gravity of what happened, in front of an immaculately white studio, a journalist with black hair and eyes, solemnly looked at the camera, her voice imbued with seriousness: "A tragic episode shook the foundations of the renowned Pentagon Academy, considered the largest and most prestigious educational institution in the world. The sinister event resulted in the death of two students, young people of only 16 years old, and left a trail of three injured. The villain of this macabre act, a demon that hid under the veil of a false identity, assumed the name of Caroline Campbell and pretended to be a student of the academy itself. Details of how such an entity managed to infiltrate this institution are still under investigation.
However, in the midst of the shadow of this tragedy, figures whose courage contrasts with the darkness of the event rise. Three freshmen from the first year emerged as the main heroes of this disturbing occurrence. They were: Sam Solomons, Diana and Ellie Stormhold. The efforts of these brave young people not only prevented more lives from being lost, but also illuminated the dark reality of a threat that lurked in the corridors where knowledge and security should reign. The academic community and the world await anxiously for more information as the situation continues to unfold."
---
With a relaxed tone that contrasted with the gravity of the theme, the podcast debaters discussed fervently in an environment that resonated informality and critical analysis. "Guys, what happened was a real shame for all of us! Just imagine, a demon chilling, passing as a student at the largest academy of heroes on the planet. That is, at least, pathetic, you know? And I'll say more, if there was one in there, I bet there must be more. You can't trust that place is safe!", exclaimed one of the men, outraged by the security breach.
The colleague next to him nodded, showing agreement with part of the thought: "I agree in gender, number and degree. Security should be the basic in the school environment, especially in a hero academy, you know? Knowing that two kids, full of dreams and with a bright future, were cut off like that, by the hands of a carelessness, is painful. And then, there is the appeal: where is the official position of the academy? Until now, right, buddy, there is that silence that only increases our concern. We sincerely hope that this statement will come soon and that it will come with answers, because, honestly, this can't stay like this."
---
In an office that emanated the impression of purity with its shiny surfaces, a woman with short ebony hair and ruby-colored eyes, wore a black dress that outlined her shapes with elegance. She paid a divided attention to the voice that emanated from the TV while reflecting her own thoughts.
The broadcast highlighted: "Sam Solomons, Diana and Ellie Stormhold. These freshmen have established themselves as the great heroes of this nefarious episode. Ellie Stormhold, heiress of the prestigious hero Tom Stormhold, carved her legacy and reiterated to the world the inherent power of the surname she carries. Diana, of royal blood, endorsed her heroic saga, assuming a central role in this drama. And behold, a new virtuoso emerges, Sam Solomons, whose emerging talent from the interior silenced the skepticism of the most critical. The most promising student of his class, Sam has already printed his name on the tapestry of history and, without a doubt, promises to be a recurring figure in the narratives of future feats."
The woman, with a calculated indifference, turned to face the image projected as a hologram, her eyes frozen on the figure of the young man with black hair and eyes that mirrored hers.
---
In the recesses of a hospital room, bathed by the soft light that sneaked through the window, a boy with hair as white as snow and eyes of a deep blue was sitting, immersed in an aura of detachment. The place where his arm had once moved now gave way to a void, marked only by the presence of a bandage that wrapped his trapezius. With a glacial look that oscillated between acceptance and distance, he contemplated the empty space, internalizing a harsh reality: "I lost one of my arms…"
The void there was filled not only by the physical absence, but also by an unusual sensation that spread through his being. Blake, in the midst of this introspective whirlwind, directed his gaze to Dean, who, by his side, was absorbed in his cell phone, probably browsing through virtual worlds in some game. Feeling the weight of Blake's gaze, Dean raised his eyes, meeting those blue pools and, with an ironic smile that broke the silence of that melancholic morning, fired without taking his attention completely away from the game: "Good morning, sleeping beauty."
Dean's playful tone contrasted strongly with the seriousness of the situation. Blake, still absorbed in the reality of his condition, just nodded slightly, forcing a half smile in response to the greeting. The indifference in his eyes seemed to hide a sea of emotions that struggled to find solid ground after being thrown into an unexpected storm.
"So, how do you feel?", Dean asked, finally diverting his attention entirely from his cell phone and truly observing Blake for the first time since he entered the room. "I mean, besides the obvious…"
Blake followed his gaze to the empty space where his arm should be and, after a reflective pause, murmured: "It's like a part of me has been stolen, and I'm not just talking physically. But I'll get over it." His tone was more affirmative than interrogative, as if by uttering those words, he was acknowledging the extent of the path ahead, undoubtedly full of countless challenges and adaptations.
"I see," Dean murmured, his voice a mere whisper of contemplation as he returned to the illusory reality of his cell phone. His fingertips slid across the screen, leaving a trail of casual indifference to the gravity of the situation around him.
Blake, in turn, remained motionless, his blue eyes fixed on the figure beside him, a whirlwind of questions and conjectures taking his mind away from the present and throwing him into a sea of murky thoughts. "Who is this guy, really?" The question echoed silently in his mind. "The mana he emanates is weak compared to mine; yet, the presence… the power he showed… There must be an artifact masking his true class. At least a class A… or maybe more."
His eyes did not stray from Dean beside him. Blake's thoughts became deeper inquiries, trying to unravel why an individual of such magnitude would blend in with the others at the academy, what his secret purpose was.
Enigmatic, the character responsible for the precarious condition in which Blake now found himself sat beside him, displaying what could be interpreted as genuine concern. Blake could not unravel the discrepancy between Dean's actions and aura. It was a bitter irony; the one responsible for his ordeal seemed to be also his most vigilant guardian in the hour of need.
This paradox left him intrigued, almost as much as the pain of his amputation. Why would someone so powerful care about him? Why stay by his side in a palliative silence? And as much as he tried, Blake could not find the answers amid the quietness of the hospital room, he could only speculate silently while watching Dean and waiting for the next move in this chess game of veiled motivations and unfathomable secrets.
Dean interrupted Blake's whirlwind of thoughts with a careless demonstration of yawns and stretches. His half-closed eyes denoted a sleepless night or, perhaps, a studied indifference to everything that had happened. He stretched his arms above his head, with his joints making a chorus of satisfying cracks, accompanied by a yawn that seemed to drag the echo of his lazy words through the still sleepy room.
"You're tough, huh. Even after losing all that blood, you rested for only seven hours. Congratulations on that," Dean declared, with a tone that could be interpreted as a sign of respect, despite his casual execution. The dawn light sneaked through the curtains as he approached the door, lightly illuminating the contours of his relaxed silhouette.
The soft click of the doorknob seemed like a full stop for this short demonstration of "care." Dean cast one last look not much different from a nod before verbalizing his final recommendation. "I'm leaving now, I recommend you rest. Not that you need my permission, of course."
On the threshold between the interior and the hospital corridor, the simplicity of his expression did not seem to carry any weight of farewell. It was like watching an actor recite his final line before leaving the stage, but it was not just any theater, it was a real-life drama.
"Who are you?" Blake asked the question that burned in his mind, with a mixture of genuine curiosity and a need to contextualize the presence of the one who showed himself as an apathetic ally.
Dean hesitated, a slender figure cut out by the light that insisted on entering the room, and without turning around, he answered with a lightness that was almost amusing, given the absurdity of the situation. "Me? Oh, I'm just a guy who was in the right place at the wrong time — or would it be the other way around?"
Before Blake could decipher the puzzle behind those words or add anything, Dean had already disappeared down the hall, leaving behind the sound of his firm footsteps and the casual enigma of an identity that refused to be defined so easily.
Blake settled into the pillows with a kind of weary resignation, his mind a whirlwind that colored the silence of the hospital room with memories and musings. The universe seemed to have shrunk until it became those four white walls, a microcosm where his past and future collided with a painful clarity.
Ellie had always been a pleasant enigma in his life; a constant figure who, despite everything, had never treated him as someone put on a pedestal because of his origin or the power he accumulated. She was different; she saw in him only Blake, not the heir, not the prodigy, but the quiet boy who sometimes needed more of a friend than fans or admirers.
Both were from worlds where names carried immense expectations and, although this united them, it also made them equally isolated. Blake valued the harmony they had calibrated over the years, through training and long conversations, a balance that he found in few places.
Their friendship had evolved naturally, marked by the shared laughter and the problems fought side by side. They grew up together and, in Blake's case, this growth brought with it new, powerful and frightening feelings — love. A thought that he cherished with a mixture of wonder and fear, as if holding a jewel too precious to be his.
However, the outcome of the latest events struck him with a cutting realism. The loss of his arm was a strange dichotomy; it did not represent only the end of something, but also a peculiar beginning. Yes, there was pain in the loss, but also a strange freedom. Perhaps, Blake reflected, this was what the ancients spoke of about rebirth — that it is necessary to get rid of a part of ourselves to emerge something new and stronger.
The prospect of a new potential being unlocked did not seem so frightening when he pondered everything he was sacrificing. Could this be his awakening? His rebirth? The bitter irony of gaining and losing so grandly was almost suffocating. And Ellie… Did the price of ascension also mean leaving behind feelings that might never materialize? Was fate charging the arm that he once dreamed of wrapping Ellie as part of his growth?
Blake closed his eyes for a moment, allowing himself to feel the weight and the emptiness beside him. With each breath, with each lonely beat of his heart, he wondered if that particular pain would ever dissipate or if it would simply become an essential part of who he was destined to be.
---
Walking through the corridors of the academy, Dean hid a satisfied smile under a mask of feigned fatigue. I might have had few hours of sleep on my back, but the vigil was worth it. "Blake should start to value himself and forget Ellie," I muttered to myself, with the kind of theatricality that adds a little spice to life.
Sure, we weren't friends; far from it. My intervention in his life was less a gesture of kindness and more a whim of my own, an author rewriting his work when he saw a character get lost in an arc that I considered pathetic. Blake's toxic love for Ellie was a mistake that needed correction and, who better than the creator of the story to trim the poorly formulated edges?
Indeed, removing Blake's arm was not something that was done lightly, but in the vast plot that I had devised, it would not be the end of the world. Consequences would be, for sure, but nothing that would compromise the main events that I had already delimited. "The unforgivable is to let the work lose its vigor because of an obsessed and aimless love," I murmured as I avoided bumping into one or another early student who already circulated through the corridor.
The yawn that escaped me was authentic this time. How adorable it would be when the media bubble burst and everyone saw that darling Blake was one-armed? I could already hear the shocked murmurs — what a tragic loss! What an early career end! What a castle of cards collapsing!
But they didn't know Blake like I did. They didn't know that the true strength of the character only appears when the stage is collapsing. "You don't become a great hero without a great setback," I smiled, reviewing this maxim of the plot.
In fact, I even expected that the stain would help to improve Blake's focus and will. By getting rid of the ties with Ellie and facing the pre-judgment of the world, he would have all the meat on the grill to prove his worth.
Dodging a mop that a careless janitor had left in the way, I thought aloud: "This is just the beginning, Blake. A good story needs a bit of chaos to bring out the best in the heroes, and I, as the author, am sure that the spectacle will be worth it."
I followed the corridor, an invisible spectator on the edge of the scene, content with the work in progress. Blake's eyes may be cloudy now, lost in the pain of loss, but as his creator, I saw beyond — to a future where one less arm would be his least problem, and his greatest strength. And Ellie? Oh, she would be just another character in the vast scenario of Blake's saga. A necessary narrative adjustment, courtesy of your tired, but intervening, author, Dean.
---
The softness of the clinical environment was undeniable, with its white and immaculate walls reflecting a peaceful glow provided by the recessed lights in the ceiling. The arrangement of the medical beds, each with its own set of devices quietly monitoring the state of their occupants, hinted at an absence of haste — a quiet convalescence after the turmoil of the battlefield.
In one of the beds, Diana was reclining, a hardcover copy resting on her lap. Her eyes ran through the lines with a methodical calm that rivaled the stability of the silence around. At the same time, the space was delicately disturbed by the gestures and the lively voice of Ellie, who told the others about the recent fight.
"Then the demon attacked me, but when I dodged, I drew my katana and cut off the demon's arm, then when he attacked me again, Sam used his strange ability that left the demon motionless. Thus getting a gap for me to kill him!" She laughed with an energy that seemed more medicinal than any IV dripping beside her bed.
Sam, with his hands clasped behind his head and a modest expression stamped on his face, offered a discreet smile and nodded slightly in gratitude to Ellie's deference. "It was nothing. I just did what any of us would do," he said, the false modesty being a thin curtain for his true competence.
Ellie, with her bare feet swinging lightly over the cold floor and her gaze lost in the ceiling, as if she were reviewing the fight scene by scene, continued her account with a simplicity that made the listeners vividly imagine each movement.
Diana, although immersed in the reading, kept an ear on the narrative, displaying a small and serene smile whenever Ellie elevated the group's achievements, a serenity on her face that confirmed her own contribution without the need for vocal recognition.
In a contemplative pause, where the thoughts flowed as freely as the silence that accompanied them, the seriousness fell upon them like a mist. Sam broke that quietness with his shared concern. "And about Dean. We're going to keep it a secret, right?"
Ellie, feeling the weight of responsibility, nodded fervently. "We will! He already helped us enough by revealing who the demon was. Thanks to him, we were able to anticipate and avoid more—" a shadow passed over her face, the reality of the day's events reaching her again, and finished with a murmur, "Deaths…"
Diana, always the voice of reason, agreed with her head, her words flowing with the quiet authority that was characteristic of her. "I'm sure we all have a doubt about him, but for now, I believe we should keep everything a secret, even about the information he gave us about the demons."
"Yes, also because—," Sam began, stretching his arms in a lazy gesture, feeling the fatigue of the battle and the healing, "we wouldn't be able to explain how we found out that demons are stealing human bodies."
Ellie, the restlessness taking her out of the moment, suddenly remembered someone important. With a reflexive movement, she reached for her cell phone and dialed Blake's number. The sequence of dialing tones was the only soundtrack of the moment, except for the slow beep of the health monitors. The rings stretched, and the silence around seemed to absorb every sound without an answer.
"He never took so long to answer me before," Ellie muttered to herself, a wrinkle of worry forming on her forehead as she ended the call.
She typed a quick message, her fingers barely touching the screen as the restlessness took over her. No message delivered notification appeared, which only increased her anxiety. "Why aren't the messages getting to him? His cell phone must be dead." The disapproval in her tone slowly blended with a hint of fear, a foreboding that began to form in her stomach.
Diana and Sam, watching Ellie, shared with her a silent expression of concern, the empathy between them as visible as if they were leaves in the wind, all moving in unison in front of a worrying breeze.
Ellie tried to maintain an optimistic tone, her voice forced to hide the growing concern. "He must be okay, right? He's strong after all, there's no way he got hurt in that dungeon."
Diana nodded, promoting calm with her presence and tone of voice. "Blake is someone strong. There's no way he got hurt in the dungeon. The most likely thing is that he has his cell phone turned off while he rests," she said, directing a reassuring smile to Ellie.
Ellie took a deep breath, absorbing Diana's words. "You must be right…" she said, allowing herself to be calmed by the security of the others. Inside, the uncertainty gnawed at her, but she chose to embrace hope instead of fear. After all, as they knew Blake well, he was resilient and skilled — most likely he was somewhere improving his skills or recovering strength after an intense training.
Ellie, clinging to distractions, broke the silence that weighed on them with an unexpected novelty. "Take a look at this," she said, holding the cell phone, where a rain of notifications fell like digital confetti. "We became the media's favorites all of a sudden."
Sam, going beyond his usual caution, cheered up. "Really? Well, I hope my picture is good. I don't want to be known as the hero who needs a better angle," he joked, finding in Ellie's eyes the spark of relief they needed.
"I imagined that something like this could happen," Diana intervened with her characteristic softness and a slight smile. "But I didn't think it would be so fast. Are we 'Famous' now, then?" Diana laughed, the sound as clear and crystalline as the tinkling of a crystal glass.
"We are definitely 'Famous'," Ellie agreed, sliding her finger across the cell phone screen and showing the mentions on social media. "Look, everyone is talking about how the 'Genius', the 'Stormhold family prodigy' and the 'Princess of England' saved the day."
Sam rolled his eyes, but the pride was evident in his gestures. "I bet this 'Genius' will get me nicknames for weeks," he said, but his smile left no doubt that he didn't care as much as he wanted to show.
"I prefer 'Dancing Shadow', it has a touch of mystery," Ellie said, striking a pose as if she were holding an invisible sword. "I combined techniques, intelligence and grace. That deserves to be celebrated, right? The next cover of 'Heroes Monthly', maybe?"
Diana remained seated with a distant elegance, a book resting on her lap, discreetly reminding them of the preparation for the exam that awaited them. "I believe the paparazzi will be greatly disappointed to find out that our 'heroic life' involves more libraries, classrooms and training fields than battlefields."
Ellie laughed, putting the cell phone aside and putting her hands behind her head in a relaxed posture. "Well, when the documentaries about our lives start, I'll make sure to edit out the parts of the almost eternal study sessions."
Sam rose slightly, leaning on his elbows. "And I'll probably have to hide all those late-night snacks. I don't want them to think that The genius here needs extra fuel."
It didn't matter that the world outside saw them as icons for a moment - there, in that space, they were just themselves: a little heroic, a little students, and absolutely accomplices.
---
Lying on the mattress, Dean wrapped the comfort as if it were an old friend, and with a sigh of contentment, he murmured, "Ah, my better half, you have no idea how much I missed you."
It seemed that his spirit melted in that union with the sheets, but even on the verge of sleep, Dean's mind was a whirlwind of ironies and assumptions. "What will Ellie's spectacle be when she realizes that Blake is more interested in… practically anything other than her? I'm looking forward to the show, but until then, I'll treat myself to some dreams," he thought, a half smile drawing on his lips.
The other characters had gradually placed Dean on a pedestal of enigma. "It wasn't in the plans to be so intriguing," he considered with a sarcastic smile. "But, oh, how the audience loves a mystery."
His plans did not include giving himself emotionally to the group. "Let them chew on their doubts; my indifference is the perfect smoke screen for my true moves."
He knew that, with the adversary in an eternal sleep, the others' guard would be low. "There will be no new spies among us… for now." In the corner of his mind, the next steps of the enemies danced macabrely. "They are eager, ready to unleash chaos on our peaceful getaway. An attack during the holidays, predicted like a clock."
Dean could already imagine the scenario; the planned massacre was like a disastrous play waiting to happen. And in the middle of that play, he would emerge, two steps ahead, always actor and strategist. "And then," Dean thought, "in that serene place full of horrors to come, I will conquer what I have been seeking from the beginning…"
As he finally allowed sleep to envelop him, the last idea that flirted with his consciousness before falling asleep was the certainty that he would be the author of the final twist in their plot. "Me, the unlikely hero? No," he muttered to himself. "The silent architect… that's a more appropriate role."