Chapter 3
When The World Takes And Takes
~SERAPHINE~
Something is wrong.
I feel it the moment I push through the post office doors—that prickle at the back of my neck, that twist in my gut that's saved my life more times than I can count. The air inside is different today.
Heavier. Charged with something that makes my skin itch and my fingers twitch toward the blades at my back.
The fluorescent lights buzz overhead, casting that sickly yellow pallor over everything that makes even healthy people look like corpses.
The walls are the same institutional grey they've always been, decorated with faded posters about postal regulations and package weight limits that no one reads.
The floor is scuffed linoleum that squeaks under my ballet shoes with each step.
Everything looks the same.
But it doesn't feel the same.
I skip anyway.
Because fuck the heaviness.
Fuck the wrongness.
Fuck the way my heart is already starting to race with something that feels suspiciously like dread.
Skip, skip, chassé, skip.
My pink hair bounces with each movement, catching the fluorescent light and probably making me look like some deranged fairy who wandered into a government building.
The dried blood on my shoes—from this morning's "distraction"—leaves faint rusty smudges on the linoleum that no one will notice until later.
Evidence, some distant part of my brain whispers. You're leaving evidence.
I ignore it.
Evidence only matters if someone's looking for it, and in Ruthless Academy, bodies are so common that the cleaning staff probably have a dedicated budget line for bloodstain removal.
The usual alley stretches before me—that narrow corridor between the service counter and the wall of P.O. boxes that always makes me feel like I'm walking through a throat. Like the building itself might swallow me whole if I'm not careful.
I count my steps.
One-two-three-four. One-two-three-four.
Even numbers.
Safe.
But it doesn't feel safe today.
The employees I usually see—Marcus with his permanent coffee stain on his tie, Linda with her reading glasses perpetually perched on her nose, Jerome who always smells faintly of cigarettes and regret—are nowhere to be found.
The space behind the counter is empty, shadows pooling in corners that shouldn't have corners.
My toe taps against the floor: tap-tap-tap-tap.
Four times. Even number.
Something's wrong, something's wrong, something's wrong—
I reach the service desk and slam my palm down on the bell.
DING.
The sound echoes through the empty space, too loud, too bright, bouncing off walls that seem to absorb it hungrily.
Silence answers.
My fingers drum against the counter—index, middle, ring, pinky, pinky, ring, middle, index—a pattern that soothes the screaming thing inside my chest. The letter crinkles in my other hand, cream paper against bloodstained fingers, and I realize I'm gripping it too tight.
Relax. Breathe. Two counts in, four counts hold, eight counts out.
I try.
It doesn't work.
"Hello?" My voice comes out sing-song sweet, that practiced cheerfulness I've perfected over years of pretending I'm not falling apart. "Anyone home? It's your favorite deranged customer here for her weekly dose of postal services and human interaction!"
A shuffling sound from the back room.
Then footsteps—slow, reluctant, like whoever's approaching would rather be anywhere else.
The employee who emerges is one I recognize: Maria.
Mid-forties, tired eyes, the kind of face that's seen too much and given up on being surprised by any of it. She's worked the Wednesday morning shift for as long as I've been coming here, and she's always greeted me with the same weary resignation.
But today—
Today, she looks sad.
Not annoyed. Not exasperated.
Not even afraid, which is the usual response when people realize who I am and what I've done.
Just... sad.
The expression sits wrong on her face, like a mask that doesn't quite fit, and something in my chest clenches painfully.
"Morning, Maria." I force brightness into my voice, tilting my head at an angle I know makes me look curious rather than threatening. "You're looking particularly gloomy today. Did someone die? I mean, someone always dies around here, but did someone important die?"
She doesn't smile.
Doesn't even try.
That's when I know—really know—that something is very, very wrong.
"Sera." Her voice is gentle in a way that makes my skin crawl. Tender like she's about to deliver bad news. A soft whisper like she's preparing to watch me shatter. "Haven't you heard?"
My head tilts further, pink hair sliding over my shoulder.
"Heard what?"
Tap-tap-tap-tap goes my toe against the floor.
Thud-thud-thud-thud goes my heart against my ribs.
Maria's mouth opens, closes. She looks at the letter in my hand—at the pink wax seal stained with my blood—and something in her expression crumbles.
"New rules went into place. Last night. Emergency directive from the academy administration."
"Rules?" I laugh, but it comes out wrong. Too high. Too sharp. "There are always new rules. What's the punishment this time? Extra laps around the combat ring? Reduced rations? Mandatory therapy sessions with that shrink who keeps trying to medicate me into compliance?"
"No, sweetheart." Maria's hand reaches toward me, then stops—hovers in the air like she's afraid to touch me. "The new rules... they're about postal services."
The world goes very, very still.
"Postal services," I repeat, my voice flat.
"Omegas are no longer allowed to use the mail system." The words come out in a rush, like she's ripping off a bandage. "Unless they have a pack."
For a moment—just one crystalline second—I don't understand.
The words bounce around inside my skull, refusing to arrange themselves into meaning.
Omegas.
Not allowed.
Mail system.
Pack.
Then they click into place.
And something inside me cracks.
"Well." My laugh this time is eerie—hollow and echoing, the kind of sound that makes people back away slowly.
"Well, that's...that's funny, isn't it? Because if I had a pack—" I gesture broadly at the empty post office, at myself, at the entire fucked-up situation, "—I wouldn't be in Ruthless Academy now, would I? "
Maria nods slowly, her eyes glistening.
"I know. I know, sweetheart. It's not fair. It's—"
"Fair?" The word tastes like ash on my tongue. "When has anything in this place been fair?"
She doesn't answer.
Can't answer.
Because we both know the truth: nothing about Ruthless Academy is fair.
About being a packless Omega, about watching your parents get slaughtered when you're twelve years old and spending the next decade trying to claw your way back to something resembling happiness is fair.
My eyes drop to the letter in my hand.
Cream paper.
Pink wax seal.
Four drops of blood—even number, safe—marking it as mine. Marking it as a piece of myself, sent out into the void in desperate hope that maybe, maybe, someone out there gives a shit whether I live or die.
S.W.
My pen pal.
My ghost.
My only fucking connection to a world outside these blood-soaked walls.
"I guess..." My voice catches. I clear my throat, force it steady. "I guess I can't send this then."
The letter feels heavier now.
Impossibly heavy, like it contains not just words but the weight of every hope I've foolishly allowed myself to feel.
My shoulders sink.
I didn't even realize I was holding them up—braced for impact, prepared for violence, ready for the kind of pain that comes with fists and blades. But this?
This is worse.
This is the slow, suffocating crush of despair that no amount of combat training can protect against.
"I haven't heard from him," I hear myself say, and the words feel like they're coming from somewhere far away. Like I'm watching myself speak from outside my body. "My pen pal. It's been... a month? More than a month. Forty-seven days."
Not that I'm counting.
Except I'm always counting.
Always, always counting.
"That's unusual for him. He's never gone this long without writing back.
He's consistent, you know? Reliable. The only reliable thing in my entire fucking existence.
" My laugh bubbles up again—wrong, broken, the sound of someone losing their grip on whatever thin thread was keeping them tethered to sanity.
"Maybe he's dead. Goodness, maybe he's dead, and I've been writing letters to a corpse this whole time. Wouldn't that be just... perfect?"
The word comes out savage, bitter, soaked in ten years of accumulated grief.
Maria's face crumples.
"Sera—"
"It's okay!" I chirp, pasting on my brightest smile—the one that makes people flinch, the one that screams danger even as my voice stays sugar-sweet.
"Rules are rules, right? I'm sure there's a very good reason why packless Omegas shouldn't be allowed to communicate with the outside world.
Probably something about security. Or control.
Or just—" my voice cracks, "—making sure we know exactly how worthless we are. "
The smile stays frozen on my face, but I can feel my eyes starting to burn.
No. No, no, no. Not here. Not in front of someone. Don't you dare—
The first tear falls before I can stop it.
It lands on the pink envelope, darkening the paper, and I watch it spread with a kind of detached horror.
I'm crying.
In public.
Over a letter.
The absurdity of it makes me want to laugh. The reality of it makes me want to scream.
"I just..." My voice is barely a whisper now, all the manic brightness drained away. "He was the only one who didn't look at me like I was broken. Even through paper, even without ever meeting me, he made me feel like maybe—maybe—there was still something worth saving under all this chaos."
More tears.
Falling on the envelope, on my hands, on the counter between us.
I hate them.
Hate the weakness they represent.