Chapter Seven:

  “The Wallflower”

  The rain fell in sheets across Greenville, not so much dropping as flowing, as if the sky itself was bleeding. Through the downpour, Elowen Bright clutched her grandmother's glasses case closer to her chest, its familiar weight the only anchor in a world that had stopped making sense. The streets of Greenville, once eerily empty, now churned with humanity, a desperate tide of bodies pressing against her from all sides.

  "Someone's gonna get crushed here," a voice called out over the crowd. "Too many people, not enough space!"

  "Did you hear?" The whispers rose above the storm's fury. "The Ultimate Dive is starting. They say it's our only chance."

  "Better than staying here," someone else answered. "Better than slowly suffocating as this city swallows us whole."

  Elowen pressed herself against a wall, its surface slick with decades of grime and desperate hopes. Her thick glasses fogged with each breath, turning the world around her into shifting ghosts. She'd learned long ago how to make herself small, invisible, a skill honed through years of dodging bullies in school hallways. But here, now, with the press of bodies all around her, there was nowhere to hide.

  Above, neon signs cut through the gloom, their garish colors reflecting off thousands of upturned faces. The crowd surged and shifted like a living thing, forcing Elowen to stumble forward. Bodies pressed against her from all sides, thin bodies, strong bodies, desperate bodies, all of them searching for something. For hope. For escape. For salvation.

  "Watch it, four-eyes!" A sharp elbow caught her ribs as someone pushed past. The old taunt, familiar as a scar, made her shrink further into herself. Her hand tightened around her grandmother's glasses case, feeling the familiar crack in its surface where it had been dropped all those years ago.

  The rain intensified, as if sensing her fear, driving harder against the pavement, creating a rhythm like heartbeats, like whispers of all the moments she had let life pass her by. Always on the sidelines, always watching, never stepping forward. But now, the world was shifting, and she could feel it calling her.

  Thunder cracked overhead, and for a moment, the entire city seemed to hold its breath. In that pause, that perfect silence, Elowen saw her.

  She stood beneath a flickering streetlight, her cloak untouched by the rain that soaked everything else. The woman's hood was drawn low, but Elowen could feel her gaze, sharp, knowing, seeing straight through to all the places she tried to hide.

  The crowd parted around the woman like water around a stone, though no one else seemed to notice her presence. As Elowen watched, frozen, the woman's lips curved into a smile that held no warmth.

  "The girl who hides behind her books," the woman's voice carried clearly despite the storm. "Tell me, Elowen Bright, do you think knowledge alone will be enough to save you?"

  The rain hesitated, droplets hanging suspended in the air as if time itself had forgotten to breathe. Elowen felt her throat constrict, memories of a thousand similar moments flooding back, standing alone in crowded hallways, eating lunch in library corners, making herself invisible. But this woman saw her. Really saw her.

  Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.

  "I don't..." Elowen's voice caught. She swallowed hard and tried again. "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Don't you?" The woman's hood tilted slightly. "The girl who memorized every hiding spot in her school to avoid the ones who tormented her. Who learned to read people's movements, their patterns, their cruelties, all to stay one step ahead. Tell me, what good has all that knowledge done you in a world that's running out of places to hide?"

  Around them, the crowd continued to surge and flow, but somehow no one came near them. The space around the woman remained clear, as if reality itself bent away from her presence. The neon signs above flickered and hummed, casting strange shadows that seemed to dance to the rhythm of Elowen's racing heart.

  "How do you know..." Elowen clutched her grandmother's glasses case tighter, feeling its familiar edges dig into her palms. "How do you know my name?"

  The woman's smile widened. "I know many things, Elowen Bright. I know how you touch that glasses case when you're afraid, like you're doing now. I know how your grandmother told you that knowledge was power, that understanding the world would help you survive it. I know how you believed her, even as the world proved her wrong again and again."

  Elowen's breath shuddered. The old doubts, the ones she had buried beneath facts and numbers and quiet observation, rose like ghosts around her. But beneath them, something else stirred, something new. A question she had never dared to ask herself.

  What if she could be more than just a watcher? What if she could do something?

  The woman's voice softened, curling around the edges of her thoughts like smoke. "The world has enough ghosts, Elowen. It needs minds like yours. It needs you."

  For the first time in her life, Elowen Bright wasn’t sure whether she was afraid or excited.

  The rain began to fall once more, but differently now, each drop hitting the pavement with the weight of truth, of secrets laid bare. Thunder rolled overhead, a low growl that seemed to shake the very foundations of Greenville.

  The woman held out her hand, and suspended above her palm was something that seemed woven from light itself, a Gamepass that pulsed with rhythms that matched the thunder overhead.

  "You've spent your life watching, learning, understanding," the woman said, her voice carrying undertones that made the air itself shiver. "But knowledge without action is like a book that's never opened. Tell me, Elowen Bright, are you ready to do more than just observe?"

  "Why me?" The question escaped before she could stop it, small and scared and so very honest.

  The woman's smile shifted, becoming something almost gentle, though no less terrifying. "Because, dear child, you've spent your life learning how to survive. Now it's time to learn how to live." She stepped closer, the rain still refusing to touch her. "But I should warn you, the price of transformation is never small. When midnight strikes, your careful defenses will be stripped away, forcing you to stand in lights far brighter than these." She gestured at the neon signs above. "Are you prepared for that?"

  Elowen's hand tightened around her grandmother's glasses case, feeling its familiar cracks and edges. She remembered her grandmother's voice, warm and sure: "Knowledge isn't just power, love. It's a light in the darkness. Never let anyone make you ashamed of seeking it."

  The storm seemed to hold its breath as Elowen reached for the Gamepass. The moment her fingers touched it, lightning split the sky, illuminating the crowded streets in stark relief. For a heartbeat, she saw the truth of Greenville, thousands upon thousands of souls pressed together, all of them desperate, all of them seeking something more than mere survival.

  "Remember this moment," the woman said, her form already beginning to fade into the rain. "When the time comes, when everything you think you know is tested, remember that you chose this. You chose to step out of the shadows."

  Then she was gone, leaving Elowen standing in the rain-soaked street, the weight of her past in one hand and the promise of her future in the other. The Gamepass pulsed, not just with light, but with something deeper. A promise. A demand. Around her, the crowd's voices rose and fell like waves against a crumbling shore, every voice carrying fragments of hope, desperation, and terrible purpose.

  The storm growled overhead, recognizing this moment for what it was, the last breath of invisibility before a girl who had spent her life watching finally chose to be seen.