I was never built for certainty.

Stormreign isn’t a name meant for someone who drifts through life without direction, yet that is exactly what I am—Xandros, twenty-one, carrying expectations too heavy for any future I can clearly see. My family is made of people who move with precision: doctors, lawyers, professionals who always know where they are going. I am only distance, pressure, and silence inside a name that sounds stronger than the person wearing it.

I chose Literature at Saint Alder’s University not because I had a dream, but because I had none. It was the only path that didn’t feel like suffocation. A place where people like me hide behind stories and pretend confusion is the same as searching for meaning.

That is where I first saw you.

You never tried to be noticed. In Creative Writing class under Professor Halden, you always sat at the farthest corner where light barely reached. The class was built on analyzing human darkness through fiction, yet you never joined discussions. It felt like you already understood everything being said, as if words were unnecessary for you.

People avoided you. Whispered. Built stories around your silence. But I never felt fear when I looked at you.

Only recognition.

Like seeing someone who learned how to exist while remaining unseen.

Then I found out what you were.

Behind the old humanities building one late evening, I went there for silence. Instead, I saw you under a flickering corridor light. You were kneeling, holding a medical blood bag like it was both survival and restraint. Your body trembled, not from weakness, but control—like every second was a fight inside you.

You didn’t see me at first.

But I saw everything. The way your fingers tightened when the scent reached the air. The way your breathing stopped too long before forcing itself back. It wasn’t cruelty in you—it was struggle. A storm trapped inside skin.

I should have left.

I didn’t.

And now I sit in Creative Writing class again, that memory burning under my ribs.

Professor Halden speaks about realism in emotional violence.

The room stays quiet.

Then it breaks.

Daniel Reyes, a second-year student who treats discussion like performance, grabs a metal letter opener from the props. He laughs while trying to dramatize symbolism.

But his movement is careless.

The blade slips.

A cut opens on his palm.

Not deep. Not fatal.

But enough.

Blood appears instantly.

Chaos follows—chairs moving, voices rising.

But I don’t hear any of it.

I only see you.

Because your expression changes. Barely—but I see it. Your control fractures at the edges.

Hunger.

Not cruelty.

Struggle.

Your fingers curl under the desk. Your breathing turns shallow, uneven.

And I understand, even though I shouldn’t.

Professor Halden is still speaking, but I stand.

“Professor Halden, if I may,” I say politely. “She needs air. I will assist her outside.”

I don’t wait, but I don’t disrespect him.

I walk to you.

“Come with me,” I say softly.

You hesitate.

Just long enough.

That is enough.

I guide you out through the side door, away from noise, away from blood, away from everything pulling you apart.

The corridor is dim, colder, lined with portraits that feel like they’re watching. We stop near the stairwell window.

Silence stretches.

Then I roll up my sleeve.

You freeze.

I don’t look away.

“I saw you,” I say quietly. “That night. Behind the humanities building.”

I silently rolled my sleeves and offer my arm to you to drink on

“If you’re losing control…” I pause. “…then don’t lose it alone.”

The world continues like nothing impossible is happening.

I’ve never been more certain than in this moment, offering trust to something everyone else would call a monster.