Gale sat in the lobby of Yorkdale Adult Learning Centre. It was now Thursday, two days after the most fun he’d had for a scavenger hunt. Kyle and Clyde said that the next hunt would be one where no girls were allowed because girls usually ruined the fun. However, it was really fun with Rachel. Nodding to himself, he’ll bring her anyway. The more people, the merrier.

Scanning the lobby, he dodged fast walkers coming in and out of the school. He took a big deep breath in, smelling the textbooks, coffee, cleaning materials, and dirty snow. Its just how he remembered it. It was 5 months in the rift, but only 1 month on Earth passed. He hadn’t seen Andrew, Jacob, and Mia in what felt like forever.

Pulling up his phone, he opened the Messenger app and tapped on their group chat.

[Mia: I don’t think it’s a good idea to go to finch bridge in the winter]

[Jacob: ha! that’s what a woman would say! scaredy cat!]

[Mia: I am a woman, dumbass!]

[Andrew: i got hand warmers and a portable heater to camp out to see the white lady. im locked in bros]

[Jacob: hell yeah, mia come oooooooon. its going to be fun. besides, we got cool new powers!]

[Mia: ugh, fine. but we go after dinner at my place]

[Jacob: can we have quessidillas please!]

[Mia: sure. andrew you want anything?]

[Andrew: can you make the salsa a bit spicier?]

[Mia: can do. make sure you bring all the equipment.]

[Andrew: already in my car. flashlights, tents, emf readers, the whole set]

[Jacob: anyone hear from Gale? My contact isn’t replying.]

[Andrew: he’s probably in one of those rift raid things they talked about right? its mandatory apparently]

[Mia: he’ll text us when hes back.]

Gale’s feet went cold. He forgot to text them! He quickly typed up a message to the group chat.

[Gale: hey bros, i just got back from a rad rift. whats up?]

[Mia: Gale! welcome back.]

[Andrew: we seriously need to work on your slang. that is not how people talk…]

[Jacob: let him! its funny]

[Mia: did you register for classes yet? classes started this week.]

[Gale: I have to register?]

But last time, he didn’t really have to register. He was already emailed a schedule, and all he had to do was just go to class. Maybe it was Emmerson that registered for him.

Dammit! Now he had to go through the fiery hell of bureaucracy once again. Having to talk to another person behind a desk made biting a solid nutrition brick sound like easy work.

[Mia: you’re in the school?]

Gale nodded, but forgot they couldn’t see him.

[Gale: im at the front lobby]

Moving to one of the pillars, he leaned on a pillar to wait for his friends. His eyes shifted and darted everywhere, but to make it even more authentic, he put his hood on and placed his hands into his pockets. He lowered the hoodie just a bit to make it hard for people to see his face.

Now, he was really the dark hunter that protected the Yorkdale Adult Learning Centre from the underbelly of the criminal world.

People walked by him, staring all the while. Some even stepped out of the way or avoided him altogether, and they were correct for doing so. He needed clear lines of sight to protect them from the darkness.

Two minutes later, Mia, Andrew, and Jacob saw him at the pillar and rushed up immediately to him. She pulled over his hood and let out a sigh of relief.

“Gale!” Mia hissed. “What were you doing looking like that?”

Gale tilted his head. “I was waiting for you guys while scanning the vicinity. You know. For criminals.”

Andrew and Jacob laughed while Mia sighed.

“Well, you literally looked like one,” Andrew said. “Glad you’re alive though.”

“I have a 100% return rate from rifts. Of course I’d be alive.”

Andrew and Jacob laughed even more. “We figured something happened to you. When’d you get back anyway?”

“Friday, I think? Last Friday.”

“You could’ve sent us a message when you got back,” Jacob said.

“Relax. He just got back. Give him some space,” Mia said, looking him up and down. “Welcome back, but you look kinda different.”

“Different how?”

“Taller maybe? Or you just carry yourself differently now. Dunno,” Mia said. “Whatever. Come on. We need to get you registered for classes before they close enrollment.”

Gale followed as Mia led the group away from the lobby. They didn’t head toward the administrative offices where he’d expected to suffer through bureaucratic hell. Instead, she turned down a hallway that led to the cafeteria. He could definitely eat first before the fight with the man behind the desk.

Mia pushed her way through the cafeteria doors as the boys followed her. She beelined for an empty table and set down her bag, then pulled out her laptop. Tapping the side button, the screen turned on.

After opening the browser, she typed in the Yorkdale Adult Learning Centre’s website and pressed the login button. Turning the laptop to Gale, she said, “Log in.”

Gale stared at the login screen.

Student ID. Password.

The trauma from TD’s website came back to him. His heart rate increased, eyes dilated, blood pressure spiked, adrenaline entered his system. Oh, how he wished he could just literally punch the login screen.

“You ok there, Gale?” Andrew asked.

Wait.

If Emmerson registered him, something should be in his messages about the log in as well. Fishing his phone out of his pocket, he went directly to the Messenger app and searched for Emmerson’s name. Opening it, he scrolled up until he found the login ID that he was given.

As his heart rate stabilized, blood pressure lowered, and adrenaline faded, he gave his phone to Mia happily.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

Mia spun it around and typed in his credentials, then went to the registration portal. All three didn’t seem to be fazed by Gale’s behaviour of just giving her his phone. As expected; having friends was fun.

“English 11. Biology 11. Financial Literacy. Foundations for College Mathematics.” Mia read off the classes as she clicked through the enrollment pages. “These are the same ones we’re taking this semester. You’ll be in all our classes.”

“Wait. That’s it?” Gale leaned forward. “You just… clicked some buttons?”

“Yeah? That’s how online registration works.”

“But I thought I had to talk to someone, fill out forms, stand in line, then argue with the man behind the desk.”

Jacob snorted. “Bro, that’s what old people do.”

“The registrar’s office is basically just for special cases,” Andrew said. “Transfer credits, appeals, that kind of thing. Normal enrollment is all through the portal.”

Gale nodded at the new information that came to him. This was a one in a lifetime revelation. The internet was so useful. No wonder Ollie was so rich. Everyone used the internet for such convenient purposes!

“You’re registered.” Mia turned the laptop back toward herself. “You missed this week. Classes are from Monday to Thursday this semester. Don’t be late on Monday.”

Gale nodded once again. Lately, it felt like that’s what he’d been doing a lot. So many new things, so much to learn about.

Mia closed the laptop. “Though honestly, this might be our last semester here anyway.”

“What do you mean?”

Andrew and Jacob exchanged a look.

“We got recruitment notices,” Andrew said. “To Sterling Institute.”

“Sterling? How do you know about that?” Gale asked.

“Keep your voice down,” Mia whispered harshly.

Glancing around the tables, the cafeteria was basically almost full even in the morning. Too many people on their laptops and bitter brown liquid that could be made into liquid candy with 8 teaspoons of sugar and 4 packets of milk that Gale started to crave after watching those adults drink their coffee.

“Can I have coffee too?”

“Gale, focus.” Mia said.

“Oh, right. Wait. What? Did you three awaken or something?” Gale asked.

“ALL THREE OF US!” Jacob shouted, then immediately received an elbow from Mia. “Ow! What? It’s exciting!”

“We’re in public, idiot.”

“Fine, fine.” Jacob rubbed his arm and lowered his voice to what he probably thought was a whisper but was really just slightly less loud than his normal speaking voice, which was already loud. “Yeah. All three of us. It happened about two weeks after you left for that rift.”

“All three of us Awakened in the same week. Weird one too. I started seeing footprints on the floor, and I don’t even take drugs man.” Andrew said.

“I accidentally cut myself on a knife, and then it just healed like Wolverine. It’s so cool! Wanna see?” Jacob said.

Mia elbowed him again and then said, “Mine wasn’t so pretty. I accidentally made my mom faint from my innate ability.”

“What’s that one?” Gale asked.

“All of us had a man knock on our doors the day after we awakened. They called themselves units from Neutral Grounds or something. The man said mine is a subset of psychic abilities. I can basically cause headaches in people,” Mia said. “Those two have less abstract abilities.”

Gale extended Presence Between’s tendrils outward, letting them into his friends’ bodies. He’d been so caught up in the conversation that he hadn’t bothered to check earlier.

The signatures were faint. The Awakened signature was there, like a tiny grain. They were all Early-Awakened, but much fresher than the kids at Sterling.

“Anyways, those people say we have a choice of joining a faction or going to Sterling. No other choice, like it was a threat,” Mia said.

“Hey, what’s the harm anyways? They’d help us control our ether, teach us magic, and do more stuff with our innate abilities. What’s the harm in going to Sterling?”

“You never know. It sounds too convenient and colourful of a description. There must be a catch!” Mia said in a suppressed shout.

“You mean like Chamber of Secrets?” Jacob said.

“I really wanna hit you right now.”

“What? It’s true!”

“I think Sterling is fun,” Gale said, smiling. “I was actually just there two days ago.”

“You were at Sterling?” Mia asked. “Why?”

“A scavenger hunt to look for a missing child,” Gale said, still smiling.

“That is one helluva scavenger hunt,” Andrew said.

“You see! Students just go missing, and Gale calls it a scavenger hunt. None of that makes sense!”

“Magic makes no sense, so you’re kinda out of luck making this one make sense—Ow!” Jacob rubbed his flank. “What was that for?”

“For actually making sense for once,” Mia said.

“Why hit me if it makes sense…” Jacob mumbled.

“We’re still figuring out how to use ether and not accidentally use our innates, though,” Andrew said. “That’s why I think we should just go to Sterling instead of a faction. We’d get better jobs if we actually go there and graduate.”

“For adults like us, it’s a four to six year course,” Mia turned back to Gale. “Full time. They provide a stipend to our families during that time, which is nice. But we can’t leave campus except during scheduled breaks.”

“Same as regular students?”

“Apparently. Something about for the safety of yourselves and the public,” Mia’s shoulders dropped. “I’m more worried about my mom. I help her a lot, and I just can’t leave her alone for months at a time.”

“Did you talk to your mom about it?” Gale asked.

“I told her about the Awakened stuff and even made these idiots demonstrate since she didn’t believe me at first.” Mia sighed. “Then she said it was good for me and I should go since it might be better than actual college… which is kinda true.”

“With the job prospects for awakened individuals, that’s way better than college,” Andrew said. “Think about it. Faction employment, guild contracts, Path positions. Don’t even mention the Vagrant guilds looking for anyone that’s involved in Aur. The earning potential is significantly higher than anything we could do with a mundane education.”

Jacob whooshed his hands around. “I’m going to join one of those organizations that fights chaos with harmony. Like the Jedi.”

“Idiot, there’s nothing like that in Aur!” Mia hissed at him.

“What? The Path is basically the Jedi Order! They maintain peace, they have a hierarchy, they recruit young people—”

“That’s what they want you to see on the outside. Don’t you remember they were hunting me for the Project Threshold files?”

“I mean, that’s because that was the source of chaos.”

“I think it’s a good idea though,” Gale said. “Since people involved in Aur are in demand. Last time I checked, there were so many mundanes in Ollie’s company.”

“I thought you two were friends. You’re really under his payroll?” Andrew sat up straighter.

“Sort of.” Gale wasn’t exactly sure how to put his relationship with Ollie anymore. The dark hunter stuff of hunting the dust dealers was now done since Spotlight was cleaned up.

By who? He didn’t know. Probably some other hunter that lurked in the cities of Canada.

Andrew leaned across the table and whispered, “Do you think you could get me a job there? Even something small? Entry level? I don’t care. Just something in the door.”

“Definitely. I just need to ask Ollie.”

“You can just… ask him? Just like that?”

“He’s my friend,” Gale said enthusiastically.

Mia tapped her fingers on the closed laptop. “Speaking of Sterling… are you going too?”

“What do you mean?”

“You only awakened last year, right? Around the same time as us, more or less. If they recruited us, shouldn’t they have recruited you too?”

That was actually a good point from Mia. Now that he thought of it, why hadn’t Sterling approached him? He’d been awakened for almost a year now. Longer than these three.

Then he remembered the conversation with Emmerson. He was given a choice, a choice he rejected completely and was given an exception due to being a “Red Hollow,” an Awakened that came out of the Lakeshore West Heights red death incident. Just like everyone else that came out of that rift, like the Blue Witches as well. That did make sense… no wonder Lily and her friends were able to just go straight to doing rifts.

“I’m special,” Gale said slowly, like he wasn’t even sure of what he was saying.

“Heard that one before,” Mia said, chuckling.

Andrew leaned back in his chair. “Did you see the group chat earlier? We’re thinking of doing a ghost hunt on Saturday.”

Gale’s heart and smile dropped at the same time. The one thing he didn’t miss–these friends of his were ghost hunt crazies.

“Ghost hunt?”

“Yeah! There’s been a couple of sightings near Old Finch Avenue Bridge for the past week. People say they’ve seen a woman in white walking along the rails at night.” Jacob’s voice was practically oozing with excitement. “Now that we’re Awakened, we can definitely handle our own.”

“That’s dangerous.” Gale’s eyes darted around as he suppressed the tremble in his voice. “Too dangerous. Ghosts aren’t like the movies. They can be way stronger than Awakened.”

“But you’re here now,” Jacob said. “What’s there to be afraid of?”

Gale opened his mouth for a second, then remembered the ghost powder pouch Lily gave him from Witch Moura. But the point was, if an encounter didn’t have to happen, then avoid it at all cost. That was the first thing dad taught him about encountering bear and moose tracks in the wild.

However, looking at their faces and their expectant eyes, there was no way he could say no. At least he had the ghost powder now. He didn’t think he’d have to use it so early. Best case scenario was that he wouldn’t have to use it at all.

“Fine,” Gale sighed. “I’ll come.”

Mia put her laptop in her bag. “We’re having dinner at my place first. Gale, you want anything specific?”

“The pico… something. The one with the tomatoes.”

“Pico de gallo.” Mia turned to Andrew. “Buy the Coke Zero and bring it up to my place.”

Andrew gave a thumbs up.

“This is a bad idea. I can already feel it… Remember what happened last time?” Gale asked.

“That was a test run,” Jacob waved his hands. “It can’t be that bad this time.”

Gale’s hand shot out and covered Jacob’s mouth before he could say anything more.

“You just raised a black flag.” Gale glared into his eyes. “Every time someone says ‘it can’t be that bad,’ it gets worse. Every single time. In the wild, those are the last words of the prey.”

Jacob mumbled something against his palm.

“It’s definitely going to be bad now. Again,” Gale said.

Mia and Andrew glanced at each other.

“So, wanna go for lunch?” Andrew asked.

“Starving,” Mia said. “You two, let’s go.”

“What about coffee?” Gale asked.

“We can get you one there,” Mia said, putting her bag over her shoulders and walking to the cafeteria doors. “Come on.”

“Coming!” Gale said, pulling away from Jacob and following Mia with Andrew.

Jacob quickly packed up and left the cafeteria as well. “Wait for me!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep