Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 45: A Promise of Annihilation
"What are you standing there and waiting for? Won’t you get going?" Zoe’s voice boomed from the left side.
She clicked her tongue and pulled a sheer, white privacy curtain hanging from the ceiling on a track.
In an instant, it surrounded the mirror and the table in a gauzy cocoon.
Through the translucent fabric, her form became a ghostly silhouette, blurred and indistinct.
Leon caught the movement of her raising arms, the towel presumably falling away.
His face heated again as he swiftly looked back down at the datapad in his hands.
The screen glowed to life, instantly scanning his fingerprint after he thumbed the power button.
On the bright screen, a list draped in larger text appeared.
RE-CALIBRATION PROTOCOL: STORM, L.
Skill Grade: E.
Task 1/5: Cardiovascular Baseline.
Objective: Complete a 100-meter sprint at minimum 90% of calculated peak velocity.
Time Allotment: 60 minutes. Commencing 09:00.
Saliva snaked down his throat as his eyes flicked to the clock above the bathroom door.
Tick. Tock.
"08:52." His face ran cold as a focused smile touched his lips.
"Where can I even find it?"
He searched for his hoodie and found it neatly folded on the chair by Zoe’s cosmetics.
The moment he neared it, he saw a pair of black training trousers from a sealed academy kit by the foot of his rippling bed.
With fast movements, he pulled the hood up and shielded himself.
Leon left without another word or even entering the bathroom to take a shower or brush the sleep lines off his face with a splash.
The ghost of Zoe’s silhouette watched him from behind the sheer curtain as he exited and slammed the door shut.
BAM!
Entering the hallway again was like entering a river of murmurs.
Colourful outfits glowed like a disco light, giving the hallway itself life.
The buzz of students heading to their morning drills or first session wrapped around him like clothes he couldn’t detach from.
But it fractured into distinct whispers as he passed them and stood at the front of the elevator.
The hum of the mechanical sound from the inside of the closed metal door mixed with that of those behind him.
"...Did you see him?"
"...Who?"
"...The boy who just moved past us, the Dusthollow boy..."
Leon’s lips prickled into a soft smile as he filtered the whispers from the hum.
"...Why should I care about a mere stranger?"
"...He’s not a stranger..."
"...Then who is he?"
"...That’s him—the guy who collapsed after fighting with the maniac..."
Leon’s head snapped to the left, but he quickly tilted it forward, letting the whisper take its form.
"...Are you sure? I thought he was dead... or in some endless coma..."
"...Dead?! No, he’s not. Hayes brought him back last night in an MRAP, I saw him..."
"...Heard he snapped and killed some nurses at Winji Central Hospital..."
"...Is that so? That’s why the promoted nurses weren’t around after we took the corpses there the last two days..."
For a moment, the face of the fair nurse shot up in Leon’s eyes.
Dissatisfaction filled for a second, but he brushed it off after brushing his right arm through his face.
He inhaled softly, then tuned his ears back.
"...Does that mean he has been tested using the assessment orb..."
"...Check the letter inscribed on his chest?"
"...Grade E, I can see it..."
"...Pathetic. He won’t last a day back here..."
"...He should have remained dead in the hospital..."
Leon kept his head down, but his honed senses picked out every detail.
From tilting heads, rolling eyes, smiling faces, and laughter that wouldn’t die.
Some faces remained tensed as they moved past him whenever the elevator door opened.
New faces entered, while old ones exited, letting Leon become like an ant between them.
"HHHhew."
A sigh burst out, followed by a huge sums of air that exited his mouth the moment he stepped into the elevator.
Their faces flickered past him as the silver-colored door closed, yet that wasn’t what had dragged his attention.
He glanced at the chests of passing students and smiled after he saw small, luminous pins denoting their official skill Grades: C, D, and E.
Then, at the exit of the hallway leading toward the large exit point from the elevator, he saw it.
Behind him, as he turned from the centre of the hallway, he saw a proctor entering the elevator.
The polished ’B’ on her lapel gleamed under the elevator’s light as the mechanical door slowly closed behind him.
It seemed to pulse with a quiet, superior authority, almost as if letting the light bow to it.
"Grade B," he whispered and kept nodding as the lizard-lady’s desperate deadline echoed in his skull.
The late morning’s sun stabbed at Leon’s eyes the moment he exited from the outside walkway and entered the main front, where no platform was raised.
The cream-colored dormitory threw torch-like lights on him as his reflection lingered on it for just a second.
There, the real world contrasted with the sterile light of the WinJi Hospital, the strange building he was taken into, or the amber hell of the illusion he had had.
Leon lowered his hood, letting the cool air hit his face like a blow.
Dry and brittle leaves spun in miniature vortexes around the trunks of the thick trees lining the pathways.
Bird hums filled the air as he tilted his head slightly and stared at the bright blue sky for a second.
He followed the map in the bright light emitted from the datapad.
At the point to which the map pointed, he stopped and inhaled deeply.
Leon pulled his hands from his pockets and rolled his shoulders.
After removing the hood from his head and cracking the bones in his knuckles and neck, his face tensed.
"LEON!"
A voice boomed across the central quad. It didn’t sound like a call, but a volcanic eruption of recognition and malice.
The ambient noise faded, followed by a pause in conversation and the loud footsteps.
Every head in the vicinity swivelled, first toward the source, then toward the boy whose jet-black hair glittered under the sun after removing his hood.
The groups of students and trial participants looked at him not as a person, but as a ghost who had just made a terrible, ill-advised return.
Standing at the top of the granite steps leading to the trial hall was Tiger Kang.
He wasn’t smiling nor grinning; his expression was one of pure, unadulterated eagerness, as if a long-awaited meal had just been served on his table.
The sun’s rays glinted off the ring on his finger—the very ring that had stolen the hydrokinetic’s power.
In the sudden, ringing silence, Tiger’s gaze locked onto Leon’s as he turned and faced the direction his name rang from.
Leon saw a promise of annihilation written in the cold, dark depths of Tiger’s blue eyes.
At that moment, the 100-meter sprint, the other four tasks to undertake, the proctor’s meeting, and the strange pairing with Zoe all receded.
They remained dwarfed by the immediate predatory reality standing fifty yards away.
