Solflare: The Painter's Secret-Chapter 52: She Knows

Leon stumbled to the bed and kept a cold gaze on the datapad’s screen. It cycled through a nauseating loop of colors – gangrenous green, bile yellow, bruise purple.

All the colors strobed at once before stabilizing into a dark, reflective state. In the reflection, the Y-shaped mark glowed in a tiny gold spark on his forehead.

He turned his head toward Zoe, whose face was full of curiosity as she watched him.

He pointed a finger at the space between his brow. "Is there something on my brow? A mark, a cut... anything?"

Zoe’s brow furrowed as she leaned closer. Her eyes scanned the skin intently as she studied his face. After a long, piercing judgment, she shook her head.

"No mark or cut is there. Just sweat. Why?"

He turned back to the datapad. The golden Y still shimmered in the digital screen. He blinked, once, twice.

As his eyelids fluttered open on the third blink, words scrawled themselves across the reflective surface in a swift, elegant script, as if written by an invisible pen:

They are watching, calculating, and planning. Be careful, Creator.

Like ink dissolving in water, the message vanished.

Before Leon could process it, Zoe was beside him, peering at the datapad screen. A surprised laugh burst out of her.

"Oh. Why are you so tense just seeing my picture on your device?"

Leon stared at the screen, which now showed an ordinary photo of Zoe standing at the shattered land, her hair blowing in some forgotten breeze.

He tilted his gaze from the datapad to her, and back to the datapad’s screen.

At that moment, he remembered the moment and place Zoe stood in that pose – after surviving the monstrous creature at the heart of the valley.

Her laughter died abruptly. Her expression shifted from amusement to sharp suspicion. She straightened up and crossed her arms.

"Wait. How is my picture on your datapad? When did you snap me at the shattered land without me knowing? I never saw you holding any smart device there."

Leon stood there, his soul rolling like a ball. His mind was numb, no answer to give.

The moment Zoe lifted her gaze and turned, the datapad vibrated on the bed. Leon’s eyes widened with shock when he saw two words inscribed on it:

She knows.

As the sky darkened, the normal sounds of the academy dormitory calmed.

The muffled chatter from behind doors, the faint rhythmic thumps from the first-floor room, and the distant echoes of footsteps in the stairwell and the elevator all died away slowly.

One by one, the lights under doors and in the hallway winked out, surrendering to the ordinary night.

Inside the closed seventh door, Leon sat on a chair – the one Zoe mostly used – placed at the edge of the bed.

His right fist was clenched so tightly his knuckles turned white, almost like moons in the dimness.

He alternated his gaze between the sleeping face of Zoe and the vast, star-strewn blackness beyond their window.

As he watched the stars, his eyes, which had been sharpened by the lingering hum of gold in his veins, caught a subtle distortion.

There, nestled between the wispy strands of a high-altitude cloud, was a shape that defied the random patterns of the night. It was too symmetrical and too still to be called a cloud or a star.

It was the shape of a single, unblinking eye... watching.

He didn’t move. He didn’t breathe. He just sat in the dark, a shiver tracing his spine as the eye in the sky held him in its silent, celestial gaze.

He tried moving his gaze away, but the datapad drew his attention with a notification:

RE-CALIBRATION PROTOCOL: STORM, L.

Skill Grade: E.

Task 2/5: Coordination.

Objective: Clean the entire Alchemania ground without stopping.

Time allotment: 12 hours. Commencing 06:00.

Leon sighed softly. He stood up, pushed the glass pane shut, muting the distant hum of the city.

Turning toward the bed, his eyes caught sight of a neatly folded black cloth tucked in the space at the front of Zoe’s sleeping body.

Leon pulled it, the material coarse against his fingers. Without hesitation, he laid it flat on the floor beside the bed and lowered himself onto it.

The memory of the sentinel’s finger, the lizard-lady’s pleading touch, and the celestial eye’s silent judgment all flickered behind his eyelids like an invasive film reel he was forced to host.

Crack.

A sudden, wet impact jolted him from his sleep, sending cold splatter across his face and chest.

Leon gasped, his heart slamming hard against his ribs. Blinking away the sleep and water, he saw Zoe standing over him.

Lifted above him was an empty glass, its round mouth slide toward his head.

Dressed in form-fitting pink joggers and a matching zip-top, her hair pulled into a ponytail. "Do you mind joining me?"

Her voice came in light, but her eyes held a genuine, testing glint.

Leon wiped the water from his eyes. He stood up and automatically began to gather the damp black cloth. As he turned to toss it onto the bed, his breath hitched.

On the rumpled white sheets, the datapad’s screen glared up at him. 06:50.

Beneath it, pulsing softly, was the notification for his second task.

Panic replaced the last vestiges of sleep. He tapped on the notification panel, and the words bloomed anew.

RE-CALIBRATION PROTOCOL: STORM, L.

Skill Grade: E.

Task 2/5: Coordination.

Objective: Clean the entire Alchemania ground without stopping.

Time allotment: 12 hours. Commencing 06:00.

He was fifty minutes late. The female proctor’s words echoed in his head as if she stood closer: Your tasks await. Do as it says, and on time.

The smile that had started to form on Zoe’s face faltered, then twisted into a chuckle as she read the stricken look in his eyes.

Without a word, she spun on her heel and darted out of the room, the door sighing shut behind her.

Leon burst into the bathroom, didn’t bother with the light, and shoved his head under the faucet. Icy water needled his scalp, scrubbing away the drowsiness.

He emerged, dripping, and snatched the damp black hoodie from where it hung, pulling it on.

He stepped out of the bathroom hastily and stood at the side of the bed. He grabbed the datapad, its screen now a riot of digital cartography, and yanked the room door open when he neared it.

In the hallway, a long-handled broom with synthetic bristles and a wide, grey rubber dustpan leaned innocently against the wall beside his door.

On the datapad, a map of the academy grounds overlaid with a scatter of pulsing, each a tiny, glowing ember of obligation.

A legend at the bottom spelled out his fate in cold, color-coded terms: Blue – Perfectly Cleaned. Yellow – Skipped / Incomplete. Red – Failed.