# Chapter 2: Restless Nights
The dorms at Jones Academy weren’t anything fancy—just long, clean hallways with identical doors, like a college campus that had been designed by someone who hated fun. Everything smelled faintly of bleach and new paint, the kind of sterile that made you feel like you were in a hospital instead of a secret demon-fighting school.
Sky’s room was on the third floor of the awakened wing, a small double he shared with Max. Two narrow beds, two desks, two lockers. A window overlooking the track where early-risers were already jogging under the July sunrise. The bags they’d been issued—gray sweats, basic toiletries, academy T-shirts—sat unpacked on the floor.
Sky dropped onto the bottom bunk without bothering to change. The mattress was firm, the pillow too flat. He stared at the underside of Max’s bunk, hands behind his head.
Max was pacing, still wired. “Dude. We’re literally in a sorcerer school. Tomorrow we’re gonna, like… shoot lightning or something. How are you just lying there?”
Sky let out a breath he hadn’t realized he was holding. “Because if I don’t lie here, I’m gonna punch a wall or scream or… I don’t know.”
He wanted it to start already. The training. The power. Something to make him feel less helpless than he had last night, swinging a nailed bat like some horror-movie final girl. He wanted to be strong enough that no one else had to die because he was too slow.
But the second he thought about actually facing another demon—those red eyes, the claws, the smell—he felt his stomach knot up. His hands still remembered the recoil of the gun. The wet give of the knife going in.
Max finally flopped onto his own bed. “Yeah. Me too.”
The lights clicked off automatically at ten. The room went dark except for the faint glow of the campus floodlights through the blinds.
Sky listened to Max’s breathing even out, slow and steady. He waited for sleep to take him too.
It didn’t.
Across campus, in the quieter wing where the clan-bound kids were housed, Room 105 was a bigger space—four sets of bunks, shared bathroom, a common area with beat-up couches. The eight of them—Cam, Juno, Jessica, Abel, Taro, Rita, Lola, and John—had crashed hard at first, exhaustion hitting like a truck.
But around midnight, Cam sat up. His arm was bandaged thick from last night’s claw marks, throbbing under the gauze. He couldn’t sleep either.
Juno noticed first, sitting cross-legged on his bunk with a dim phone light. “You okay?”
Cam rubbed his face. “No. I keep thinking… we’re the rejects, right? Not enough ‘will energy’ to awaken. We’re just… support.”
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Jessica pulled her blanket tighter. “They said we can still train. Still fight.”
“Yeah, but not like them.” Cam glanced at the others—some pretending to sleep, some wide awake. “I want to know more about this Demon Heart thing. Mr. Joy made it sound like the whole reason those assholes hit the party.”
Rita sat up. “There’s supposed to be a clan master here for summer intakes. Guy named Joe. Old-timer. Knows the archives.”
Lola, voice small: “It’s past midnight.”
Cam stood anyway, wincing as he pulled on a hoodie. “Exactly. No one’ll stop us.”
They slipped out quietly—eight shadows in academy sweats, barefoot or in slides, moving through empty halls lit by emergency strips. The summer air outside was still warm, crickets loud in the grass. The clan housing was a separate cluster of older buildings, stone and ivy, like the academy had grown around them.
Clan Master Joe’s cottage sat at the edge, light still on in the window. An old man answered their knock—seventies maybe, white hair tied back, wearing a faded Jones Academy jacket over pajamas. He didn’t look surprised.
“Couldn’t sleep either, huh?” He waved them in without questions.
The inside smelled like old books and tea. Shelves floor to ceiling. Joe pulled a thick, leather-bound tome from a locked case—pages brittle, cover embossed with a jagged heart symbol cracked down the middle.
He set it on the table under a green lamp.
“The Demon Heart,” he began, voice low and gravelly, like he’d told this story a hundred times and it still chilled him. “Wasn’t made. It was born.”
Thousands of years ago, before recorded history in most places, the first human to ever touch raw will energy went too far. A woman—name lost, but the texts call her the First Vessel. She tried to pull power straight from the space between worlds, the place rifts come from. Thought she could hold it all.
She couldn’t.
The energy fought back. It had hunger. Personality. It wrapped around her heart, fused with it. When she screamed, the first great rift tore open—big enough to swallow cities. Demons poured out for the first time. Her body burned away, but the heart didn’t. It crystallized. Black stone shot through with red veins, still beating slow, like it’s waiting.
Whoever syncs with it—fully masters it—becomes the strongest thing alive. Control over rifts. Power beyond any innate technique. But the Heart doesn’t submit easy. It has its own mind. Whispers. Takes over in pieces. Drives you to open more rifts, feed it more chaos. Most who’ve tried ended up monsters. Worlds ended.
Joe turned a page carefully—illustrations of cracked hearts, people with black veins crawling up their necks.
“But here’s the part they don’t teach freshmen,” he said quieter. “Every twenty years or so, the Heart… moves. A fragment breaks off. Tiny. Dust-like. It finds its way into the world—slips into food, water, air. Someone eats it without knowing. It nests inside them. Waits. Grows. That person becomes the next potential Vessel. Stronger will energy than anyone. Pull toward rifts. Nightmares of red eyes.”
He closed the book.
“Last recorded fragment was twenty-one years ago. We’re overdue.”
The kids stared. Outside, wind rattled the windows.
Cam swallowed. “So… one of us?”
Joe shrugged. “Or one of the awakened. Or someone already out there. Point is, the villains know it’s time. They’re hunting.”
They walked back in silence, the summer night heavier now. Slipped into Room 105. Finally slept, uneasy.
5:00 a.m.
A bell rang through the halls—sharp, relentless.
Sky jolted awake, heart racing before he even remembered where he was. Max groaned from the top bunk.
The overhead lights flicked on automatically. A calm voice over the intercom: “All summer intakes report to designated training fields or clan halls by 0600. Uniforms in lockers.”
Sky swung his legs off the bed. The floor was cold. He grabbed the toiletry kit, shuffled to the shared bathroom down the hall. Hot shower—first real one since the party. Water ran pink for a second from dried blood he’d missed in his hair. He scrubbed harder.
Brushed his teeth until his gums hurt. Stared at himself in the fogged mirror—taller than most kids, but eyes looked older now. Bruises fading on his arms from last night’s fight.
Back in the room, he pulled on the academy uniform: black cargo pants, gray T-shirt with the silver eye emblem, lightweight jacket. Sneakers. Felt like military school cosplay.
Max was already dressed, hair sticking up everywhere. “Ready to become badass?”
Sky forced half a smile. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
Downstairs, the others were gathering—Frosty tying her hair back, Mira yawning, Jefferson cracking his neck. Het looked like he hadn’t slept at all. Hiro was helping a still-groggy Taro from the other group find his shoes.
The cafeteria smelled like coffee and eggs. They loaded trays in silence, sat together at a long table. No one talked much. Just the clink of forks and the low hum of other students—older ones who glanced at the newbies with something like pity.
Outside, the July sun was already climbing, heat shimmering off the track.
Training started at six.
Sky took a breath. Whatever came next—powers, demons, the Heart—he wasn’t waiting anymore.
He was ready to fight.
Even if he was still scared shitless.
Do you think sky has the demon heart
