The Extra's Transcension

The academy's corridors unfurled into a seemingly infinite expanse, an oppressive silence draping over the space like an unseen shroud, punctuated only by the distant, rhythmic drone of the ventilation systems.

Above, an intricate lattice of glass and steel stretched toward the heavens, permitting shafts of artificial sunlight to cascade down in a gilded, almost ethereal luminance.

The radiance kissed the immaculately polished floors, imbuing them with a deceptive semblance of warmth—an illusion swiftly betrayed by the sterile, clinical chill that clung to the air like an unshakable specter.

Silas advanced with deliberate, almost mechanical precision, each step measured, each breath drawn with a strained hush.

His fingers flexed before coiling into fists at his sides, tension thrumming through his frame like a coiled spring on the verge of release.

He did not belong here.

Or perhaps—

We did not belong here.

The thought coiled around his mind like a serpent, insidious and unrelenting, sinking its fangs deep before he could sever its grip.

Silas ground his teeth, forcing the notion aside, yet it remained—a shadow clinging to the edges of his consciousness, whispering truths he refused to acknowledge.

A slow, gnawing dread unfurled within him, an echo of something long buried, something he had spent a lifetime trying to smother beneath layers of hardened will.

But forgetting was never so simple.

Not when the past refused to be silenced. Not when it clawed its way up from the depths, its jagged fingers raking against the fragile walls of his mind, demanding to be remembered.

That place—the abyss beyond understanding. The nameless dimension, the entity that lurked within it. A vast, sentient nothingness, where weight did not exist, yet the air pressed down with an unbearable force. Where silence was not the absence of sound, but the erasure of its very concept. Where existence itself unraveled, thread by delicate thread, as if something omnipotent and unseen were peeling away reality's fragile veneer, reducing him to nothing more than formless thought adrift in an ocean of oblivion.

He had not been alone

In that void beyond reason, he was with them.

The others.

And yet—

They moved through the world untouched, unshaken.

As if nothing had happened.

As if they had never stood at the precipice of oblivion, never gazed into the unblinking eye of something beyond reason.

As if they had never been anywhere but here, rooted in this fragile reality, their lives unbroken, unfractured.

Silas swallowed against the weight in his throat, forcing his body into motion.

Each step felt sluggish, as though unseen hands clutched at his limbs, resisting, dragging him back toward something he refused to name.

His mind writhed with questions, screaming for confirmation, for proof that he had not simply dreamed it—that he had not been the only one who remembered.

But he could not ask.

Because to ask was to know.

And to know was to risk being undone all over again.

He wasn't sure he would survive it a second time.

*****

Lyrium had been watching them.

Every glance, every word, every breath.

He studied them with the precision of a scholar dissecting ancient texts, his gaze sweeping over their every movement, tracking the cadence of their conversations, the rhythm of their interactions.

He memorized their routines with obsessive clarity, searching—hunting—for even the smallest fracture in the illusion.

A misplaced hesitation.

A fleeting flicker of recognition.

A shadow of something remembered, something wrong.

But there was nothing.

They spoke with an effortless ease, their words flowing without disruption, untouched by the weight of what had been.

Their laughter rang hollow in his ears, too seamless, too unbroken, as if they had never known the suffocating silence of that other place.

No tremor in their hands.

No hesitation before their words left their lips.

No gaps where memories should have been torn away and stitched back together.

Nothing.

The realization clawed at him, cold and relentless.

Either they had truly forgotten—or they were pretending.

No missing time.

No fractures in the flow of days, no ripples in the fabric of reality.

The world moved forward, untouched, unshaken—unchanged.

But Lyrium knew better.

The air felt different, laced with something he couldn't name.

An echo of something vast and unseen pressed against the edges of his awareness, slithering beneath the surface of ordinary life, unseen by all but him.

The sun rose and fell as it always had, the tides obeyed the pull of the moon, and yet…

Something was wrong.

Not in any way he could prove, not in any way that left a tangible mark—but in the silence between heartbeats, in the spaces where shadows lingered just a little too long, in the way his own reflection seemed to watch him a fraction of a second too late.

The air tasted different, like a melody played just slightly off-key.

The rhythm of time felt unnatural, like the seconds stretched too long, then snapped back into place before anyone noticed.

His fingers twitched at his sides, grasping at invisible threads that refused to weave together into something tangible.

They had been somewhere else.

Somewhere wrong.

He knew it.

He felt it in the marrow of his bones.

And yet, when he tried to speak of it—

"What the hell are you talking about, Lyrium?"

Silas's voice had been firm.

Dismissive.

His expression unreadable.

None of them had remembered.

None of them had even hesitated.

But today—across the crowded room, when Lyrium let his eyes settle on Silas for just a fraction of a second—

There it was.

A flicker.

A hesitation.

Gone in an instant, so fast that Lyrium almost thought he imagined it.

But he hadn't.

Because Silas was avoiding him.

And that meant one thing.

Silas had lied.

*****

Lily frowned as she flicked through the holographic interface on her wrist display, her focus drifting.

The reports in front of her blurred, their words meaningless noise against the storm of thoughts gathering in her mind.

Something was off.

Something about them.

She had known Silas since childhood, had met Lyrium years ago when they all entered the academy, had spent countless hours in their presence.

She knew the rhythm of their personalities, their habits, their moods.

And today, that rhythm was missing.

Lyrium was tense, his usual distance twisted into something sharper—like he was waiting for something to fall apart.

His gaze lingered too long on people, as if dissecting them, searching for cracks that weren't there.

His fingers moved in absent, repetitive motions, an unconscious pattern of thought.

And then there was Silas.

He was pretending.

She had seen it in the way he spoke, the way he laughed, the way he threw careless remarks her way with the same easygoing confidence.

Except—

When he thought no one was watching, his expression changed.

It was barely there.

A flicker, a breath, a moment between moments.

His shoulders tensed, his jaw clenched, his gaze darkened with something that shouldn't be there.

Like he was remembering something he shouldn't.

Like he was hiding something.

Lily's grip on her wrist display tightened.

She didn't know what was happening.

But she was going to find out.

*****

Silas exhaled slowly, forcing his body to relax as he leaned against the cold metal railing of the academy's outer corridors.

Below him, the sprawling artificial cityscape pulsed with neon lights, stretching endlessly beneath the dome's simulated twilight sky.

Everything looked too real.

Too solid.

Like the world itself was trying too hard to convince him that this was all it had ever been.

His fingers grazed over the railing, anchoring himself to the sensation.

The chill of the metal.

The sharp edge pressing against his palm.

The way his breath fogged faintly in the air.

This was real.

Not the void.

Not the nothingness.

Not the place where he had seen things that should never be seen.

He shuddered, swallowing the bile that rose in his throat.

I can't tell them.

Not that sus guy Lyrium.

Not Lily.

Not Ren.

Especially not Lyrium.

He had already seen it—the way Lyrium looked at him now.

Searching.

Doubting.

Lyrium remembered something.

But not everything.

And that was the only reason Silas still had a choice.

To lie.

To pretend.

To live as if the void had never swallowed them whole.

Because if he acknowledged it—

If he let himself believe—

Then the truth would consume him.

Just like it had before.

*****

Lyrium didn't trust Silas.

Not today.

Not after the way he had flinched—so small, so quick, but there.

Not after the way he was too calm.

Silas wasn't someone who hid things well. He was reckless, impulsive, transparent in his emotions.

He didn't walk through life carefully—he crashed through it, unfiltered and loud.

But today—

Today, Silas was careful.

Too careful.

Like he was walking across glass, terrified of the cracks beneath his feet.

Lyrium exhaled slowly, his fingers tracing absent patterns onto the table before him.

He knows something.

Something he wasn't saying.

And if Lyrium was right—if his instincts weren't deceiving him—

Then Silas wasn't just pretending to be fine.

He was pretending to forget.

But the truth was there.

Hiding in the spaces between their words.

Waiting.

And Lyrium was going to drag it into the light.