“At first I was confused… but when I sat down and truly thought about it, I realized—my frozen heart hasn’t changed since that day.”

  Year 900. Merlin Academy.

  “—And that, students, is where our story begins.”

  The professor’s voice echoed through the large, dome-shaped lecture hall, bouncing between marble pillars etched with ancient sigils. Most students sat upright, their eyes half-glazed but attentive.

  Most—except one.

  Near the window, in the third row, a boy sat reclined with his head tilted back, eyes closed—not out cold, but floating somewhere between sleep and indifference.

  Taryn.

  The professor’s jaw twitched. He glanced toward the boy, then resumed.

  He turned back to the astral prism beside him, waving his hand to conjure a glowing illusion—an image of a dying sun.

  “Nine hundred years ago, the first sign was the dimming of the sun. Not a solar eclipse. Not seasonal variation. A complete collapse of stellar light. The sun grew cold. The oceans froze. The air thickened. Life—died.”

  A second image appeared—barren, ice-covered Earth.

  “Next came the planets. One by one, their lights dimmed until the night sky was no longer night—it was void. Even the stars vanished. Humanity, in its panic, turned on itself. Famine. War. Paranoia.”

  He let the words hang, their weight pressing into the room.

  “This was the End of History.”

  The illusion faded. A new one appeared: a stillborn infant with a glowing mark on its skin.

  “And then… the births began.”

  Some students visibly tensed. Even after centuries, the story made stomachs churn.

  If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it.

  “Nine months after the collapse, the first of the Cursed Children were born. Not all at once. Not everywhere. But the pattern was clear. Strange marks appeared on their skin—marks that glowed with otherworldly energy.”

  He pointed a finger toward the ceiling, where three sigils now floated in the air.

  “Some emitted intense heat. So much that their mothers were reduced to ash mid-delivery.”

  A girl in the back shivered.

  “Others unleashed such chilling cold that the womb itself became a tomb. The mother, frozen solid, the child carved from her like crystal.”

  Someone whispered a curse.

  “But the rarest... were those who left no mother behind. Not even a trace. As if they had never existed. The child emerged alone—untouched, silent, wrapped in a void.”

  The professor turned, eyes narrowing.

  “These were not anomalies. These were the signs of a system collapse. And the ones born from that collapse… were the future.”

  He stepped forward.

  “Of the marks discovered, Dr. Yoni—yes, the same Yoni whose texts you’re all so eager to avoid reading—classified them into three categories.”

  A fourth illusion emerged: Dr. Yoni himself, mid-lecture, pointing at a projected chart.

  “The Stellar Marks,” the teacher recited, “belong to those who incinerated their mothers at birth. Dr. Yoni believed they were pulling energy from dying stars—perhaps even absorbing what remained of the cosmos.”

  “The Planetary Marks overwhelmed their mothers with elemental force—earthquakes, storms, gravity fields. They were theorized to draw power from the celestial bodies themselves: moons, planets, lost worlds.”

  “And the Dimensional Marks…” the lights dimmed as a new image materialized—dark, shifting, alien. “Those... opened doors that should never have existed. Not in this universe.”

  The teacher’s voice softened.

  “Dr. Yoni was not content with observation. He asked a dangerous question: What are these marks? Why are they dormant? How can these children awaken their true potential?”

  He walked slowly across the platform.

  “For ten years, he experimented. Studied. Sacrificed. And then—he succeeded.”

  A moment of silence.

  “He activated the first curse mark. What followed was not a discovery.”

  The light from the illusions vanished.

  “It was an era.”

  The room was quiet now. Students were rapt with attention—except, of course, for the snoring from the third row.

  The professor finally turned and summoned a pebble between his fingers. He flicked it across the room, aiming for Taryn’s forehead.

  But before it could hit, the pebble was snatched midair by the girl beside him.

  Xara smiled gently, twirling the stone between her fingers.

  The motion stirred Taryn, He blinked, spine straightening slightly.

  The world returned in pieces-light, breath, motion. Noise he hadn't asked for. A lesson he already knew.

  "Huh?" he muttered.

  A faint smirk tugged at the professor’s lips. “Nice of you to join us, Mr. Taryn. Would you like to summarize what you just heard?”

  Taryn stretched lazily, eyes half-lidded. “Something about... the end of everything?”

  “Charming,” the professor said dryly. “Try not to sleep through the next catastrophe.”