Reality of WORLD'S

Rai sat alone under the campus's oldest tree, his notebook resting open on his lap, untouched.

Sunlight filtered through the golden leaves above, casting flickering patterns across the fresh ink on his hand.

The tattoo still ached—not from pain, but from something deeper. A weight he hadn't expected.

It felt like the spiral wasn't just a mark he chose.

It was something that had chosen him.

Emma found him there an hour later.

She didn't say anything at first—just sat beside him and held out a cup of coffee.

"You're hard to find when you want to be," she said.

"I wasn't hiding," Rai murmured.

"No," she said softly. "You were waiting."

They sat like that for a while, shoulder to shoulder. Quiet. Easy.

Then Emma nodded at his hand. "Does it feel different?"

"Yes," Rai said. "But I don't know if that's the tattoo or what I'm becoming."

Emma didn't press him. She never did.

She just said, "When it starts to feel too heavy, let me carry some of it."

That was Emma—always holding a line no one else could see.

In the common room that evening, the group had gathered again. Warm lamps, paper notes, noodles in mismatched bowls. The mood was easy. Lighter than it had been in weeks.

Iris stood near the whiteboard, circling something on an old campus map.

"Found something odd," she said.

"Odd how?" Marin asked, setting down her chopsticks.

"This symbol." Iris tapped the screen of her tablet and flipped it around.

Everyone leaned in.

It wasn't a full spiral.

It was a partial carving. Cracked, unfinished—but it curved in the same way as Rai's tattoo.

"Where'd you find it?" Owen asked.

"In a scanned journal from a student who studied architecture here twenty years ago. They said they found it carved into a stone beneath a shrine outside the city—one never mapped properly."

She looked over at Rai.

"It was listed under a placeholder name. No element attached."

Rai's voice was low. "The shrine without a name."

Cyrus raised an eyebrow. "Another one?"

Emma looked between them. "You think it's real?"

Marin tapped her fingers. "If it was forgotten, there's a reason."

Owen cracked his knuckles. "Then it's our job to remember it."

Ronald, as usual, stayed quiet.

But when he glanced at Rai's tattoo, his eyes narrowed ever so slightly.

Then he turned and scribbled something in his own notebook.

Later that night, Rai stood alone outside the dorms, watching the moon through the trees.

His hand felt warmer than before.

The spiral didn't hurt.

But it pulsed.

And in his chest, something old began to whisper again—not with sound, but with feeling.

Like another memory was getting ready to surface.