The hallway swallows Ava whole. Bodies press around her, through her, a current of students with places to go and people to see. None of those people are her. She hugs her books tight against her chest, a shield against the forgetfulness that's become as familiar as her own breath. Her fingertips tingle with leftover energy from yesterday's training, small points of light threatening to surface whenever her thoughts drift to Lucian's strange reflection in the mirror.
She makes herself smaller, shoulders hunched, pressing her back against the cold metal of the lockers as the crowd surges between classes. A boy laughs too loud, the sound passing through her like she's made of mist. A girl tosses her hair, the strands momentarily obscuring Ava's vision. None of them notice. None of them see.
The bell rings, a shrill reminder that she exists in this world, even if the world doesn't acknowledge her existence. She should be in biology, but the thought of sitting in another classroom where the teacher won't call her name makes her lungs constrict.
Her palm glows faintly, and she shoves her hand deep into her pocket. She can't afford another incident, not after what happened at the lake, not with the memory of Lucian's silver eyes still watching her, still expecting so much.
"Focus," she whispers to herself, echoing his instruction. "Control it."
The light dims, but the pressure remains, a warmth spreading up her arm like a slow fever. She needs to find Sophie and Liam, needs their steadiness, their shared understanding of what they're becoming.
The crowd thins as students filter into classrooms. Ava pushes away from the lockers, planning to slip outside, to breathe air that doesn't smell like too many bodies and too many secrets.
A shoulder slams into hers, deliberate and hard. Ava stumbles, her books tumbling to the floor in a flutter of loose pages. She looks up, heart skipping as she recognizes the face glaring down at her.
Megan Porter. The girl who made seventh grade a carefully constructed hell, who whispered "freak" whenever Ava walked past, who orchestrated the Valentine's Day card signed from a boy who didn't exist.
"Watch it," Megan snaps, her eyes sliding over Ava with instinctive dislike.
Ava's throat tightens. Megan doesn't remember their history—how could she, when no one remembers anything about Ava at all? But something remains, a shadow of animosity that persists even after everything else was erased.
"Sorry," Ava murmurs, though she wasn't the one who caused the collision. She bends to gather her scattered papers.
Megan's foot comes down on a page, the sole of her shoe leaving a dirty smudge on Ava's careful notes. "What are you even doing here?" she asks, voice sharp with contempt. "I've never seen you before."
The words cut deeper than they should. Ava has existed alongside Megan for years—sat behind her in math, stood next to her in gym class photos, endured her taunts in the girls' bathroom. Now she's nothing but a stranger, a blank space Megan's mind fills with automatic dislike.
"I've always been here," Ava says, the words thick in her throat. She tugs at the paper, but Megan doesn't move her foot.
"No," Megan says, a line appearing between her perfectly shaped eyebrows. "I'd remember someone as pathetic as you."
Ava feels a flicker beneath her skin, a warm pulse of light responding to her hurt, her anger. She clenches her fist, willing it to subside. Not here. Not now.
"Just let me get my stuff," she says, voice steady despite the growing pressure behind her eyes, in her palms.
Megan's foot shifts, but instead of releasing the paper, she kicks Ava's books, sending them skidding down the emptying hallway. Two of her friends laugh from a doorway. The sound echoes, hollow and cruel.
"Go fetch," Megan says, her smile sharp as broken glass.
Something snaps in Ava—a thread of restraint, a fragment of patience. She straightens, hands trembling not with fear but with the effort of containing what's building inside her.
"Leave me alone," she says, and her voice sounds different, charged with something luminous and dangerous.
Megan's eyes widen, then narrow. She steps closer, using her slight height advantage to loom over Ava. "Or what? You'll cry about it?"
She shoves Ava hard. The impact sends her stumbling back against the lockers, metal edges digging into her spine. The pain is sharp, unexpected. Ava gasps, and with that intake of breath, the light within her surges upward, flooding her chest, her throat, behind her eyes.
Megan reaches for her again, fingers curling around the fabric of Ava's sweater.
"Don't," Ava warns, but it's too late. The pressure is too great, the control too new, too fragile.
Her hands come up in pure instinct, a defensive gesture meant to create space. Instead, they create light—searing, brilliant light that erupts from her palms in a blinding flash. It catches Megan full in the face, a white-hot burst that fills the hallway with momentary day.
Megan screams, stumbling backward. Her hands fly to her eyes as she crumples to the floor, curling inward like a wounded animal. "I can't see!" she shrieks, voice high with panic. "I can't see!"
Students scatter, their shouts and confusion a distant roar in Ava's ears. She stands frozen, horror washing through her in cold waves. Her hands are still glowing, faint pulses of light that match her racing heartbeat.
What has she done?
A teacher hurries over, his face tense with concern. He kneels beside Megan, who continues to whimper about the blinding light, the burning sensation, the temporary darkness.
"Who did this?" the teacher demands, looking up and down the hallway.
His gaze passes over Ava as if she's made of glass, as if she doesn't exist at all.
Ava backs away, step by unsteady step. Her hands are shaking, the glow finally fading as shock replaces anger. She bumps into a trash can, but no one turns at the sound. No one sees her retreating, fleeing from what she's done, from what she's becoming.
She runs, feet carrying her away from Megan's cries, away from the confusion, away from the terrible power she can't yet control. The light follows her, small sparks trailing from her fingertips like falling stars, marking her path through the silent hallways of a school that has forgotten her name.
# Scene 2
Liam runs his finger along dusty spines, looking for answers in a place built to hold them. The library smells of old paper and the faint chemical tang of cleaning supplies. He glances at the librarian, Mrs. Pearson, who stares at her computer screen with the vacant focus of someone who has forgotten why she's looking. The same vacant focus he sees everywhere now. He has three free periods thanks to a computer glitch that erased his class schedule—another symptom of their fading existence.
He pulls a heavy volume titled "Clearwater County: A Comprehensive History" from the shelf. The book lands on the table with a dull thud that doesn't cause Mrs. Pearson to look up. Liam has grown used to the strange freedom of being forgotten. No one stopping him, no one questioning why he's not in class, no one seeing him at all.
His shadow stretches beneath him, darker than it should be in the fluorescent lighting. Since yesterday's training with Lucian, it's been responsive to his emotions, expanding when he's anxious, contracting when he's focused. Right now, it pulses slightly with each turn of the page, as if reading along with him.
The history book holds nothing useful—just the standard story of settlers arriving in the 1800s, the town's growth during the lumber boom, its quiet decline into a bedroom community for the larger city nearby. Nothing about secret societies or shadow demons or forgotten teenagers. No mention of the symbols they found etched around town.
Liam closes the book with a sigh and moves deeper into the reference section. His mind drifts to Ava and Sophie. He hasn't seen them since this morning, when they'd split up to attend their separate forgotten classes. Ava had seemed distracted, her hands stuffed into her pockets as if hiding something. Sophie had been quieter than usual, wincing at sounds no one else could hear.
His shadow darkens at the thought, stretching toward the back wall as if pointing. Liam follows its direction, finding a section on local folklore and myths. His fingers pause on a thin volume wedged between larger books: "Unexplained Phenomena of the Northern Valley." He reaches for it, standing on tiptoe to grasp the edge.
As his fingers close around the spine, he hears a creak—wood protesting against metal, a sound of stress and imminent collapse. The massive oak bookshelf, poorly anchored to the wall, shifts forward an inch, then two. Books begin to slide from upper shelves, a prelude to disaster.
Liam freezes, calculation immediate and instinctive—seven feet tall, solid oak, easily five hundred pounds. The distance to safety is six steps. The time to collapse is two seconds. The math is simple and terrifying: he can't escape.
"Come on," he mutters, willing his legs to move anyway, to try the impossible. His body remains rooted, trapped in the moment before catastrophe.
The bookshelf tilts further, releasing a shower of ancient encyclopedias. One strikes his shoulder with stunning force. In that moment of pain and certain doom, Liam feels something cool and fluid unfurl from the center of his chest—a sensation like dark water flowing outward, seeking form.
His shadow detaches from his feet, stretching upward with impossible speed. It darkens, thickens, becomes substantial in a way shadows should never be. The blackness extends from his body like additional limbs, reaching past him to press against the falling shelf.
The bookcase's momentum slows, caught between gravity and the inexplicable strength of Liam's shadow. He watches, paralyzed with a mixture of fear and wonder, as the darkness from his own body holds back hundreds of pounds of wood and books.
"Move," he hisses at himself, breaking free of his stupor.
He scrambles sideways, ducking under the outstretched arm of his shadow. The darkness holds firm, giving him precious seconds to escape. His heart pounds in his ears, drowning out the continued creaking of wood and the soft thump of falling books.
Once clear, Liam turns back to watch his shadow—his darkness—at work. It strains against the weight, visibly thinning as it expends whatever energy powers it. He feels the effort in his own body, a strange draining sensation that leaves his limbs heavy and cold.
"I don't know how to control this," he murmurs, uncertain whether he's speaking to himself or to the shadow.
As if in response, the darkness begins to recede, flowing back toward him like water seeking its source. It moves with purpose, abandoning its task with what feels like reluctance. The bookshelf, no longer restrained, resumes its inexorable fall.
The crash is thunderous—a cacophony of splintering wood, tearing paper, and the duller sounds of books hitting carpet. Dust billows up in a choking cloud. Liam coughs, backing away from the destruction, feeling his shadow settle back around his feet, once again just a flat, dark outline.
Mrs. Pearson finally looks up, her expression shifting from blank to alarmed as she takes in the fallen bookshelf. She hurries over, carefully picking her way through the scattered books.
"Hello?" she calls, peering around as if sensing something amiss. "Is someone there?"
Her gaze passes directly through Liam, who stands among the chaos, chest still heaving from exertion and adrenaline. She bends to pick up a damaged book, murmuring about old shelving and poor maintenance.
Liam watches her, a strange hollowness expanding in his chest. He's just survived certain injury, possibly worse, through impossible means—and no one will ever know. No one can see him standing here, surrounded by the evidence of his growing power.
He looks down at his shadow, now behaving as a normal shadow should, stretching slightly behind him in response to the overhead lights. But he feels the potential in it, the dark energy waiting just beneath the surface of his skin.
"Thanks," he whispers to it, feeling slightly foolish but also grateful.
Mrs. Pearson glances up at the sound of his voice, a small furrow appearing between her brows. For a moment, Liam thinks she might actually see him—but then she shakes her head and returns to gathering the fallen books.
Liam steps carefully over the debris, pausing only to pick up "Unexplained Phenomena"—the book that almost cost him his life. It feels heavier than it should as he slips it into his backpack. He needs to find Ava and Sophie, needs to tell them what happened.
Their powers are growing stronger, faster than any of them expected. The question is whether they're growing strong enough, fast enough, to face what's coming.
Sophie hunches over the Echoes Almanac, her peanut butter sandwich forgotten at the edge of her tray. She's claimed the most isolated table in the cafeteria's corner, back to the wall, positioned to minimize exposure to the lunchtime noise. The book's gray cover sits half-hidden beneath her open notebook, its edges catching light in that peculiar metallic way that makes her wonder what material it's actually made of. Not paper, not leather, not any composite she's familiar with. She pushes her glasses up with one finger, then turns a page with deliberate care.
The mirror-writing swims before her eyes until she positions her compact just so, angling to catch the text in reflection. The noise of the cafeteria—hundreds of students talking, laughing, chair legs scraping against linoleum, trays clattering—fades to background as she focuses on a passage about echo filtration.
"Echoes exist in layers," she reads, mentally translating the backwards text. "Primary echoes from recent events resonate strongest. Secondary echoes require focus to isolate and interpret."
Sophie jots notes in her precise handwriting, creating a methodical outline of what she's learning. The approach soothes her, imposing order on the chaos of their situation. Three days since they discovered their powers. Two since Lucian's training session. One since she woke to find her parents' bedroom completely empty, all trace of their existence vanishing overnight.
She glances up, scanning the cafeteria with clinical detachment. None of these students know she exists. They fill the space with noise and movement, living their normal lives while she sits forgotten, reading a book of impossible knowledge. The loneliness of it catches in her throat, unexpected and unwelcome.
Sophie pushes the feeling aside, returning to her study. The next section describes techniques for sorting echoes by emotional resonance—joy from fear, love from hate. She tries to visualize the concept as described, imagining sounds arranged by emotional frequency like colors in a spectrum.
A conversation from the table nearest hers suddenly sharpens, cutting through the ambient noise with painful clarity.
"—told him it wasn't going to happen, but he kept texting me anyway—"
Sophie winces, pressing a finger to her temple. The girl's voice is too loud, too present. She takes a deep breath and tries the first technique the book describes—imagining a dial that can turn down specific sounds. She pictures it clearly, a precise mental image of reducing the volume on that particular voice.
The conversation fades slightly, but as it diminishes, other voices take its place. A boy three tables away discussing a failed math test. A lunch lady in the kitchen complaining about burnt pizza. The voices aren't just coming from the present—they're echoes from hours ago, days ago.
"—can't believe she wore that dress to prom last year—"
"—coach says I need to improve my times if I want to make varsity—"
"—absolutely failed that history quiz, my parents are going to kill—"
Sophie's fork clatters to her tray. She presses both hands to her temples, eyes squeezing shut behind her glasses. The voices multiply, overlapping in a growing storm of sound. Past and present conversations blend together, impossible to distinguish.
She tries to apply the book's teachings, attempting to sort the voices by type, by emotion, by time period. Her analytical mind grasps for patterns, for systems, for any logical framework to impose order on the chaos flooding her senses.
"Categorize," she whispers to herself. "Filter. Organize."
But the voices keep coming. A teacher's lecture from yesterday. A student's tearful phone call from a bathroom stall last week. A whispered secret from a month ago. The echoes stretch further back, conversations from before she ever set foot in the cafeteria, voices of students long graduated.
Sophie's vision blurs, the cafeteria lights too sharp, too bright. Her head pounds with the pressure of too many sounds, too many emotions, too many echoes competing for her attention. She can't shut them out. Can't filter them. Can't escape them.
"—never going to tell her how I really feel—"
"—don't think I'll get into any of my first-choice schools—"
"—parents are getting divorced but I can't tell anyone—"
"—shadow demon takes memories first, identities second—"
The last voice jolts through her like electricity. Lucian's voice, but not from any conversation she remembers. She tries to focus on it, to isolate it from the cacophony, but it slips away, submerged beneath a hundred other voices.
Sophie's hands tremble against her head. The pressure builds behind her eyes, a band of pain tightening around her skull. Her breathing comes in short, sharp gasps that nobody notices.
"Make it stop," she whispers, her voice lost in the storm. "Please make it stop."
The voices rise to a crescendo, washing over her in relentless waves. She can't think, can't focus, can't even remember the techniques she'd been studying just minutes before. Her analytical mind drowns in sensory overload, unable to process, to categorize, to understand.
The world tilts. Sophie slides from her chair, her body curling into a protective ball as she hits the cold cafeteria floor. Her knees draw up to her chest, hands still pressed to her ears in a futile attempt to block out what's coming from within rather than without.
A lunch monitor walks past, clipboard in hand, eyes scanning the tables for trouble. His gaze passes directly over Sophie's huddled form without a flicker of recognition. Just another piece of her that doesn't exist anymore.
Sophie forces her eyes open, struggling to focus on something concrete, something real. The Echoes Almanac has fallen beside her, its pages open to an illustration she hasn't seen before—a figure surrounded by concentric circles of light, hands outstretched not to receive but to direct.
She reaches for it, fingers trembling with effort. If she can just touch it, just read the next passage, maybe she can find a way out of this sensory prison.
The voices press closer, more intimate, more invasive.
"—the chosen trio must face what they fear most—"
"—sacrifice is necessary but not sufficient—"
"—patterns of erasure follow specific sequences—"
Past and present blur. Sophie's consciousness fractures under the assault, splintering into fragments of sound and memory and echo. Her last coherent thought before the darkness takes her is a cold, clinical observation: this is what it feels like when a system exceeds its capacity for input.
This is what it feels like to drown in other people's words.
The old elementary school playground stands abandoned in the late afternoon light. Rust claims the swing set chains and slides that once seemed impossibly tall to smaller versions of themselves. Ava arrives first, slipping through the gap in the chain-link fence where they've met since sixth grade. The bench waits in its hiding place, partially concealed by overgrown bushes that the groundskeeper has forgotten to trim. The groundskeeper has forgotten everything, it seems. She sits, hands thrust deep in her pockets despite the warm day, and waits for the only two people who remember she exists.
Liam arrives next, his backpack slung over one shoulder, heaviness in his steps that wasn't there this morning. The shadows beneath the bench stretch toward him as he approaches, reaching like eager fingers. He nods to Ava, a quick acknowledgment laden with unspoken understanding. Something's happened to him too.
Sophie appears last, moving with careful precision as if the world might shatter with too much noise. Her glasses sit slightly askew, and she adjusts them with trembling fingers as she takes her place beside Ava. Her notebook is clutched against her chest like armor.
None of them speak at first. The silence hangs between them, filled with the weight of individual traumas not yet shared. A crow calls from a nearby tree, the sound making Sophie wince visibly.
"I hurt someone today," Ava says finally, her voice small and tight. She pulls her hands from her pockets, revealing the faint glow that still pulses beneath her skin. Tears well in her eyes, spilling over before she can blink them back. "Megan Porter bumped into me, and she was saying things, and I just—I couldn't control it."
The light in her palms flares brighter with her distress. She details what happened in the hallway—the confrontation, the sudden surge of power, Megan's screams as she was blinded by the flash.
"She couldn't see," Ava whispers, the guilt evident in every line of her face. "I did that to her."
Liam shifts closer, not quite touching her but offering proximity as comfort. "It was an accident," he says firmly. "You didn't mean to hurt her."
"That doesn't matter," Ava counters, wiping at her tears with the back of her hand. "I still did it. And no one even saw me there. The teacher looked right through me while Megan was screaming about a light that blinded her."
Sophie finally speaks, her voice hoarse as if she's been screaming. "We're becoming dangerous." She pulls her knees to her chest, making herself smaller on the bench. "All of us."
Liam nods, running a hand through his hair. "Something happened to me too," he admits. "In the library."
He recounts the falling bookshelf, the shadow that saved him, the strange sensation of the darkness responding to his fear. As he speaks, he holds his hand out, palm down. His shadow stretches slightly beyond natural proportions, demonstrating the small degree of control he's gained.
"I can feel it now," he says, watching the darkness move. "Like it's part of me, but also... separate. Responsive."
"At least yours saved you," Sophie says, a bitter edge to her words. "Mine nearly destroyed me."
She describes the cafeteria, the overwhelming flood of voices, the complete loss of control. Her telling is clinical, each detail precisely cataloged, but her hands shake as she speaks.
"I heard things," she continues, lower now. "Not just current conversations. Past ones. Secrets. And something about the Shadow Demon—in Lucian's voice, but not from any conversation I remember having with him."
They exchange concerned glances. Ava remembers Lucian's reflection in the mirror, the expression that didn't match his words. Liam thinks of the coin his father left, the symbols that matched those in the Almanac.
"It's getting worse," Liam says, standing to pace in front of the bench. "Faster than we expected. We need to learn control before someone really gets hurt."
Sophie nods, opening her notebook to reveal pages of careful notes. "I've been studying the Almanac," she says. "There are exercises mentioned that might help us gain control, but it's complicated without proper guidance."
"What if Lucian was right?" Ava interrupts, her voice catching. "What if we need him?"
The question lingers, complicated by their shared discomfort with Lucian's methods, his secrecy, the calculating gleam in his silver eyes.
"I don't trust him," Liam says flatly. "He knows more than he's telling us."
"Of course he does," Sophie counters. "But that doesn't mean his guidance isn't valuable. The exercises in the Almanac are complex, and we're running out of time."
"If we go to him," Ava says, "we need to be careful. Set boundaries. Demand honesty."
Sophie adjusts her glasses again, her analytical mind clearly working through the problem. "We could establish a structured training regimen, focus on control rather than raw power."
As they debate, their powers manifest subtly around them. Ava's hands glow brighter, small points of light forming around her shoes like fallen stars. Liam's shadow darkens and stretches toward her feet, as if drawn to the brightness. The air around Sophie shimmers slightly, and she tilts her head, listening to something the others can't hear.
"Do you realize what's happening?" Sophie asks suddenly, pointing to the ground. "Look."
They follow her gaze. Ava's light has formed a small circle, with Liam's shadow creating a darker ring around it. The grass beneath them seems to tremble, responding to some unseen frequency.
"We're connecting," Sophie says, wonder temporarily displacing her fear. "Without even trying."
Liam kneels, examining the phenomenon with cautious curiosity. "Is this in your notes?"
Sophie flips through her notebook, stopping at a hastily drawn diagram. "The Almanac mentions resonance between the three powers, but I didn't understand what it meant until now."
Ava watches the light pulse in time with her heartbeat,