Morning came again, soft and golden, as if the world itself refused to wake him harshly.
Luke didn't question it anymore. He woke to the same warmth, the same distant clatter of utensils, the same quiet hum of life moving just beyond his door. It felt… consistent.
Safe, like something he could rely on.
Like something that would never leave.
"Luke! You're going to be late!"
His mother's voice carried up the hallway, laced with mock annoyance. He smiled without thinking.
"I'm up!"
The words came easily now, Naturally.
He dressed quickly, the motions familiar in a way that did not need thought. The unease from yesterday lingered faintly at the edges of his mind, but it was distant. Muted, like trying to recall a dream after waking. By the time he stepped into the kitchen, it was gone.
"Eat fast," Matt said, already standing, slinging his laptop bag over his shoulder. "You have got assessment drills today."
"Assessment?" Luke echoed, grabbing a slice of banana bread his mother handed him.
"You forgot?" Matt smirked. "Figures. I do not blame you though. If my strick older brother, who happens to be a Gentry too, were reviewing my assessment, I would be nervous too. Jake was by the door, leaning against the frame, watching. Luke noticed it again, that look. Too focused, too aware.
"You should pay attention today," Jake said, his voice casual, but something beneath it felt… layered. "Wouldn't want to fail something important, now would you?"
Luke frowned slightly.
"I don't fail."
Jake's lips twitched.
"Yeah… I know."
For a split second, there it was again. That flicker, that wrongness.
"You don't belong here." The words almost surfaced. But then...
"Shoes, Luke," his mother called out.
And just like that, it was gone.
***
The Academy stood at the edge of the city, towering and imposing, its structure carved from dark stone that seemed to drink in the sunlight rather than reflect it. Luke had seen it countless times. Walked through its gates.
Trained within its walls.
It was familiar.
It had always been part of his life…hadn't it?
"Move it," Jake said, nudging him forward as they approached the entrance.
Students flooded the courtyard, groups of young men and women, all carrying the same underlying tension beneath their conversations.
Commonalities.
That was what they were called.
Those who had just awakened. The ones who had to earn their place through discipline, through training, through surviving the trials that would eventually reshape them. Luke knew this, of course he did. And yet...
As he stepped through the gates, a strange thought slipped into his mind.
Why does this feel new?
He stopped for half a second, but the world did not. Students brushed past him, voices overlapped. The distant clang of metal echoed from the training grounds. Everything moved, everything made sense,
except that one thought.
"Luke."
He turned.
Jake stood a few steps behind him.
Too still, too lucid.
"Do you remember your first day here?" Jake asked.
The question hit harder than it should have.
Luke blinked.
"Yeah. Of course."
Jake tilted his head.
"I do not remember mine. I do not even think i made it here. It seems like you did though, so then tell me what it was like."
Luke opened his mouth, and froze. What was Jake talking about? He was a Gentry now. He trained under the Academy for almost a decade, even before becoming a Commonality. Why would he say he did not remember his first time? Was he playing one of his silly games? And yet the look on Jake's face said otherwise.
His mind reached back, nothing. No memory. No moment. No beginning. Just… continuity. As if he was just there, but ke knew he had always been there. He knew that much. However...
"I…" His brow furrowed. "I mean, i have always been..."
Jake stepped closer.
"You're not supposed to be here," he said quietly.
The world flickered. Not visibly, not physically either. But something shifted. The air felt heavier. The sounds dulled.
Luke's heartbeat spiked. "What are you talking about?"
Jake's eyes sharpened again, that same unnatural clarity cutting through everything else.
"What were you doing before this?"
Again, that same question. Again, his mind reached. Darkness, a faint, distant pain and a feeling of something breaking.
"I don't–"
A whistle shrieked across the courtyard.
"Line up!"
The instructor's voice snapped through the air, and just like that...
Jake blinked.
The tension drained from his face.
"Come on," he said, turning as if nothing had happened. "You are going to get into trouble with Instructor Rossa you dummy. Do not forget, I am here as a guest, I am not with you."
Luke stood there for a second longer, breathing hard. Confused. Something was wrong. Something was deeply, fundamentally wrong.
***
The training ground was brutal, it always had been.
Rows of students faced off in controlled combat, while others ran drills designed to push their bodies past exhaustion. Strength, speed, endurance, everything was tested.
Because Commonalities didn't get second chances. They either rose… Or they were discarded.
"Pair up!"
Luke found himself standing across from another student, barely registering the face.
"Begin!"
The clash was immediate. Instinct took over.
His body moved with precision, reacting faster than his thoughts could form. He blocked, countered, struck—each motion seamless, practiced. Perfect, too perfect.
His opponent stumbled back, breathing heavily.
"How are you–" the boy started, but Luke did not hear the rest.
Because for a split second, he saw something. A flash. Not of the training ground, but of something darker. Something violent. Himself, standing over something… broken. Covered in something that was not sweat.
His breath hitched.
The illusion shattered.
His opponent lunged again, and Luke reacted instantly, sweeping his legs out and pinning him to the ground.
"Match over!"
Cheers and groans erupted around them.
Luke stood slowly. His hands were shaking.
That was not right, that was not part of this.
"Luke."
He turned. Jake again, always Jake.
"You feel it, don't you?" Jake said, his voice low.
Luke's chest tightened.
"Feel what?"
Jake's gaze burned into him.
"The cracks."
For a moment, Luke almost understood.
Almost.
But then the instructor's voice cut through again, calling for the next drill. And like a tide pulling back. The feeling receded.The confusion softened. The edges of that thought blurred until it was nothing more than a faint discomfort.
Luke exhaled slowly.
"It's nothing," he said, more to himself than anyone else. Jake stared at him for a long moment, then sighed.
"Yeah," he said quietly. "Nothing."
***
By the time the sun dipped low, casting long shadows across the Academy grounds, Luke felt… normal again. Whole.The unease had faded and the strange flashes, the missing memories, the questions, all gone.
Replaced with something simple.
Contentment.
He walked home with his brothers, their conversation light, easy. The world felt stable again, like it had corrected itself. Like it had fixed whatever had been wrong. That night, as he sat at the dinner table, laughing at something Matt said while his mother shook her head fondly. Luke did not question anything, not anymore.
He did not notice the way Jake occasionally fell silent. He did not feel the faint, buried tension beneath the surface. Because as far as he knew, that was his life. This has always been his life. And it always will be.
The perfect life, the only life.
And somewhere, deep beneath it all, the truth sank further into silence.