He stood there for a second too long, simply taking in the unfamiliar. The wind picked up, catching his hair and blowing dust into his eyes. As he rubbed them, he lost focus, and in that brief moment he was swallowed by the sea of students. The crowd carried Blaze forward into the academy, his feet barely his own as the tide of bodies pushed him onward.
By the time he emerged from the crowd, he found himself in the academy's long hall.
The ceiling stretched high overhead, coloured banners hung in symmetrical rows as far as the eye could see. Glass display cases lined the hall, each containing a weapon. They were few and far between but each one carried the weight of a thousand ordinary ones, these timeless artifacts seemed to carry an almost mythical presence, for a moment he felt a low hum emanating from one of them, he stopped and looked at it, a double-sided warhammer, it was nearly as tall as Blaze himself and yet he couldn't help but think.
"I wish I wielded something like that."
He wasn't singular in that thought; many children grew up aspiring to be a great warrior, remembered in legends, wielding fearsome magic and an unstoppable weapon.
Blaze knew that his dream was anything but realistic, the world made that obvious by now, he wasn't of noble-birth, and he was yet to have any formal training, Beastfall was a last resort for kids like him, the highly competitive system accepted almost anyone, put them through brutal training, processed them through written and practical exams, and only the best few would graduate and be assigned to a squadron.
His golden eyes stayed locked onto the hammer, and without any further thinking, he stepped out of the mob and walked towards it, as he reached it he realised this was an extremely heavy weapon—impossible for almost any man to wield, forged of platinum and a mysterious gleaming metal Blaze couldn't identify, it stood at nearly 70 inches tall. He couldn't imagine a man lifting it, nevermind swinging it.
There was a script written on a small pedestal, inches in front of the warhammer.
Blaze began to read,
"Displayed here is the great-hammer of Ser Alexander The Icebreaker—most notably used in the second battle of Winterveil where, in a single swing, he defeated the fearsome Icehide Stonebeast."
"What are they eating up north?"
he muttered to himself.
His gaze lingered on the hammer for another second.
"Whatever. I'll make my own way forward."
he thought.
He stepped back and walked back into the crowd, down the hallway.
The students around him were just as anxious as he was.
At least he wasn't alone in how he felt here.
As he walked in unison with the other first years, he began to analyse the situation, trying to figure out where they were going.
The more he watched, the more he noticed, and the more he noticed, the more disoriented he became.
The halls buzzed with commotion. Older students hurried past, instructors cutting through the flow with sharp purpose, each one with a place to be and a person to consult with. Doors opened and closed. Voices echoed and overlapped. Time stretched strangely as Blaze grew increasingly disoriented from the chaos around him, until what felt like an eternity later, an instructor finally gestured toward a set of massive doors.
"This way."
announced a man in a stern tone.
He was tall and unsmiling with dull grey eyes that bore into his soul, he wore a freshly tailored midnight blue academic tunic with rigid chainmail underneath, protective yet formal.
Blaze didn't know who he was, but his presence was commanding enough that he followed anyway.
He stepped inside, the grand hall was too large to feel real.
He stood shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other first-years, all of them dwarfed by the vaulted ceiling far above. The walls were scarred with claw marks and etched with runes, rising like the ribs of something primordial and long dead. Banners hung motionless despite the draft curling through the room, heavy with age and meaning he didn't understand.
He clenched his hands at his sides, afraid they'd start shaking if he didn't.
"Don't get cowardly, not now—I am safe, I am strong."
he affirmed—or lied—to himself.
"Welcome to Beastfall Academy."
The voice carried effortlessly across the hall. An instructor stood at the front dais, silver-threaded robe pristine, posture immaculate. Her expression was calm, too calm, in a way that felt practiced, as if she'd told the same speech a hundred times.
"You are here because you survived long enough to arrive," she continued. "That alone places you above most."
A few students let out nervous laughter.
Blaze didn't.
"Tch. Survival is a must," he muttered under his breath. "The bare minimum."
A few heads turned toward him, some murmuring in agreement, others simply annoyed he spoke aloud out of turn. As the instructor spoke on, they all faced forward again.
To Blaze?
It all blurred together from here.
She spoke of conduct. Of dormitories. Of classes and schedules and curfews. Of safety protocols and emergency bells.
The words sounded normal enough, comforting even.
That is if they all ignored the scars cut deep into the stone floor beneath their feet...
His focus began to waver, a sensation he'd never felt before stirred somewhere deep within, then an innate sense of dread washed over him.
And that's when he heard it.
The scream came from the front of the hall.
It cut through the orientation speech like a knife, high and raw, and for half a second Blaze thought it was simply part of the demonstration. That thought died the moment the rest of the hall erupted in the screams of his peers.
The runes beneath their feet flared.
Blaze felt it before he saw it. The air thickened, pressing against his chest like an invisible hand. His heartbeat stuttered.
"This is just a controlled—"
The instructor's voice cut off as the circle at the center of the hall darkened, swallowing the light. Something pushed up from below, slow and wet, its clawed limbs scraping against the floor as it forced itself into the hall.
A monster.
Long and plated in obsidian armour. Each step left cracks in the stone beneath it. Molten rock dripped from the gaps in its hide, hissing where it struck the floor.
A living siege engine.
It exhaled a breath of steam, lava dripping from its jagged scales of obsidian.
Students surged backward in panic, bodies slamming together. Blaze was shoved off balance, boots skidding across scarred stone. Someone grabbed his sleeve and nearly tore it off in their panic before disappearing into the crowd.
"Remain where you are!" an instructor commanded.
No one listened.
The creature lunged, claws gouging furrows into the stone with every movement.
Blaze didn't run fast enough.
He felt it rush past him instead, close enough that the wind of its movement snapped his jacket and sent him stumbling. A heartbeat later, blood sprayed across his face and torso. Hot, slick, real.
The scream beside him cut off.
Blaze froze.
The monster turned.
One of its eyes, a sunken pit of glowing embers—locked onto him, unmoving, unblinking. His thoughts collapsed into noise. He couldn't move. Couldn't breathe. Couldn't even scream.
"This is it. This is how I die…"
he thought.
There was no way out, he couldn't run, not fast enough, couldn't fight, not strong enough and there was nobody coming to help him.
Then the creature hesitated.
Just a fraction of a second, but Blaze felt it stretch, heavy and wrong. Its head tilted in confusion, nostrils flaring, as if it had caught a scent it didn't like.
Then it looked away.
It leapt back into the crowd, chaos erupting all over again.
Blaze dropped to his knees, gasping, staring at the blood on his hands that wasn't his. His whole body shook, teeth clicking together so hard it hurt.
"What the hell..."
he said to nobody in particular, touching his face to make sure he's not dreaming, or dead.
A sudden beam of light exploded from across the hall.
The instructors moved at last. Freezing spells tore through the air. The monster screamed, shrill and furious before being frozen into an obsidian statue and then dragged back into the dark circle it came from.
Silence fell.
"Orientation will continue," the instructor said calmly.
Blaze didn't hear the rest.
All he could think was that he hadn't survived because he was competent.
He'd survived because something had decided—just for a moment—not to kill him.
And whatever reason it had scared him more than the monster ever could.