Prologue
The Unraveling
[SCENE: Belfort Academy | Dormitory | Nightfall]
The night had turned strange.
The wind slipped through the cracked dormitory window, tousling loose pages and stirring the scent of ink, coffee, and impending dread. It was flicking pages on Charleston Peters’ cluttered desk. A half-written essay rustled beneath his elbow, ignored. The silence of Belfort Academy was unnatural—no laughter from the commons, no echoing footsteps in the halls. Just that wind, and the tick of the wall clock counting time like it meant something.
Charleston—known to most as Charlie P—stood barefoot on the cold floor, in the middle of his room. Pacing beneath the dim light.
His thumb was hovering over his phone, as he pressed it to his ear.
“Come on, man… pick up.”
RING. RING.
No answer.
The clock on the wall struck 12:03 AM. Too late to be casual, too early for panic. But the silence on the other end was speaking louder than any ringtone.
“Zach, if you’re off messing with that energy orb again, I swear—”
Click.
Voicemail.
Again.
RING. RING.
Still nothing.
“Zach,” he muttered to himself, staring at the blinking cursor of his last message.
“You good, bro?”
Sent. Delivered. Unread.
It was nearing midnight. Past curfew. Past reason. And past the point where he could tell himself Zach was just out on one of his usual tangents—disappearing into libraries or locked up in the science wing with some impossible theory about time memory or dimensional bleed.
But this… this felt different.
Zach had touched his shoulder earlier that day. Not unusual. What was unusual was the jolt that came with it—like an electrical current, but not painful. More like a signal. Or a silent code only Charlie was supposed to receive.
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He hadn’t said goodbye. Just that same faraway look. That fractured aura, like he’d been cracked open and stitched together wrong. Like he was fading and didn’t want anyone to see.
Charlie dropped into his desk chair; phone still clutched in his hand.
Something buzzed in his head again. Not a sound—just a feeling. Low frequency. Wrong rhythm.
It wasn’t paranoia. Not this time.
He opened the top drawer of his desk and pulled out the coin.
Zach had handed it to him two weeks ago—
No explanation, just a whisper: “You’ll know when.”
Circular, tarnished silver, etched with a sigil that pulsed faintly now under his fingers. He still didn’t know what it meant. No language matched it; no archive recognized it.
Tonight, it glowed.
He stood up. Pocketed the coin. Grabbed his jacket.
“Alright, screw this,” he muttered, dialing the only other number that made sense.
RING. RING.
A groggy voice cracked through the receiver.
“Charlie?”
Amber Daemonsworth. The school’s Librarian.
She worked in The Lost Alcove under the northern wing of the library, a Senior Student currently finished with college life. She was the main guide for the guild “Wolf Pack.” She was the Keeper of Conspiracy Threads. A Resident skeptic.
Also: Zach’s reluctant ride-or-die.
Charlie kept his voice low. “We’ve got a problem. It’s Zach. He’s gone.”
“Gone like… disappeared?”
“Gone like not here. Gone like last-contact-weird-vibes-and-magic-coins kind of gone.”
Amber sighed. Then: “Where do you want to meet?”
“Library tower. West wing.”
“Fifteen minutes.”
Click.
Charlie slid his phone into his back pocket and looked once more at the empty bed across the room—Zach’s side still untouched, sheets cold. Books stacked in his usual chaotic pattern. But something was missing.
Him.
And it wasn’t just absence—it was like he’d been peeled out of the space he used to occupy. Like the room no longer knew he’d ever existed.
* * *
Charlie Pitches Up
[SCENE: Belfort Library Tower | 12:26 AM]
The stairs creaked beneath Charlie’s weight. Ancient stone and ivy-covered walls surrounded him as he climbed, each step echoing louder than it should’ve in the still night.
Amber was already there, hunched over a table, a flashlight tucked under her chin. She glanced up as Charlie entered, then pointed to a stack of schematics laid out on the floor.
“I cross-checked your coin,” Amber said without looking up. “No match. Anywhere. Not even in blacklisted runes.”
Charlie pulled it out again, let it glow softly in his palm.
“It’s reacting. It knows he’s gone.”
Amber hesitated. “Gone where?”
Charlie didn’t answer. He looked out the window. The fog over the campus was thick, hiding the city lights beyond Velroux’s western hills.
He didn’t know where. That was the problem. He wasn’t even sure when.
“He was off all week,” Charlie said quietly. “Kept sketching circles on napkins. Muted half the time. Kept asking me if I ever remembered dreams before they happened.”
Amber raised an eyebrow. “Premonition?”
“More like… echoes. Like he was remembering backwards.”
The room fell quiet.
Charlie didn’t say it out loud, but he knew this wasn’t just a missing person situation.
Zach hadn’t left. He hadn’t run. He’d been taken, by something most people didn’t have the words to describe. And somehow, he’d known it was coming. Somehow, he’d passed the warning before slipping out of time’s grip.
Charlie glanced at the coin one last time, now pulsing like a heartbeat.
“I think…” he said slowly, “he didn’t just disappear.”
Amber looked up.
Charlie’s voice barely rose above a whisper.
“I think he unraveled.”
