Chapter 46 Broken Protocols
The 'Broken' protocol didn't start with whips or chains, which was almost disappointing. Instead, it started with a room that felt like it had been designed by a minimalist with a grudge.
I was led to the lower levels of the Academy, a place where the air felt thick and stagnant, smelling of old iron, damp earth, and the faint, lingering scent of thousands of previous failures. My 'mentor' for this session wasn't Malik’s cooling grace or Ryker’s furnace heat, but a severe-looking angel named Professor Valerius. His eyes were as flat and lifeless as a dead fish, and he moved with a precision that made me want to trip him just to see if he was capable of an unchoreographed movement.
"Enter, Catalyst," Valerius said, his voice a monotone drone. He gestured to a circular stone chamber with a single, unblinking eye carved into the domed ceiling. "Today, we begin the deconstruction of your mortal limitations. In order to see the future clearly, you must first be stripped of the chaotic distractions of the present. Your human ego is a veil; we are here to tear it away."
I stepped into the room, my charcoal training gear feeling like a second skin, the fabric tight against my thighs and chest. "Is this the part where you tell me to find my center? Because I'm pretty sure my center is currently occupied by a very large avocado toast, a significant amount of spite, and a lingering question about why your face is stuck in that permanent scowl."
Valerius didn't even blink. He didn't even acknowledge the 'brat' currently standing in front of him. "Silence. The trial is the Echo Chamber. You will be bombarded with the psychic residue of every soul that has died within the Veil. You must filter the noise, find the patterns, and remain... detached. If you fail, the grief will consume your mind, leaving you a hollow shell. Yield to the voices, and you are lost."
He exited the room, and the heavy iron door slammed shut with a finality that made my stomach do a slow, nauseating flip. The silence lasted for three heartbeats. And then, the world exploded.
It wasn't a whisper; it was a roar. A thousand screams, a million sighs, the crushing, physical weight of every regret, every terror, and every unfulfilled longing that had ever crossed into the afterlife. It felt like being caught in a tide of cold, grey sorrow. Images flashed before my eyes—Mrs. Gable’s face, my parents’ final moments in that hospital room, the twisted, agonized expressions of strangers I’d never met, their lives ending in fire, in water, in lonely hospital beds.
I fell to my knees, my hands clamped over my ears, but the sound was coming from inside my head. It was psychic sandpaper, scratching at the edges of my identity. You're nothing, the voices hissed, a discordant chorus of the damned. Just a vessel. A tool. A broken thing. Why fight the inevitable? Give us your grief. Give us your soul.
"No," I gasped, my chest heaving, the air in the room suddenly tasting like copper and old tears. "I'm not... I'm not yours."
I felt my mind starting to fray at the edges, the sheer volume of the despair threatening to pull me under. But then, I thought of Ryker’s hand on my neck, the searing, arrogant heat of it. I thought of Malik’s eyes when I’d mentally covered him in whipped cream, the way his composure had shattered for one glorious, scandalous second. I thought of the way I’d looked Seraphina in the eye and told her her roots were showing.
I was a pharmacist. I had spent years in a lab, and I knew about chemistry. I knew that every poison had an antidote, and every volatile reaction could be neutralized if you understood the components.
I stopped fighting the noise. Instead, I started cataloging it.
Fear—that’s an acid, sharp, corrosive, eating at the resolve. Let's neutralize it with a base of stubbornness. Grief—that’s a heavy sediment, slow, suffocating, pulling everything to the bottom. Let's filter it. Regret—that’s just a catalyst for a reaction that's already happened.
I began to visualize the voices not as people, but as elements on a periodic table. I didn't try to shut them out; I organized them. I built a mental shelving unit and started putting the grief in jars. I turned the screams into data points on a graph. I took the 'Broken' protocol, and I applied the logic of a woman who had spent five years dealing with insurance companies, frantic customers, and the precise measurements of life-saving drugs.
Grief: 50mg. Terror: 100ml. Regret: trace amounts. Apply sarcasm as a buffer solution.
Slowly, the roar faded into a hum. The images became a slideshow I could simply watch rather than feel. I was still in the storm, but I was no longer drowning in it; I was the one holding the umbrella.
When the door finally opened an hour later, Valerius was standing there, his expression of detached boredom replaced by a flicker of genuine shock. I wasn't weeping on the floor. I wasn't a 'hollow shell.' I was sitting cross-legged in the center of the room, calmly re-tying the laces on my boots, my face set in a look of mild boredom.
"Is that it?" I asked, looking up at him with a sharp, bratty grin that felt like a victory. "It was a bit loud, to be honest. But I've had more traumatic experiences during a Black Friday sale at the pharmacy. If you wanted to break me, you should have tried a 12-hour shift without a lunch break."
Valerius’s jaw tightened, the first sign of actual emotion I’d seen on him. "You were supposed to be overwhelmed. You were supposed to yield to the collective suffering."
"Well," I said, standing up and brushing the basalt dust off my leggings, feeling the strength in my legs return. "I guess I'm just a bad listener. And I’m definitely not a tool. What's next? Or do I get a gold star and a nap? Because I’m feeling remarkably energized by all that 'despair.'"
I walked past him, my head held high, though my insides were still vibrating from the psychic assault. I hadn't just survived; I’d found a way to turn their weapon into a tool of my own. As I headed back toward the main halls, I knew the Headmaster was going to be very, very disappointed. And that thought? That thought tasted better than the avocado toast.