The stench hit Astra first. Sour rot, sharp enough to halt her blade. She turned toward the dining hall, instincts spiking. Something was vibrating out there. She could not hear it, could not feel it on her skin, yet she knew. A pulse behind the walls.

Like a heart trying to wake.

Beside her, Theo swung his ice blade and sheared the tendrils of purple mist. The creature only laughed in mist, slipping around his strikes as if delighted by the near-misses, as if it were teaching him the shape of failure.

Astra watched the pattern, mind stitching a timeline. The first attack of this creature was through Tiffany as a vessel. There was a mindless hunger there.

The second attack had been different. Less direct. The mist had moved with deliberate unpredictability, playful and sly. It didn't press the offensive so much as dance about like a prankster.

And now, barely a day later, after she had assumed it destroyed, it was back. Weaker, yes. She could sense that much.

Why return at all?

Theo couldn't freeze it this time, as his mana reserves were nearly drained and the open terrain gave them no control.

Was that the point? A pressure test, a measuring of their limits. Or—

"We're being played," she murmured. "It's a distraction."

Theo froze. "A distraction? This? How do you know that?"

"Can you stall it?"

He nodded, confused but trusting.

Astra sprinted for the dining hall. With every stride, the stink thickened and made her throat threaten a gag.

The recent bout of food poisoning had been malicious, no question, yet the playful way the vapour fenced with Theo did not feel like that same hand at work. Perhaps there was more than one mind involved.

She burst through the double doors. Silence waited on the other side. Up-ended chairs, crusted food, shattered plates. A trail of sour air leaked from the industrial freezer. The kitchen had been thoroughly disinfected that morning. Whatever this was, it was not ordinary rot.

She moved towards the freezer. The hum she expected was absent, and the air was wrong. Had someone shut the freezer off during the decontamination?

Astra pulled out her phone and switched on the flashlight. Stainless steel racks stood bare as the food had been removed and destroyed. Only the slow tick of water as frost melted.

Something marked the floor just inside the threshold. She leaned closer and a new sound cut across the quiet: footsteps grinding porcelain.

She spun, blade raised, flash light pointed towards the door.

A dog stood in the doorway. Sleek black coat, tall and lean, ears erect, tail wagging nonchalantly. A Doberman, no doubt. The school did not allow pets, and she had never seen anything like it on campus. Too well-kept to be stray, too at ease to be lost.

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It considered her as if she were the intruder. When she stepped forward, it stepped too, unfussed, and licked the back of her hand as if granting permission to breathe the same air.

She blinked.

"Find anything?" Theo's voice called from outside.

The dog took advantage of her distraction and disappeared into a bush.

"Just residue," Astra called back, eyes fixed on the place it had been. "From the freezer. It wasn't there last night."

"The mist vanished on my end," Theo said. "Destroyed, maybe?"

"Or it retreated."

When they returned to the freezer, the strange pattern she had seen earlier was gone. In its place, faint gouges scored the melting ice. She shone the flashlight across the marks, noticing that the lines followed the pattern of a circle.

She ran her fingers along the ridges. Something slick caught her skin.

Warm blood.

Theo appeared behind her. Their eyes met. No words, just shared certainty:

Something terrible had happened here. And whatever laughed in vapour was not finished.

Earlier

Astra and Theo carved circles in the grass outside, blades of ice and purple haze flashing fiercely. Inside the dining hall, a quieter war started.

Eydis walked past the broken doors, shoes silent on timber. She went straight to the control panel, flipped every switch. The freezer's hum slowed, coughed, died.

The room jerked. Frost on the empty steel shelves melted in a rush, unnaturally fast. Water slid down and hissed on contact with the floor. Violet steam curled up in tendrils. They were thin at first, then thick as rope.

From the swirling haze rose a chorus of voices, maybe hundreds, melding into one anguished whine.

"Hungry. So hungry."

Eydis's lips curved to a sly grin. The dark freezer pulsed with flickering purple light as if Gluttony was chewing on empty air. How pathetic.

"Dramatic, as always," she called.

The smoke writhed. "Who dares mock the Devourer?"

"Devourer? Nice upgrade. New vocabulary suits you."

"Enough. Feed me or suffer."

"Angry because the hall's empty?" she said. "I must admit, the subzero treatment for your putrid essence was rather inventive, even for me."

A tendril lashed at her, but struck harmlessly against her violet shield. "It was YOU? You who interrupted my feast?"

"Guilty," Eydis purred. "Gluttony behaving gluttonously? Shocking. Had you shown a shred of restraint, causing minimal harm to my… associates, I might've allowed you another night's freedom."

"Freedom? Don't—"

The rest was swallowed by panic as arcane syllables spilled from Eydis's lips. Her finger traced precise lines across the floor.

Glyphs wove into numbers, circles into runes. A trap made just for this.

"What is this?" Gluttony shrieked. "A binding sigil?"

The circle lit crimson and drank the Sin's essence like a whirlpool. A deep, grinding groan echoed through the metal walls, the sound of unseen gears straining to capture the Sin.

Gluttony was a bottomless pit, swollen from a week of feeding. It fought the sigil's pull with mindless, monstrous strength.

Malevolent heat rolled off of the Sin, sulfur and rot choking the space. There it was. A familiar scent that reeked like a pack of drowned rats.

She gritted her teeth, this would surely reach Astra, no matter how far they were. Not only did she have to contain Gluttony, but Astra's unexpected perceptiveness was a great inconvenience.

The mist thickened, and knitted itself into a translucent membrane lined with black and red veins. It bulged forward, tried to wrap around her, drawing power straight through the shield like a leech.

Eydis's eyes blazed gold. Her own arcane energy crackled around her, needles of violet light pricked the membrane. Sweat stung her eyes, but she kept chanting, feet planted in the glowing circle.

A violet dagger winked into being and she drove it into the living wall. The membrane burst, oozing green acid.

Gluttony growled, membrane flexing to heal. Acid rained on her barrier, sizzling holes. Magic bled from her rapidly.

"Foolish mortal!" the Sin roared. "You think that blade can stop me? Let's end this!"

The membrane pulsed once, twice, before morphing into a muscular, bloated pouch. Light drained from her vision as the walls of her prison closed in.

"You Sins and your smothering affection." She chuckled, even as her shield strained and buckled beneath the onslaught of acid rain.

Gluttony struck with abrupt force. Its swollen gut snapped Eydis's barrier, then swallowed her whole.

"Delicious…"

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