Chapter 162 Blank

Chapter 162 Blank


Kathy's POV

The first thing that returned to me wasn't my sight, but the smell.

It was a sharp, clinical cocktail that instantly made my stomach turn—the bitter, biting scent of silver-nitrate wash, crushed wintergreen mint, and the heavy, sterile sting of rubbing alcohol. It was the universal scent of the academy’s medical tier.

I blinked heavily, my eyelashes feeling as though they were caked in dry sand. I was lying on a narrow iron cot, the mattress stiff and unyielding beneath my back, wrapped in thick, coarse white sheets that smelled faintly of lye.

A dull, throbbing ache sat right between my eyes, a rhythmic, heavy pulse that felt like a muffled hammer striking the inside of my skull.

My muscles felt completely drained, heavy and hollow, as if someone had systematically sucked the marrow straight out of my bones while I was asleep.

Through the heavy fog wrapping around my brain, I heard voices.

They were low, muffled rumbles carrying through the heavy timber door of the recovery room. I couldn't make out the words, but the cadence was stern, authoritative, and heavy with a dense, crackling alpha frequency that made the fine hairs on my arms stand up even through my exhaustion.

I pushed myself up onto my elbows, a small, weak groan escaping my lips as the movement made the vaulted ceiling tilt violently to the left.

I shook my head, trying to clear the gray cobwebs from my vision, and pulled myself into a sitting position against the iron headboard. I looked down at my hands. They were resting against the white sheet, completely bare, my fingers normal and pale.

I frowned, a sudden, cold spike of anxiety hitting my chest. Why am I in the infirmary?

I tried to reach back into my memory, to grasp the thread of the morning, but my mind felt like a ledger with the pages violently torn out.

The heavy iron latch of the door clicked, the sound echoing sharply against the stone walls.

The door swung inward, and two figures stepped into the small recovery room.

The first was the old school doctor, a seasoned beta wolf with a thick, graying beard and a long white linen lab coat. He wore a pair of small, round spectacles perched on the tip of his nose, his dark eyes fixed intently on a clipboard held in his wrinkled hands.

Directly behind him walked Principal Wolffur.

The air in the room instantly grew heavy, the sheer, crushing density of the principal’s presence making it hard to take a full breath.

I shrank back against the iron headboard, my fingers instinctively bunching into the coarse white sheets. "Principal Wolffur? Doctor? What... what am I doing here?"

The two older men stopped at the foot of my cot. They didn't answer immediately. Instead, they exchanged a long, heavy look—a silent, loaded glance that made my stomach drop into a frozen pit.

There was no anger in their expressions, but there was a profound, deeply unsettling gravity that made the throbbing behind my eyes spike with heat.

Principal Wolffur stepped forward, his heavy boots making a slow, deliberate sound against the stone floor.

He pulled a wooden stool closer to the side of the cot and sat down, his massive frame leaning slightly toward me. His dark eyes searching my face with a soft, cautious intensity.

"Kathy," the principal said, his voice a deep, quiet baritone that sounded remarkably gentle for a man of his position. "Do you truly not know why you’ve been brought to the medical wing?"

I shook my head quickly, the movement causing a sharp spike of dizziness to roll over my brain. "No. I... I remember sitting down on the mat for the tactical lecture this morning."

The old doctor let out a long, heavy sigh from the foot of the bed, lowering his clipboard onto the iron rail. He rubbed his temples beneath his spectacles, the parchment on his board rattling slightly.

"She’s telling the truth, Principal," the doctor murmured, his voice raspy and worn. "The neurological markers are flat. There’s no secondary deceit pattern in her frequency. Her brain has actively locked the sequence away."

"Locked what sequence?" I demanded, my voice rising, a thin edge of panic bleeding through my words as I looked between the two of them. "Did I pass out on the mat?"

Principal Wolffur sighed, his large, calloused hand resting flat against his knee. "Kathy... you didn't pass out. Shortly after the lecture began, you were called to the center of the floor for a standard tactical demonstration with one of the vanguard aspirants. According to the statements of the students present, you suffered a severe physical disruption. You caused a massive wave of chaotic, erratic energy to flood the hall."

He paused, his eyes drilling into mine, watching for any spark of recognition. I could only stare at him, my lips parted, my heart hammering like a trapped bird against my ribs.

"You unleashed a localized kinetic frequency so violent that it shattered the glass mantles in the rafters," the principal continued softly, his tone completely steady despite the monstrous nature of his words. "And when Professor Halloway stepped forward to assist you... you flung her away. It wasn't a standard physical push, Kathy. You hit her with enough raw, unmitigated force to send her flying fifteen feet across the hall. She struck the stone perimeter wall with her spine."

My breath completely froze in my throat. The room seemed to lose its color, the white walls turning a sickly, vibrant gray as the words echoed in my ears.

"No," I whispered, my head shaking frantically as I pulled my hands back against my chest, staring at my fingers as if they belonged to a stranger. "No, that’s... that’s impossible."

"There is no mistake, child," the old doctor said, his voice dropping into a solemn, heavy rhythm as he checked the clipboard again. "Twenty students witnessed the event. Professor Halloway is currently in the primary surgical wing in serious medical condition. She has three fractured vertebrae, a localized concussion, and her inner wolf has retreated deep into her core from the sheer trauma of the impact."

A hot, suffocating wave of pure shame and horror rushed up my neck, my eyes stinging as a fresh tear spilled over my lashes.

I had hurt someone?

Principal Wolffur shifted on the stool, leaning in just a fraction closer. "Kathy... think carefully. Look into the empty space. Is there truly nothing? No sound? No feeling of an animal breaking through the surface of your skin?"

"Nothing," I sobbed, my voice breaking entirely as I pressed the heels of my hands against my throbbing temples.

The doctor reached up, adjusting his spectacles as he let out another long, troubled breath. "This is highly anomalous, Principal. This is very strange. A standard wolf awakening—even a delayed, latent manifestation within a broken primary line—does not present with this level of localized kinetic violence without a massive aura marker preceding it. And it certainly doesn't result in total retrograde amnesia of the event. The mind usually integrates with the animal during the initial surge, it doesn't black out entirely."

Principal Wolffur remained silent for a long moment, his dark eyes fixed on the white sheet beneath my hands. Slowly, he nodded, his heavy shoulders dropping an inch.

"The shock of the late manifestation must have overwhelmed her system," the principal reasoned softly, though his tone carried a subtle, guarded note that didn't escape me. "She has carried a dormant, unaligned bloodline for years. When a latent wolf finally loses control during its first true manifestation, the surge can be catastrophic to the human vessel. The brain simply shut down the memory channels to protect her from the trauma of the frequency spike."

"Perhaps," the old doctor muttered, though he looked entirely unconvinced. He tapped the edge of his clipboard against his palm, his brow drawn together in a deep, permanent scowl. "But it is still highly erratic. If this kind of uncontrolled, violent spike happens again... we will have no choice but to notify her parents."

A cold, sharp knife of grief sliced through the panic in my chest. My hands went completely rigid against the linen sheets.

"Please," I whispered, my voice trembling so hard the words were barely audible. "Don't contact them. It won't happen again. I swear it won't."

Principal Wolffur stood up from the stool, his massive height instantly blocking out the light from the frosted window.

He looked down at me, his expression unreadable, but the heavy alpha pressure in his chest softened just a fraction.

"We will monitor the line rolls for now, Kathy," the principal said quietly. "But the doctor is correct. We would not be able to keep this from Lady Malia if it happens again.”

He turned toward the timber door, nodding to the old physician. "Your friends have been pacing the corridor. They’ll be allowed in after some hours. We will leave you to rest."

"Thank you, Principal," I murmured, my head dropping back against the iron rail as the two older wolves stepped out of the room, the heavy oak door closing behind them with a loud, definitive click.

The silence that returned to the recovery room was deafening.

Slowly, I drew my knees up to my chest, wrapping my arms tightly around my shins. I buried my face into the coarse white fabric of the infirmary gown, my whole frame shaking as a deep, icy coldness began to radiate outward from the absolute center of my bones.

I was completely fine physically. The nausea was gone, my hands were steady, and the air in my lungs was clear. But as I stared at the blank, terrifying void in my own mind, a single, horrifying thought kept scratching at the back of my skull.

I couldn't remember a single thing that had happened on that mat. And if I didn't know what had taken control of my hands... how could I ever stop it from happening again?