It wasn't a physical impact. It was a shockwave of bad luck.
The floor rippled like water. A sound blasted through the gym—the deafening, discordant ring of the New York Stock Exchange closing bell, amplified a thousand times.
CLANG-G-G-G!
The force of the "crash" hit the fog like a hurricane. The green mist didn't just blow away; it shattered.
The Red Pen monster shrieked as its form destabilized. It popped like a balloon, exploding into a shower of harmless red ink.
The shockwave kept going. It hit the windows high up on the gym walls.
CRASH.
Every single window in the gymnasium blew out simultaneously. Glass rained down outside. A rush of fresh, cold air—real air, not the recycled stress of the exam—flooded into the room.
The fog vanished instantly, sucked out by the vacuum.
The illusion broke.
I stood there, panting, my fist still pressed against the floorboards. My nose was bleeding again—profusely this time. My head felt like it had been split open with an axe.
Around us, the gym was chaos. Students were waking up, groggy and confused. The proctors were stumbling, looking like normal, confused teachers again.
Vice Principal Vance was gone from the stage.
"Ren?"
The voice was small.
I slowly stood up, wiping the blood from my face with my sleeve. I turned to Elara.
She was standing amidst the overturned tables, her uniform covered in dust. She wasn't looking at the broken windows. She wasn't looking at the confused students.
She was staring at me. Her eyes were wide, terrified, and incredibly sharp.
She had seen the red ink explode. She had felt the shockwave. She had seen the golden light that flared around my fist when I punched the ground.
"You..." she started, her voice shaking.
"Gas leak," I rasped, swaying on my feet. "Old pipes. Hallucinations. Very common."
She stepped closer. She didn't buy it. Not for a second.
She reached out and grabbed my tie, yanking me down so our faces were inches apart. Her eyes searched mine, looking past the teenage awkwardness, past the class clown act.
"Stop lying," she hissed.
"I—"
"You knew the answer to the math problem before you looked at it," she whispered, the words tumbling out fast. "You knew the windows would break. You fight things that aren't there."
She tightened her grip on my tie.
"You walk around this school like you've been here before. Like you're bored of it."
My heart stopped. She was smarter than I gave her credit for. Much smarter.
"Elara, I—"
"Who were you?" she asked, her voice dropping to a whisper that cut through the noise of the gym.
I froze. "What?"
She didn't ask what I was. She didn't ask if I was a ghost.
She looked at my eyes—eyes that held thirty-five years of exhaustion in a seventeen-year-old face.
"In the future," she said, her voice trembling but demanding an answer. "Who were you, Ren? And why did you come back for me?"
I opened my mouth, but no sound came out.
Above her head, the countdown timer flickered violently.
176 Days...
Then, the numbers scrambled. They spun like a slot machine, blurring into a streak of red light.
Calculating...
Calculating...
The timer stopped.
Status: COMPROMISED.
I looked at her, really looked at her, and realized the game had just changed. I couldn't play the NPC anymore.
"I was a nobody," I whispered, the truth slipping out before I could stop it. "Just a guy who made a mistake."
Elara let go of my tie. She stepped back, her expression unreadable.
Before she could say anything else, the gym doors burst open. The principal, the school nurse, and two paramedics rushed in.
"Everyone stay calm!" the Principal yelled.
I looked at Elara. She looked at me.
The secret was out. The barrier was broken. And judging by the look in her eyes, my problems were just getting started.
I wiped my nose again, looking at the blood on my hand.
"I really hate high school," I muttered.
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