Casper Zhang, Cecilion's half-brother from his father's mistress, was only two months older than him. The more Harith stared at them, the more uncanny their resemblance became. If not for Casper's thick-rimmed glasses, they could have passed as twins.
"Why are you here?" Casper repeated, his sharp gaze darting between Cecilion and the others.
Behind him, the two men accompanying him quickly locked the door, while the three women in their group huddled toward the opposite corner of the room, their wary eyes scanning the newcomers.
"I wish I knew," Cecilion replied, lowering his makeshift weapon with cautious ease. "What about you?"
Casper let out a frustrated groan and shrugged. "Same thing." He reached up, pulling off his glasses to clean them against the hem of his damp shirt.
The moment he did, everyone froze.
"They do look the same," Mateo breathed in disbelief, almost covering his mouth.
Zixuan and the others exchanged stunned glances. They had spent so much time with Cecilion, yet not once had he mentioned having a brother—let alone one who looked nearly identical to him.
Casper merely wiped the lenses of his glasses, then slipped them back on as though oblivious to their shock. "We were out playing when things started getting weird. The city… it wasn't the same when we left."
"The city was emptied, right?" Zixuan asked, her voice low.
Casper turned his head slightly toward her, his expression unreadable. "Yeah. No people, no lights. Just… silence."
"No one at all," one of the men behind him added, his voice edged with unease. "It was like the whole place had been wiped clean. But here's the real question—did you guys come across an abandoned train station?"
Zixuan's group exchanged glances before shaking their heads.
"No," Daniela answered. "We came across an abandoned bus station."
"A bus station?" Casper's group exchanged their own uneasy looks.
Mateo continued, rubbing the back of his neck. "Yeah. Then some kind of monstrous creature chased us, and we had no choice but to take shelter here. When we finally reached this room, it looked exactly like our classroom, so we figured it was the safest option."
"Ahh…" A woman with a sharp bob-cut raised a skeptical brow. "How so? Have you ever even been in our school's classrooms before, so you could compare? Cimmerian University is way more prestigious than Cerulean University. There's no way you could—"
"Wait, what?" Daniela cut her off, her brows furrowing. "What do you mean Cimmerian? We're literally inside our school—CERULEAN. UNIVERSITY," she empathized, matching the woman's attitude.
The tension in the room thickened.
"Excuse me?" Another woman with long, straight hair scoffed, crossing her arms. "There is no way you—"
"Enough." Casper raised a hand, cutting her off before the argument escalated. His sharp eyes darted between the two groups, his mind already piecing together the implications.
"It seems to me that we're not seeing the same things," he concluded, his voice eerily calm.
Cecilion's eyes locked onto his brother's, sharp and calculating and everyone could tell they have the same conclusion.
"What do you mean?" Zixuan asked, a creeping sense of unease curling in her gut.
Casper exhaled slowly. "I mean that whatever this place is, it's not just some illusion. We're all standing in the same room, but we're seeing completely different realities, otherwise this argument wouldn't make sense."
A heavy silence followed.
"Hold on, you're saying that we're inside our classroom, but you see your classroom?" Harith asked, trying to wrap his head around it.
"That's exactly what I'm saying," Casper confirmed. "And that means this place is messing with our perception."
Zixuan's stomach twisted. If that was true, then… what else could be distorted? Their sense of direction? Their memories? Their time?
Casper turned to Cecilion again, his expression unreadable. "Well, since neither of us knows what's going on, I think it's safe to say we should help each other out. What do you think… brother?"
Cecilion didn't answer immediately. He only stared at Casper, his gaze searching, as if trying to decipher something hidden beneath his half-brother's words.
And for the first time since they arrived in this twisted place, an unsettling thought crept into his mind—
What if Casper and his group are just a part of this twisted illusion?
The thought struck Cecilion like a dagger in the dark, cold and intrusive. It wasn't impossible. This place—wherever it was—had already shown its ability to manipulate reality. Who was to say it couldn't fabricate people too?
Still, he kept his expression calm, forcing a faint smile as he met his half-brother's gaze.
"Of course," Cecilion said smoothly.
Casper's lips curled into a grin, but his eyes remained sharp, calculating.
Their history was far from one of brotherly affection. While they shared the same father, they had never truly been brothers—not in the way it mattered. Casper, the eldest by a mere two months, should have been the rightful heir to their father's empire. That was tradition. That was law.
But tradition and law meant nothing when a child was born from a union deemed a mistake.
Casper's very existence was a stain on the pristine Zheng family lineage—a child conceived through obligation rather than love, a reminder of their father's sins. As a result, he had been stripped of his birthright, and that privilege had fallen to Cecilion instead.
It had been an unforgivable slight, one that Casper's mother—herself from an influential family—had not taken lightly. She had fought viciously for her son's place, dragging the family into a legal and social war that turned the two boys into pawns. What should have been an unbreakable bond between brothers had been poisoned from the start.
To escape the never-ending conflict, Cecilion had chosen to distance himself, enrolling in a different schools altogether. He had thought that by severing their ties, he could leave the past behind.
But fate—or whatever cruel force was at play here—had other plans.
And now, here they were. Face to face.
The tension in the room was palpable.
Casper's group remained wary, their eyes flickering between Cecilion's friends as if assessing them, measuring their worth. Meanwhile, Zixuan, Mateo, and the others stood rigid, their unease growing by the second.
"So," Casper finally said, slipping his hands into his pockets, "since we're all stuck in this hellhole, why don't we pool our knowledge? Maybe we can figure out what's really going on here."
Zixuan exchanged a glance with Cecilion. Her gut told her not to trust them—at least, not yet. But what choice did they have?
Harith stepped forward, folding his arms. "Alright," he said. "But first, let's set some ground rules. No secrets, no lies. If we're gonna work together, we need full transparency."
Casper chuckled, tilting his head. "Full transparency? That's rich, coming from you guys."
Harith frowned. "What's that supposed to mean?"
Casper smirked but said nothing.
Cecilion watched the exchange carefully. This wasn't just about survival—this was a game of control, of dominance. And knowing Casper, he was already playing to win.
Still, Cecilion forced another smile.
"Well then," he said. "Let's start from the beginning. What exactly happened before you and your group ended up here?"
Casper studied him for a moment before finally speaking.
"That's the thing," he said. "We don't remember."
Silence.
Cecilion's smile faltered ever so slightly.
"What?" Zixuan asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Casper sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "We remember being in the city. We remember the world suddenly going… empty. We remember running into the train station." He gestured toward the others in his group. "But after that? It's a blur. Next thing we knew, we were here."
A chill ran through the room.
"That doesn't make sense," Daniela muttered. "We remember everything."
"Do you?" Casper asked, tilting his head. "Are you sure nothing is missing?"
The question lingered in the air like a shadow.
Cecilion clenched his jaw, his mind racing. Was it possible? Had something been erased from their memories without them even realizing it?
His eyes flickered to Casper. This wasn't just a coincidence.
"Oh, silly," Mateo said with a forced chuckle, trying to lighten the tense atmosphere. "How about we introduce ourselves first before anything else? You know, in case some monstrous creature jumps in, we'd at least know who to call out."
It was clearly a joke, but the unsettling silence that followed showed just how much everyone feared the possibility of a creature lurking nearby. No one dared to laugh—one misplaced chuckle, and who knew what would be triggered in this nightmare?
Casper, clearly trying to keep his composure, raised an eyebrow and sighed, as though the reality of their situation had finally sunk in.
"Fine, I'll go first. I'm Casper Zhang." He gestured toward the man standing beside him, his expression grim but composed.
"This is Chase Straus." Chase, a tall, muscular figure with an unapproachable aura, gave a curt nod, his eyes scanning the room as if looking for any signs of danger.
"Next," Casper continued, pointing to the second man behind him, "Lucas Adams." Lucas, more laid-back than Chase, smiled faintly but his eyes betrayed his anxiety. He kept his hands in his pockets, shifting his weight from one foot to the other, clearly uncomfortable with the situation.
The two women beside him were quieter, yet no less tense.
"This is Daphne Saito," Casper said, indicating a woman with short, dark hair who seemed deep in thought, her arms crossed protectively over her chest. Her gaze flickered around the room as if expecting something to jump out from the shadows.
"And Isabella Jones," he added, pointing to a woman with long, flowing blonde hair, who gave a tight-lipped smile and shot a glance toward the door, her nerves palpable.
"Lastly," Casper concluded, "Charlotte Watanabe."
Charlotte was the youngest of the group, the one with a bob-cut hair with an attitude. Her bright eyes wide with fear as she anxiously tugged at the sleeves of her jacket. She didn't speak but gave a small nod to acknowledge her introduction.
After a brief pause, the introductions turned toward the original group, and Mateo took the lead.
"I'm Mateo Dela Fuenco," he said with a half-smile that didn't reach his eyes. "And as I said before, I'd rather be in a game right now, but life's not always fair." He glanced at Zixuan next, knowing full well the others would want to hear about her.
"Zixuan Zhao," she said quietly, her usual confidence replaced by a hint of hesitation. She'd never been in a situation like this, and the surrealism of the moment had her on edge.
"Daniela O'Sullivan," Daniela added next, her voice steady but her expression tense. She gave a small, reassuring nod to the others, though it was clear she didn't feel quite as reassuring herself.
"Paige Moore," Paige said softly, not meeting anyone's eyes, though her sharp, observant gaze never seemed to miss a detail in the room. Despite the fear in her chest, she remained composed and calm.
"Harith Kennedy," Harith announced, flashing a crooked grin that didn't mask his unease. He gestured to Cecilion next, the one person whose presence had brought some familiarity amidst the chaos.
"And he's Cecilion Zheng," he added, giving Cecilion a nod that conveyed more than just a simple introduction.
Casper studied Cecilion for a long moment, the tension between them palpable, though neither of them showed it outwardly. It was strange, to be here, in this bizarre and terrifying place, standing face to face with the half-brother he barely knew.
"Nice to meet you all," Casper finally said, his voice barely more than a whisper. "Now that we've gotten that out of the way... we really need to figure out what the hell is going on."