Chapter 40 Leo
The Dark Realm swallowed me whole the moment I crossed the gate.
It always did. The pressure shift was instant—like walking into a sealed tomb where the air hadn’t moved in days. The sky overhead was ink-stained and pulsing with old power. Light didn’t behave right here. Shadows moved the wrong way, and time felt stretched thin. I’d grown used to it, but I never liked it. The place knew me, though. It wrapped around my bones like an old habit—uncomfortable, but necessary.
I moved fast.
The command sector wasn’t far. The blackstone halls were empty, glowing faintly beneath my boots. Sigil lines pulsed underfoot in quiet rhythm—security woven into the very floor. At the end of the corridor, I reached the main briefing room, its heavy doors already cracked open.
I stepped through without knocking.
Edward and Andy were inside. Both looked up when they heard me, but neither said anything at first. They stood under the central interface, pale blue projections casting harsh light up their faces. Edward was flipping through something on the table’s surface. Andy paced, arms folded tight across his chest, expression grim.
That was the first sign.
They were too quiet. Even for them.
I shut the door behind me and let the silence sit for one more second.
Then I spoke.
“Alright,” I said, voice cutting through the static hum of the room. “What’s up?”
They both turned.
Edward looked at Andy for a beat longer than he needed to. That glance said everything. They didn’t want to be the ones telling me whatever this was. They’d drawn the short straw.
“We’ve been monitoring activity,” Edward started. “Like you asked. Looking for signs—anything tied to the breach.”
“Deaths,” Andy added. “Both gifted and unpowered. Anything that set off the life-monitoring network.”
“We started with standard filters,” Edward continued. “Accidents. Suicides. Combat anomalies. Pulse disruption. Realm-leak effects. But—”
“It’s a mess,” Andy cut in. “Nothing consistent. Every match we thought we had unraveled.”
I walked forward slowly, toward the table’s edge. “Show me.”
Andy tapped the surface.
A glowing field flared to life across the wall to our right—digital map, multi-layered, alive with dots in shifting colors. Red. Blue. Yellow. Some blinking. Some static.
“These are flagged incidents from the last three weeks,” Edward said. “Most were ruled natural causes or accidents. A couple had official realm reviews—none confirmed.”
“They’re scattered,” Andy added. “Some within range of breach windows. Others way outside them. Some were hours off. Others days.”
“Too early. Too late. Too far. Too subtle,” Edward muttered. “It’s like chasing ghosts.”
“Or,” I said, “like something wants to be untraceable.”
Andy nodded. “Exactly. It’s deliberate.”
I stared at the map. Dozens of names, reports, and timestamps blinking like distress signals on a screen no one was watching. If any one of them was real, we were already late.
“And then?” I asked.
Edward hesitated, then dragged a new folder into focus.
“We were ready to rule it all out,” he said. “But one came in late. The algorithm that cross-checks life pulses with gate fluctuations flagged a silent death.”
Andy leaned over the table. “We didn’t catch it because the school didn’t report it. Not externally, at least.”
“What school?”
Edward opened the file.
A map of Phoenix Academy expanded across the table.
My shoulders stiffened.
“A student,” Edward said. “Found dead in one of the staff buildings two weeks ago.”
“No incident report. No formal announcement. No Realm alert,” Andy added. “The school either didn’t know it was connected or didn’t want it known.”
"Chances are they don't even know he's dead because they keep seeing him," Edward added.
"But they don't know it's not him."
“The tracker pinged it after the fact,” Edward said. “Too late to stop it—but not too late to trace it.”
The projection changed again.
An outline of the academy grounds flared into view. A red marker blinked near the southern edge—just outside the dorm cluster.
I narrowed my eyes.
“How’d he die?”
“Officially?” Andy asked. “Cardiac arrest.”
“And unofficially?”
Edward tapped a sequence. “No physical trauma. No defensive wounds. No drugs. No toxins.”
Andy picked up. “His aura signature was flatlined. Core power node empty.”
“Drained,” Edward said. “Clean. Surgical.”
A weight settled in my chest.
I’d seen that kind of death before. No violence. No noise. Just gone.
“Power mimicry?” I asked.
“Worse,” Edward replied. “Full-layer replacement. Not just energy. Identity.”
Andy turned to me. “We think the gargoyle took his place. His schedule. His friends. His life.”
“Living among the students,” Edward said. “Wearing the skin of someone no one knows is already dead.”
A sick heat curled behind my ribs.
Andy swiped to the next slide.
“Here’s where it gets worse.”
The display shifted to daily logs—class schedules, sign-ins, surveillance pulses. The student, whoever he used to be, had attended classes for the last ten days straight.
“Minimal absences. No behavioral red flags,” Andy said. “Not overly social. Not isolated either. Perfect blend-in.”
I stepped closer to the screen.
The student’s profile began to load—slow connection from the Realm node, like it didn’t want to be seen.
“He’s hiding in plain sight,” Edward said. “And no one’s questioned it.”
“They still think he’s alive,” Andy added.
The photo blinked into focus.
A clean, smiling face. Short brown hair. Dark eyes. Jawline just soft enough to look non-threatening. The kind of face that didn’t draw suspicion. Harmless. Familiar.
But I didn’t recognize it.
Not immediately.
There was something in my chest tightening the longer I looked. Something turning. Not alarm—just confusion. I should’ve been reacting. Should’ve been angry. But instead, I was blank.
Then I felt the pull.
Like a string yanked from the base of my spine, dragging memory forward without permission.
That face.
Something about it felt alluring. .
Not from sight. From something else.
Something someone said.
I looked at Edward. “What’s his name?”
Edward began flipping through the data again, still talking.
“Location of death was flagged as Building Nine, off-grid zone. Pulse dropped at 2:03 a.m. Confirmed by proximity alarms later. No witnesses. No contact logs after midnight. But the mimic must’ve started moving fast, because—”
“Stop,” I said sharply.
My hands had curled against the edge of the table. My voice was low. “Just give me his name.”
Edward stared at me, then tapped the file’s corner.
The name appeared on the screen.
CALEB SUTTON
And suddenly I was underwater.
That one fucking name ripped through me.
I remembered it now. Kristen saying it offhand days ago
I remember her talking about the surprise some guy named Caleb had for her.
I’d ignored it for the most part.
I didn’t want to be the type to ask questions I didn’t want answers to.
But now I had them.
And I hated every one.
I stepped back, heart thudding once—hard, then again, too fast. My hand was already on my phone. I dialed her number.
No answer.
I tried again.
Straight to voicemail.
“Fuck.”
Third time.
Still nothing.
Edward’s voice came from somewhere outside the rising static in my head. “Leo?”
I didn’t look at him.
Andy stepped forward. “Do you know who that is?”
I was silent for a long time.
Then I turned toward the screen again.
That face—grinning like it knew it had already won.
“I do now,” I said.
And something told me I may already be too late.