Chapter 75 A day off
ZARA'S POV
Yesterday was scary. I can't recall what had happened aside from being selected for the stupid game, Dr. Voss had set for us. It had messed with my mind, that was for sure because I was having missing gaps in my memory. Mira wasn't in the room when I woke up. Her bed had been arranged so neatly that I wondered if she had even slept on the bed as of last night.
I got up from my bed quickly, dressed it before going to the bathroom to freshen up. After which, I tried reaching out to her through her mind link. She wasn't responding, and that got me worried.
"Mira." I called over and over again, yet I got nothing.
I stepped out of the room in black leggings with a red sweater. The cool breeze of the morning hit me. I felt a pointer on my body. It passed just as quickly as I had seen it.
"What was that?" I thought.
I ignored it for a moment as I tried to figure out where I would be heading to that morning.
"Zara...." Luna called out to me excitedly.
"Hey Lu..." I responded.
She chuckled at the shortening of her name.
"We missed you at dinner last night." She said.
Dinner? I didn't have dinner? Why couldn't I remember that? What happened last night?
"Uhm..." I paused.
There was no need to lie to her.
"I can't recall." I said shortly.
"Your memories have been wiped again." She muttered under her breath
I did catch that. And yes, she was telling the truth.
"Have you seen Mira?" I questioned.
"I saw her having a run in the academy field." She responded.
"Uhm.... Did she seem off, or did she even say anything?" I asked.
"No... She didn't say anything in particular to me." She replied.
"We should go find her." I said as I turned to leave.
"What if she needs her space?" She queried.
I paused in my movements.
What if she did need her space?
I surely didn't think about that side.
That thought settled uncomfortably in my chest. Mira was always there, so steady, observant, quietly holding things together while everyone else unravelled. I’d grown so used to her constancy that I hadn’t stopped to ask whether the academy was crushing her too.
“I won’t intrude,” I said finally, more to myself than to Luna.
“I’ll just… check from a distance.”
Luna studied me for a moment, then nodded.
“Don’t push,” she warned gently.
“She’s been carrying a lot.”
I headed toward the academy field alone.
The morning air felt different today, much lighter but sharper somehow. Every sound seemed too clear: boots on gravel, the distant clang of training weapons, the hum of wards buried deep beneath the ground. I felt watched again, that same prickle sliding over my skin, but I ignored it. If I let myself spiral every time the academy stared back, I’d never move.
I spotted Mira at the far edge of the field.
She wasn’t running anymore.
She sat on the grass with her knees drawn to her chest, shoes discarded beside her, dark hair pulled loose from its usual tight restraint. For a second, I almost didn’t recognize her like that, unguarded, small, human.
I slowed my steps.
Mira stared at the horizon beyond the academy walls, where the forest began to blur into mist. Her shoulders rose and fell with deep, deliberate breaths, like she was afraid if she stopped focusing on breathing, she might forget how.
I stayed silent.
The bond between us hummed faintly, not shut out, but carefully muted. That alone told me everything. Mira wasn’t running from danger. She was running from noise, from expectations, from commands, from being useful all the time.
After a long moment, she spoke without looking at me.
“You can come closer, Zara,” she said quietly.
“I felt you the moment you stepped onto the field.”
I obeyed, lowering myself beside her, leaving a careful distance between us.
Neither of us spoke for a while.
The silence wasn’t awkward. It was heavy. Full.
“I hate it here sometimes,” Mira said at last.
The words were soft, but they hit harder than shouting ever could.
I turned slightly toward her.
“Sometimes?”
She let out a humourless breath.
“Most days.”
That startled me more than anything, Dr. Voss had done recently.
“The academy is supposed to be safe,” she continued, voice steady but thin.
“Structured. Purposeful. But it’s like living inside a cage that keeps insisting it’s protecting you while it measures how useful your bones would be if you broke.”
My chest tightened.
“Mira…” I began, but she shook her head.
“Let me say it,” she insisted.
“Just once. Without fixing it.”
I nodded.
“I wake up every day knowing I’m ranked,” she said.
“Measured. Watched. Even when I sleep, I feel them in my head, weighing my thoughts like currency. I used to think if I followed the rules well enough, I’d earn freedom.”
She laughed quietly.
“But the better I do, the smaller my world gets.”
I understood that too well.
“And yesterday,” she added, fingers curling into the grass..
"When she chose us… I realized something.”
“What?” I asked.
“That there is no winning her game,” Mira said.
“Only surviving long enough to be reshaped into what she wants.”
The wind shifted, carrying the distant howl of wolves training somewhere beyond the walls. Mira flinched.
“I needed air,” she said simply.
“Just one morning where my thoughts weren’t being catalogued. One moment where I wasn’t someone’s assistant, someone’s asset, someone’s experiment.”
Her voice cracked then, just slightly.
“I don’t remember the last time I rested because I wanted to...not because I was permitted to.”
I reached out slowly, giving her time to pull away if she wanted to. She didn’t. My fingers brushed hers, grounding us both.
“You’re allowed to want more,” I said quietly.
“Even here.”
Mira turned to me then, eyes glassy but sharp.
“That’s the problem,” she said.
“Here, wanting more is dangerous.”
We sat like that for a while, hands barely touching, sharing the weight of everything unsaid.
“I don’t know what, Dr. Voss is planning,” Mira admitted.
“But whatever this ‘day off’ is supposed to be, it feels like the calm before something ugly.”
I felt it, too. That low hum beneath reality, tightening like a drawn wire.
“You don’t have to go back yet,” I said.
“Take the day. I’ll cover for you if I have to.”
She smiled faintly at that.
“See? That’s why this place hasn’t broken me yet.”
I frowned.
“Why?”
“Because despite everything,” she said, squeezing my fingers once before letting go.
“There are still people here who remember how to care.”
She stood, slipping her shoes back on, rolling her shoulders like she was preparing to put her armor on again, but not quite yet.
“I just needed to breathe,” she said.
“Thank you for letting me.”
As she walked back toward the academy, I stayed behind, staring at the sky.
Something about this peace felt borrowed.
And borrowed things always demanded repayment.
I didn’t know then how short Mira’s break would be.
Or how violently the academy would remind us that rest was never free.