Gabriel sat near the center of the meeting carriage, flanked by velvet-lined benches and sleek dark panels that hummed softly with the train’s core systems. The air was cooler here, quieter than the common compartments, yet no less tense.

The table in front of him was built into the carriage floor, a wide, metallic surface with a faintly glowing edge. Above it hovered a large projection screen, dormant for now. Dozens of Espers and Guides were filing in, some chatting under their breath, others silent and focused. No one was laughing.

A few seats down, an Esper adjusted the straps on his wristguards with quick, practiced movements. Across the aisle, a pair of Guides compared notes in hushed voices, one of them laughing too loud before remembering where they were.

Gabriel didn’t join in. He wasn’t sure he belonged to any of their circles yet.

Every conversation felt coded, like he was always missing a layer beneath the words. A glance too long. A laugh cut short. They weren’t cruel, not openly, but he knew when someone was measuring him and finding the numbers off.

Gabriel gripped his stylus tightly and stared at the corner of his tablet screen, forcing himself to breathe steadily.

His throat felt tight. Even the stylus felt wrong in his grip, too heavy, too foreign. He’d studied these protocols a hundred times, passed every exam, but now, under the buzz of fluorescent lights and hushed conversation, it all felt fragile.

This wasn’t training. This wasn’t the Academy. This was the real thing.

He heard footsteps before he looked up.

Flora stepped in first, posture relaxed but eyes scanning the room with sharp efficiency. Sasha followed at her side, already holding his tablet, lips pressed into a thin line.

The screen flickered once, then steadied.

“Begin.” Sasha said.

Flora tapped something on her device. A map unfolded in layers above the table, displaying a wide stretch of collapsed industrial terrain. Craters. Factories. Broken rails. Twisting energy lines in shades of red and gray. The sector was marked in bold white letters: ZONE 9-W.

Gabriel straightened.

“This mission concerns the unexplained disappearance of Recon Team Delta-4,” Flora began. “They sent out a standard signal flare three days ago. Since then, radio silence.”

The map zoomed in, revealing the last known transmission point: a broken district loop near the center of the collapsed zone.

“Zone 9-W,” Sasha continued, “is an abandoned manufacturing hub. One of the earliest sites of confirmed phenomenon outbreaks. No permanent structures, but deep distortion signatures remain.”

Whispers rose behind Gabriel. He didn’t turn.

Flora’s tone tightened. “Expect terrain instability, magnetic interference, and possible visual echoes. The site is no longer categorized as a Yellow Zone.”

She tapped again.

“Red-Class Hollow Zone. As of ten hours ago.”

The screen changed. A mission log began to play, grainy, audio-glitched footage showing a recon unit sweeping through collapsed debris. Their lights flickered. One turned toward the camera, began to speak... and the sound warped.

A burst of static. Then a scream, distorted and high, followed by total black.

The log cut out.

Gabriel’s hand tightened around his stylus. It slipped, clattering softly onto the table. No one looked at him, but his face burned. His ears rang in the silence that followed. He didn’t know if it was from the static or his own pulse.

A chill moved through the room. No one said anything for a long breath.

Flora slowly lowered the projection.

“The rift’s anchor may be weakening.” Sasha said calmly. “Our objective is twofold: confirm structural integrity of the zone and locate any surviving members of the missing team.”

Gabriel’s fingers twitched. He glanced at the floor. His chest was tight.

Across the table, someone shifted. Gabriel’s eyes flicked up, just for a second, and met Leonardo’s.

Leonardo didn’t smile. He didn’t wink. His gaze was steady, unreadable.

That stare made something crawl beneath Gabriel’s skin. It wasn’t hostility, it was worse. It was unreadable. He didn’t know what Leonardo saw when he looked at him. Dead weight? A mistake? Just another Guide he’d have to carry?

Maybe he was trying to figure out how someone like Gabriel, quiet, uncertain, average, had ended up beside him at all.

Gabriel quickly dropped his gaze. That single look snapped the thread of confidence he’d been clinging to all briefing long.

The meeting moved forward, but something had already shifted.

The silence didn’t break when the footage ended, it just reshaped. Sharpened. Grounded in something real.

Gabriel stared at his tablet, the mission summary’s words fuzzy around the edges. Red-Class Hollow Zone. Structural instability. Echo phenomena confirmed.

This was no drill. This was the kind of assignment veterans came back changed from. If they came back at all.

Sasha continued, his voice even. “You’ve all reviewed distortion protocol. You’ll be in mixed-type units based on compatibility and survival probability. These pairings are non-negotiable.”

Another screen lit up. Unit assignments scrolled down in neat lines.

His chest clenched before he even read the names.

Part of him hoped, foolishly, that he’d be left in a secondary role, somewhere far from the front. Somewhere safe. Not with them.

Not with Espers.

He wasn’t ready for this. Not truly. Not if the briefing was already this grim.

His gaze drifted to the assignments. One name. Then another. His stomach tightened before he even finished reading the names.

The names didn’t look real at first, like someone else’s mission log. But the cold drop in his chest reminded him otherwise. Not just Leonardo. Kael, too. Neither seemed the type to tolerate dead weight.

His lungs stalled. For a second, he forgot how to breathe.

Of course it’s him. Out of everyone… the one person who made his pulse spike for all the wrong reasons. And Kael, quiet, unreadable, a wildcard. His first field mission felt like a trap.

As if on cue, Kael, seated two seats to the left, let out a soft, unimpressed noise.

“They’re sending new recruits into Hollow Zones now?” the Esper muttered, not quite under his breath.

Gabriel stiffened.

Flora cut him a look, but Sasha kept reading.

“Rear containment will be led by Natalia Ivanova and Miriana Weiss. Communications relays will be staggered due to expected interference. All secondary units will carry independent signal boosters. Do not rely on the train’s main uplink once inside the zone.”

Miriana didn’t visibly react, but Gabriel caught her glancing his way more than once. Not cruel, but sharp. Controlled. Judging.

He kept his head down and didn’t return the look.

“We’ve cross-referenced resonance profiles.” Sasha said. “This isn’t a random pairing. Ricci’s synchronization with Laurent ranked highest in test simulations. Raines balances the dynamic with grounding stability and terrain experience.”

Gabriel didn’t protest. Couldn’t. The words sat heavy on his shoulders, heavier than any equipment pack.

A soft murmur stirred near the back.

“Survival simulation?” someone whispered. “What happened to confidence?”

Flora’s expression twitched, but just once. Sasha didn’t react.

“This mission is high-risk,” he said calmly. “Confidence alone won’t keep you alive. Awareness will.”

And just like that, the final screen dimmed.

Gabriel’s stylus rested untouched against his tablet. His other hand had curled into a fist. He forced it open.

Outside, daylight had begun to fade, casting the carriage into blue and silver shadow. The sun dipped toward the ridgeline, bleeding into dust clouds.

They’d reach Zone 9-W in three days.

He had to be ready.

Even with Kael’s judgment.

Even standing beside Leonardo Ricci again.

Especially if he wanted to survive.

The moment Sasha dismissed the room, the fragile quiet shattered into low voices and sidelong glances.

People stood, collected their gear. Some filtered out in pairs. Others lingered, talking under their breath.

Gabriel stayed seated, tablet idle in his lap.

Across the room, teammates formed quick knots of conversation. Familiar faces gravitated to each other without effort. Gabriel didn’t move. He hadn’t earned that kind of familiarity yet, and he didn’t know if he ever would.

His breathing stayed even, only because he forced it to. But the voices still reached him.

“He got placed with Commander Ricci?” a Guide scoffed. “Seriously?”

“That’s a death wish. Or a handout.”

“More like a liability,” another muttered. “One wrong spike in the field, and we’ll all feel it.”

Gabriel didn’t move. Jaw clenched, fingers flat against the fabric.

“I heard he flinched during basic sync drills.” came a cooler voice. “They’ll be dragging him out in a body bag.”

“Unless Ricci throws him in first.”

Laughter. Footsteps.

Gabriel exhaled through his nose. His eyes never left the mission file.

He wanted to speak. To correct them.

I ranked high in sync scores.

I didn’t ask for this pairing.

But the words stayed locked in his throat, behind the place where his pride had folded in on itself. Defending himself would only make it worse.

Across the carriage, Sasha and Natalia stood at the central console. Flora joined them, glancing over Sasha’s tablet.

Their voices were low, but not low enough.

“Mission was reclassified.” Sasha said quietly. “We left under Yellow Zone parameters. It’s now Red-Class. No updated briefing file. No cross-check with command.”

Natalia went still. “Was it flagged as a late-entry reclassification?”

“No log. No timestamp. Just replaced mid-transit.”

Flora raised her brows. “Automated update?”

Sasha shook his head. “Then we’d have gotten a system alert. This wasn’t routine. Someone either rushed it, or didn’t want it flagged.”

Natalia’s voice dropped. “So we’re walking blind into a Hollow Zone. No prep. One trainee in recon.”

Flora checked the display. “We’ve handled worse.”

Sasha hesitated. “Not with Gabriel.”

Gabriel looked down. Something in his chest twisted.

He wasn’t the only one who’d heard.

The carriage had mostly cleared. Most were in their compartments or at mess. Only a few voices remained, distant and indistinct.

Gabriel sat alone on the velvet bench, tablet still open. The mission classification blinked softly in the corner of the screen.

Zone 9-W.

His fingers hovered, then moved slowly, scrolling through terrain scans, resonance charts, deployment notes.

Ricci, Leonardo – S-Class Esper (Kinetic Enhancement + Fire Control)

Raines, Kael – A-Class Esper (Vibration Manipulation)

Laurent, Gabriel – A-Class Guide

He closed the tablet and opened his notebook instead. The leather cover was worn smooth at the edges.

He traced a thumb along the inner spine. This notebook had been with him since his second year at the Academy, through every failed theory, every sleepless study session. It felt like the one thing that still made sense.

Inside: aura diagrams, resonance maps, messy thoughts, everything he’d studied. Everything he hoped mattered.

He turned to a blank page.

Rift conditions: unstable

Phenomenon: confirmed distortions, echo signals

Terrain: hazardous—warped structures, low visibility

Team structure: 3-person recon cell

Compatibility projections: high variance

Notes: Kael Raines – Vibration Manipulation; Leonardo Ricci – dual-type enhancement; emotional volatility anticipated.

He tapped the pen once against the page.

The fear was still there, just sitting quieter. Not hollowing him out. Not tonight.

He wasn’t sure what shifted. Natalia’s words? Henry’s quiet presence? The fact that someone still believed in him?

Or maybe… maybe he was just tired of running.

He looked up. Outside, dusk had deepened into violet. The broken landscape rolled past, jagged towers, warped stone. In the distance, a shimmer flickered. Then vanished.

He wondered if Kael already thought he’d slow them down. If Leonardo regretted whatever bond their test results claimed they had. Maybe everyone did.

What if they were right?

The fear never left. It just changed masks. The Espers in the room weren’t cruel. Not openly. But their power felt different. Heavy.

And in the field, that weight would fall on him.

One mistake could cost lives.

And if he couldn’t carry it, if he failed, he wouldn’t get a second chance.

Espers didn’t hesitate. They were sharp, fast, and brutal when they had to be. He’d seen it in training videos. And now, he’d be surrounded by them. Guiding them. Containing them. Hoping they wouldn’t turn their power inward if he made the wrong call.

Gabriel’s reflection hovered in the glass, eyes steady.

“If I can survive this…” he thought, “…maybe I’ll stop being afraid of who I am.”

He closed the notebook.

Tomorrow, field drills would begin.

And in three days, they’d reach Zone 9-W.

Somewhere down the corridor, a door slid shut. The train hummed on.