The celebration didn't last.
By morning, Malik's name had vanished from the chatter. The academy had already moved on—attention shifted to the final trial. Whispers turned into countdowns. Laughter faded into silence. Even the instructors wore their tension like armor.
Then came the announcement:
> "Of the 32 active teams, only 20 will be fully admitted for planetary training. The bottom 12 will be dismissed."
Dismissed.
Just like that.
The word echoed through the halls like a sentence passed. Malik sat frozen, eyes locked on the glowing leaderboard.
Falcon Team: Ranked 28th.
Eight spots below the cut.
Hope began to unravel.
"How are we getting to top twenty?" someone muttered from across the room. No one answered.
"If only Malik had shown up in the first trial…" said another, louder this time.
"But we won the Flag Trial because of him," Margaret snapped, her voice sharp.
"We're already behind because of him," came the cold reply. "One good trial doesn't fix a late start."
The room simmered.
Accusations surfaced like cracks in stone.
"You fell during the first drill!" another cadet shot back. "Don't act like you've been carrying us."
Margaret clenched her fists. Always composed—now she looked ready to break something.
But it was Frank who cut through the rising storm.
"We should be focusing on how to win this," he said. Quietly. Calmly. But his words dropped like weight onto the room.
Silence followed.
They weren't the only ones fracturing. Across the academy, pressure was splintering alliances. Even top-ranking teams knew better than to relax. No one was safe anymore.
Malik—who just yesterday had stood triumphant—now wore a quieter expression. The awe had faded. In its place: suspicion. Doubt. Quiet scorn.
They're right, he thought bitterly.
If I had shown up earlier... maybe we'd have had a chance.
Regret twisted in his chest, sharp and unrelenting.
He looked again at the rank board:
Falcon – 28th
Final Trial: 12 hours remaining
I don't even know who I am yet. Or what I really am.
For a fleeting moment, he considered walking away. Leaving. What was the point?
"I should start packing," Rhia said suddenly, breaking the silence.
"I guess I should too…" another added, standing with a hollow look.
One by one, the members of Falcon Team scattered—each pretending to train, to plan, to breathe. Anything to avoid watching the inevitable inch closer.
Malik stayed.
Still.
Staring.
Then, quietly:
"…Might as well explore," he muttered, rising.
---
He wandered the halls until he found himself in the corridor where the first drill had taken place.
Where everything had begun—without him.
Now it was quiet. Still. Waiting.
A red console blinked softly: standby.
"Well," Malik muttered, placing his palm on the pad, "Let's see if I could've earned a point."
The room stirred. A low hum swelled beneath the floor. A beam of light lit the space. A chasm opened with a hiss.
From the center, a thin metallic pole rose—suspended across a void. A trial of balance. Of focus. Of will. The one he had missed.
Now it was his.
He stepped forward.
Gravity tilted—unnaturally. It pulled at his body in strange directions, as if the air itself was testing him.
He swallowed.
And stepped onto the beam.
It trembled—not from instability, but from resistance. Every motion dragged. The simulation pushed against him like unseen hands pressing down on muscle and will.
Step by step, he moved forward. And halfway across, something shifted.
His breath slowed. His thoughts cleared.
He was adapting.
He entered a state of clarity—a strange, calm rhythm that flickered through his chest.
He remembered this.
The same pulse he had felt during the Flag Trial.
That strange, foreign thrum inside him.
Not just power.
Something else.
---
Behind the observation glass, two shadows watched.
One tapped the display.
"He's not just mimicking," the taller figure murmured. "He's syncing."
"Adaptive Dormancy," the other whispered. "It's real."
"Does he know?"
"…Not yet."
---
FINAL TRIAL INITIATED
The door hissed shut behind him.
A sterile white chamber expanded before Malik, the silence thick enough to choke on. Lights pulsed overhead in rhythmic intervals. There were no teammates beside him. No crowd. No voices. Just the sound of his own breath—and a countdown.
Obstacle One: Ability Suppression
His heartbeat quickened.
He flexed his fingers, searching for the thrum—the strange, borrowed rhythm that had become his hidden lifeline.
Nothing.
Just skin. Flesh. Mortal weight.
He exhaled. Slowly. Sharply.
No powers. No shortcuts.
The floor cracked open into shifting tiles. A narrow bridge unfolded over spinning gears and rising spikes. Each step twisted the path, responding not to motion—but to doubt.
He caught the rhythm. Found the pattern.
Each step demanded certainty.
He moved faster, breath syncing with the pulses above, landing on the final tile just as the gears below screamed to life. One step later, and he would've been skewered.
The door opened.
He stepped through.
---
> Obstacle Two: Strategy
The room shimmered with shifting glass panels, each etched with glowing glyphs. Malik stepped forward, watching as columns spun symbols in rhythmic patterns. A door hovered high above—locked, inaccessible.
He tapped one glyph. A wall moved.
Another—floor shifted.
It was a sequence. A rhythm puzzle.
Malik hesitated. Then diverted focus, finding a matching glyph. A barrier lowered—Peter ran free.
But the puzzle reset. Three red glyphs blinked.
An illusion.
Heart sinking, Malik corrected the sequence—sun, moon, eye, flame.
The door lowered,in front of him
Two paths.
One silent.
One whispering.
He knew the rule—distractions were traps. But the voice pulled at something soft in him.
"Hello? Hello? Please—I'm stuck!"
It sounded broken. Familiar.
He turned left. Against instinct.
The spiraling hallway seemed to breathe. He followed the voice through its turns—and there he was.
Peter.
Panicked. Trapped. Running in a loop of mirrored walls and invisible barriers.
"Malik! You're here—how do I get out?!"
Malik's breath caught. His friend.
He didn't answer. Not yet. He watched the pattern. Mirrors. Reflections. One glyph shimmered ever so slightly different from the rest.
He pressed it.
The barriers collapsed.
Peter ran past him without pause. "Thanks, man—see you at the end!"
Malik blinked. Then sprinted forward.
The overhead clock blinked:
> 07:41 remaining
He didn't see Peter again.