California, 2025. The sun was blazing, the sky obnoxiously blue, and Orien Duskwright was—
Still asleep.
The fourth blare of his Superman-themed alarm clock finally did the trick.
"Ugh… I'm up! I'm up!" Orien groaned, swatting at the clock before squinting at the time. "7:05?! Oh crap—I'm gonna be late!"
He jumped out of bed, promptly tripped over his own bedsheets, and slammed face-first into the floor.
"Ow… damn it." He rubbed his face. Red, but still functional.
Note to self: stop sleeping like a cocooned idiot.
He scrambled to the bathroom, brushed his teeth in record time, and threw on clothes in a blur:
Black t-shirt with a cartoon cat doing an ollie on a skateboard
Black joggers
Red Converse
A red zip-up hoodie with the Superman emblem on the back, which he proudly left open like a cape
He grabbed his backpack and bolted downstairs. Just as his hand reached for the front doorknob—
"Leaving without saying goodbye?" said a voice behind him.
He froze.
"Sorry, Mrs. Penelope," he said, cheeks turning just a little red.
The woman standing behind him—gray curls, sun-wrinkled skin, and a no-nonsense gaze softened by maternal warmth—was more than just his caretaker. She was the heart of the whole orphanage.
"You know," she said gently, "you can call me Mom. Whenever you're ready."
"I know," he murmured, then hugged her quick. "Thanks."
He waved goodbye to a few of the younger kids bustling in the living room—some headed to school, some waiting to be adopted—and darted out the door.
That's when he saw the bus pulling away.
"Oh, come on!" he shouted, chasing after it.
No chance.
So he did what any desperate, semi-responsible foster kid would do.
He stole a neighbor's bike.
"Orien!" came a shout behind him. "Get back here!"
"Sorry, Mr. Fredrickson! I'll bring it back after school—I swear!"
At school, Orien ditched the bike out front, hoping it wouldn't be gone by the end of the day. The big silver letters above the door gleamed in the morning sun:
LOS ANGELES HIGH SCHOOL
Los Angeles, California
Time for another exciting day of falling asleep in class, he thought, pushing open the door and slipping into the halls.
First period was World History, and he made it just in time.
"Welcome back, everyone!" his teacher beamed at the class. "I know it was a long weekend, but we've got something special today. Who's ready for the field trip to the Natural History Museum?"
The room exploded in cheers.
"Settle down, settle down," she said, waving them toward the door. "Grab your things and head to the bus. Let's not keep the mammoths waiting."
On the bus to the Natural History Museum, Orien sat by the window, chin resting on his palm, letting the hum of the road lull his thoughts into a quiet haze.
Outside, the morning sun painted everything gold—cars shimmered, palm trees swayed, and the streets of Los Angeles buzzed with early life.
Then something shifted.
From the corner of his eye, Orien caught movement. A shadow—long and narrow—stretched from a public trash can near the sidewalk. For just a heartbeat, it twitched, like something had crawled out of it… and then vanished.
His breath hitched. He blinked, stared harder at the spot—but nothing was there. Just pavement and sun. Just a trash can casting a perfectly ordinary shadow.
"Huh…" he murmured under his breath. "Must've been seeing things. I really need to get my vision checked."
He leaned back in his seat, but didn't take his eyes off the sidewalk for a while.
The museum loomed tall and pristine, its glass-paneled entrance gleaming in the sunlight as the buses hissed to a stop at the curb.
One by one, the students of Los Angeles High stepped off, buzzing with excitement. Chaperones herded them forward as they entered the wide marble lobby, where ancient history seemed to whisper from every glass case and display.
Orien stuck close to the group, glancing from exhibit to exhibit. There were relics from Greece, Rome, Egypt—even preserved shoes from centuries ago, cracked with age but frozen in time. Clay pots lined the walls, delicate and hand-painted. Robes of faded linen and silk fluttered slightly in the museum's air-conditioned breeze, protected behind glass.
An hour passed in a blur of softly murmured facts and dusty artifacts. Eventually, Orien raised his hand.
"Mr. Koivisto, can I hit the restroom real quick?"
His history teacher—a tall, tired man with deep eye bags and a passion for Neolithic agriculture—gave a distracted nod. "Make it quick, Orien. We're moving to the fossil exhibit in ten."
"Got it," Orien said, already heading off.
The tiled hallway was quiet, cooler than the main hall. He pushed open the door to the Men's Restroom, stepped into a stall, and sighed.
"Finally."
As he handled his business, he started humming to himself, then quietly muttered:
"Can't read my, can't read my,
No he can't read my poker face…"
He chuckled at his own ridiculousness.
After finishing, he flushed, turned around—and froze.
Just outside the stall door, barely visible in the corner of his eye, a tall shadowy figure glided silently across the tiled floor. Not walking. Sliding. And then—it was gone. Vanished without a sound.
He stood there, heart ticking faster than he liked. Silence.
"...Okay," he whispered to himself. "Maybe I shouldn't have stayed up until 2 a.m. reading All-Star Superman. But damn was it worth it."
Shaking off the shiver crawling down his spine, Orien washed his hands and exited the bathroom, plastering on a normal expression like nothing had happened.
He rejoined his class at the Fossil and Preservation Hall, now standing beneath the towering skeletons of creatures long dead—but not forgotten.
We passed towering fossils and long-dead giants. The class buzzed around a reconstructed T-Rex, then drifted to a mammoth and a few extinct birds sealed in glass.
Then came the Sabertooth Tiger exhibit.
I hung near the back of the group. While everyone pressed forward, I noticed something strange—a flicker. A shadow, just for a second, slipping left into a nearby hallway.
No one else seemed to see it.
I followed.
The hallway was dim and quiet. Display lights hummed faintly. I scanned the corners—nothing. I sighed, ready to head back—
Then a growl stopped me cold.
Low. Metallic. Wrong.
I turned.
A sabertooth tiger, huge and hunched, stood in the middle of the room—its body made entirely of shifting shadow. Its form was semi-solid, like thick smoke frozen mid-motion. Its eyes dripped black fluid that curled upward before reabsorbing into its body.
Then it lunged.
I jumped aside, barely dodging. Claws sliced through my shirt—and my skin.
"Ahhh!" I hissed, stumbling. Ink splattered across the tear, mixing with a trickle of blood.
It charged again.
I froze.
One step closer and I was done. I clenched my jaw, closed my eyes.
"Damn. Guess I'm dying a virgin."
A shriek of pain split the air—but not mine.
When I opened my eyes, the shadow-beast had stopped.
And Mr. Koivisto stood between us.
"Orien—stay back!" Mr. Koivisto shouted, stepping forward.
He pulled something from his coat. A quill pen.
I blinked. "Wait… is that a—pen?"
He didn't answer.
Instead, he lifted the quill and began chanting in a language I couldn't place—his voice calm, precise. At the same time, his hand moved fast, drawing invisible symbols into the air.
Except… they weren't invisible.
Words began forming—glowing ink suspended in midair, curling like smoke:
"Dies clarissimus et noctes nigerrimas ex oculis apparentes redde.
Hac luce qua me contineo ad somnum statim ire necesse est."
The last syllable echoed—and suddenly, a burst of blinding light exploded outward.
The sabertooth tiger let out a guttural scream, its form unraveling, disintegrating into curls of shadow and ink until nothing remained.
I stared, wide-eyed. "W-what the hell was that…?"
"For now, it's over," Mr. Koivisto said, lowering his quill. "That spell only sent it back to where it came from."
"So it's not dead?"
"No. Just delayed."
I stepped closer, heart still pounding. "What was that thing? And how did you do… that?"
He turned to me, serious. "That was a Shadow Beast—creatures born from the Umbralis Realm. And I was able to fight it because I'm what's known as an Inkborn."
"Inkborn…?" I echoed, trying the word on my tongue.
He nodded. "And you're one too. That's why it attacked you."
"What?" My voice cracked slightly, though I caught myself before completely freaking out. "But I—I mean... I don't even know what that means."
Koivisto studied me for a long moment, as if searching for something beneath the surface.
"Every Inkborn walks a path. And whether they want it or not, they're bound to a higher fate." He paused. "Do you know what the ultimate goal of any Inkborn is?"
I swallowed, throat dry. "No… what is it?"
His gaze sharpened. "To become a Transcendent."