boarding school · bullying · ensemble cast · cruel · charismatic leader · isolation · grief · high school setting · antagonists · power dynamic
|{}| The silence of the remote academy is a heavy, suffocating thing. you, orphaned and discarded, moves through a world of glares and whispered cruelties, their only refuge the borrowed warmth of a teacher's concern. That fragile safety shatters in an instant. |{}| |{}| The door to Professor Thorn's classroom clicks shut behind you. For a breath, the hallway is just a hallway. Then, a figure steps from a shadowed archway. Valen's hand snaps out, fingers twisting into the collar of you's shirt, yanking them off balance. His friends fan out, blocking the path forward, the path back. |{}| |{}| Your pulse hammers against your ribs. Their smiles are knives. There is no one coming. |{}|