Chapter 1: The Year Everything Broke

POV: Rory Hale

The thing about promises is that they break as easily as glass.

I promised myself seventeen would be my year. My year to escape heartbreak, my year to finally breathe. But instead, seventeen became the year everything shattered like someone had taken a hammer to the fragile bits of my life and smiled while they watched me bleed.

“Just one year,” I mumbled under my breath, glancing at the shattered restroom mirror in the school’s hallway. My image peered back at me with storm-gray eyes that seemed too old for my age. “One year. Stay unseen. Survive senior year. That’s all you need to do.”

But of course, the cosmos has a terrible sense of humor.

By lunch, I had already perfected the art of invisibility. Hoodie up. Head down. Earbuds in, even if the music wasn’t playing. Don’t look at anyone, don’t speak unless you’re forced to.

The cafeteria smelled like grease and disinfectant. I brought my tray to an empty corner and sat alone, thinking that was precisely where I wanted to be. The truth? I used to sit in the middle table with individuals who smiled too much, laughed too loud, and vowed we’d always be together.

“Don’t tell me you’re hiding here,” a voice said, and my chest went cold.

I didn’t have to look up. I recognised that voice too well.

Tyler. My ex-boyfriend. The boy I believed I’d marry someday. The same boy who had been tangled up with my best friend, Emma, in the back of his car only three months before.

My hand squeezed on the plastic fork till it almost shattered. “Go away.”

He slid into the seat across from me anyhow, smirking like he had the right. His brown eyes examined me like I was a piece he couldn’t quite fit back together.

“You’re still mad,” he observed nonchalantly, like I had no right to be. “I told you it was a mistake.”

“A mistake?” My laugh was sharp, unpleasant. “Funny, I don’t remember you tripping and falling into her.”

His sneer faltered. “It didn’t mean anything. You know you’re the one I”

“Don’t.” My voice was frigid. “Don’t you dare say love. You don’t get to use that word anymore.”

For a moment, stillness spread between us. But then he leaned closer, dropping his voice. “You still think about me, don’t you?”

I wanted to shout, but the fact was louder than any denial. Of course I thought about him. About us. About everything we lost. But I wasn’t about to surrender that authority.

I shoved my tray away and stood. “Here’s a thought, Tyler: choke on your fries.”

His giggle followed me as I walked out, but my hands were shaking.

By the time math class rolled around, I was fatigued. The teacher droned on about math I didn’t care about. Numbers blended together on the whiteboard. I kept my head low, sketching broken hearts in the margin of my notebook, reciting my quiet mantra again.

Invisible. Unseen. Survive.

Then it occurred.

A searing sensation rushed across my forearm, like someone had driven a burning brand into my skin. I hissed and drew up my arm under the desk. My blood turned to ice.

Glowing lines thin and silver like liquid lightning etched themselves across my arm, twisting into shapes I didn’t identify.

“What the hell…” I whispered.

The girl next me frowned. “You okay?”

Before I could answer, the overhead lights flickered. The buzzing sound got louder, harsh, like the room itself was straining.

The silence.

Utter, terrible silence.

My pencil froze mid-scribble. The teacher froze mid-sentence. Every student around me sat immobile, mouths half-open, eyes wide but unblinking. Time itself had stopped.

Except for one individual.

Across the classroom, lying back in his chair, was a boy I had never seen before. Dark hair flowing into storm-gray eyes that reflected mine. His eyes latched on mine with acute intensity, as if he’d been waiting for this exact moment.

“You shouldn’t have shown them,” he whispered softly, though his lips hardly moved. His voice pierced through the silence like thunder.

I gasped. “What’s happening? Why is everyone”

“Frozen?” He inclined his head, eyeing me with eerie calm. “Because of you. Because your strength just woke up.”

My pulse was hammered. “Power? I don’t”

“You don’t know what you are,” he interrupted, leaning forward. “But you will. And when you do, you’ll wish you’d stayed invisible.”

Something in his tone sliced through my warning, not cruelty. Still, fear wrapped itself around my ribs, squeezing tight.

“I don’t understand,” I whispered. “Who are you?”

The boy’s eyes softened for a fraction of a second, as if he saw my confusion and almost pitied me. Then he pushed his chair back, the scrape loud in the otherwise frozen silence.

“Remember this, Rory Hale,” he said, my name rolling off his tongue like he’d always known it. “Staying invisible isn’t an option anymore.”

And with that, the lights above exploded. Glass shattered. The classroom vanished into blinding white.

When my vision cleared, everyone around me was moving again, like nothing had happened. The teacher still scribbled equations. The students still whispered about homework.

But the boy was gone.

I stumbled out of class, arm still glowing faintly under my sleeve. My chest ached with questions I didn’t dare voice.

What just happened? Who was that boy? And why did it feel like my world had just ended and begun in the same breath?

I pressed my palm against the rune burning on my skin, my voice trembling.

“What am I?”

The hallway lights flickered again, as if the world itself wanted to answer.

Her arm burned brighter, glowing like molten silver beneath her skin. The words she swore she heard, though whispered into silence, would not leave her mind:

“Staying invisible isn’t an option anymore.”

And for the first time, I realized I wasn’t the only one watching.