Chapter 365:Arriving early.

Chapter 365: 365:Arriving early.

By the fifth day of Silver’s disappearance, Alpha Three finally appeared ahead.

Even Dillian, who had heard descriptions of the sanctuary, wasn’t prepared for the scale.

The walls alone dwarfed those surrounding the Delta Sanctuaries he’d grown accustomed to.

Traffic converged from multiple reinforced roads, aircraft moved above designated lanes in the distance, and enormous structures rose behind the walls far enough that the sanctuary seemed less like a protected settlement and more like an entire world separated from the wastelands surrounding it.

Iris leaned toward the window.

"That’s Alpha Three?"

He slowed with traffic.

"It should be."

"You’re saying that like you’re not sure."

"I knew it was large. Nobody mentioned that the walls look like they were built to stop the end of the world a second time."

Maya laughed. "Maybe that’s exactly what they were built for."

They entered the admission queue. The process took time. They required contractor identification, vehicle registration, purpose of entry, academy documentation and temporary residential information.

Dillian produced his academy materials. The officer checking them looked at the date.

"You’re early."

Dillian frowned. "That’s a problem?"

"No. Most candidates arrive during the final day or on opening morning. Academy admissions don’t officially begin until later, but arriving early is usually smarter. Housing near the northern district becomes difficult once the final wave arrives."

He stared at the officer.

"Opening morning."

"Yes."

He slowly smiled.

In the original schedule he’d planned for himself, he’d expected to arrive much closer to the beginning of admissions.

Instead, he had reached Alpha Three days earlier than necessary.

Another deviation.

Not that Dillian knew anything about novels, fate or the timeline that should have existed. To him, it was simply fortunate travel.

The gates opened and Dillian drove inside. The scale became even more absurd that he had ever imagined.

Maya stared through the window.

"We’re going to get lost."

He looked at the navigation display.

"We have a map."

"The map has six different routes stacked on top of each other."

"We’ll manage."

Twenty minutes later, Dillian took the wrong exit and the women didn’t let him forget it. By evening, they finally reached the broader northern districts surrounding the academy.

That created the next problem.

Accommodation.

Dillian stopped outside the third hotel they’d checked. Maya who had gone inside returned several minutes later.

"Full."

He leaned his forehead against the steering wheel.

"You said arriving early was supposed to make this easier."

"I never said that."

"The checkpoint officer said it."

"Then go complain to him."

He looked toward the crowded street. Candidates were arriving constantly.

Some buildings displayed temporary accommodation notices while others already had signs stating there were no vacancies.

Dillian started the engine again.

"We’ll go farther from the academy."

Selena groaned. "We’ve already been searching for nearly two hours."

"Then statistically we’re getting closer to finding somewhere."

"That’s not how statistics work."

"It is tonight."

He pulled back onto the road.

As the vehicle joined the traffic, Dillian glanced toward the distant academy structures visible beyond the northern skyline.

For a moment, that strange feeling returned; the sense that something important had happened there, something he had somehow missed.

He watched the academy lights appearing in the distance and eventually shook the thought away.

Whatever waited in Death Row Valley had already passed him by.

His future was here now.

Right now, his immediate problem was much simpler. He needed somewhere to sleep before the academy opened.

.

.

.

By the evening before the Academy officially opened its admissions, Ravenna had somehow managed to turn what should have been a simple shopping trip into preparations for two students, despite the fact that only one of those students was currently standing inside the enormous commercial district with a shopping basket in her hands.

Silver wasn’t there but that didn’t stop her.

"If you’re going to buy another one for him, you might as well admit you’re preparing his entire academy luggage," Antony said as he stood several steps away with two different pairs of protective gloves in his hands, turning them over as he tried to decide which would survive longer during combat training.

"You’ve bought him notebooks, pens, two training shirts, toiletries, socks, a jacket and whatever that thing was from the equipment store. At this point, he could arrive in Alpha Three wearing nothing but a blanket and you’d still have enough supplies to send him directly into the academy."

Ravenna placed another pack of notebooks into her basket.

"He lost almost everything."

"You don’t know that."

"He has been trapped underground for god knows how long, are you becoming stupid or something."

Antony considered that.

"That’s a reasonably strong argument but also insulting."

She glanced toward him. "His clothes are probably ruined. His supplies were meant for a short expedition, and if he’s been surviving underground this entire time, he’s probably used most of them. I don’t know whether he still has his sword, his ammunition or even his bag. Buying basic things now means he doesn’t have to waste time doing it when he gets here."

He raised an eyebrow.

"When he gets here."

She stopped after noticing how the words had come naturally. She looked down at the basket.

Silver was alive, that was enough.

"When he gets here," she repeated more firmly. "I’m not preparing everything because I think he’ll magically appear tonight. I’m preparing because when he does arrive, I don’t want him worrying about notebooks and clothes while we’re trying to get him admitted."

Mallory, who had been comparing two different academy supply lists nearby, smiled.

"I think that’s perfectly reasonable."

Antony looked between them.

"Of course you do. You’re the reason we have four bags already."

Mallory calmly returned one of the lists to the shelf. "Those four bags contain useful things. The three different types of combat gloves you’ve been carrying around for the last twenty minutes are the reason we’re still inside this store."

Antony looked at the gloves.

"Choosing combat equipment requires careful thought."

"You picked the first pair because they looked impressive."

"They do look impressive."

"The second pair has better reinforcement."

"That’s why I’m conflicted."

Ravenna smiled despite herself. It had been happening more often since Silver’s first message.

She still worried, every hour without another message created another hundred possibilities in her mind, but the terrible certainty that had followed her from Death Row Valley was gone.

Silver was alive, somewhere beneath that mountain, he moving. That knowledge had changed everything.

She no longer felt like she was preparing for an academy she didn’t care about while the person she loved might already be dead.

Now she was preparing for the life Silver had told her to continue toward, and she intended to make sure there was space beside her when he arrived.