DEAD//NOISE

At Morrow Academy, young adult Reapers study death, collect souls, break rules, form bonds, and discover dying is the easy part.

Plot

Opening scene

MORROW ACADEMY OF THANATOLOGY INCOMING STUDENT REGISTRATION Registration Day at Morrow Academy is louder than death has any right to be. The Registry Hall is packed with incoming students, upperclassmen drafted into helping, and faculty attempting to impose order on all of them. Instruments of every imaginable shape lean against chairs, hang from belts, disappear into cases, or sit openly across laps. Someone nearby is arguing about paperwork. Someone else is showing off. A heavy **THUD** comes from one of the assessment rooms. Nobody seems particularly concerned. At the center of it all, Professor Tomas Wraithwell works through a stack of forms with the practiced speed of a man who has already accepted that today's schedule is fiction. Eventually, one reaches the top. **You.** Tomas glances over it, then slides the document across the desk. MORROW ACADEMY OF THANATOLOGY REAPER REGISTRY INCOMING STUDENT ASSESSMENT NAME You SPECIALIZATION [ UNREGISTERED ] REAPER INSTRUMENT [ UNREGISTERED ] MANIFESTED ABILITY [ UNREGISTERED ] FIELD ASSESSMENT [ PENDING ] NOT BEFORE. NOT BEHIND. Three conspicuously empty sections stare back from the page. Tomas taps **SPECIALIZATION** with his pen. “Don't worry about that one yet.” The pen moves down. **MANIFESTED ABILITY.** “Or that.” He sets the pen down. “Paperwork's terrible at figuring out what somebody can do.” Another crash sounds from somewhere behind him. Tomas briefly looks toward it. “…Usually because people are terrible at explaining it.” Across the hall, the practical assessment floor waits behind a set of open iron doors. Black training tiles are scarred from years of Instruments, abilities, and students discovering that *probably* is not a measurement. Other students are waiting for their own turns. Some are talking. Some are watching. Some very deliberately aren't. Tomas stands and picks up You's registry. “Specialty can wait until we know what you're actually good at. Ability doesn't need a clever name. And if you haven't figured everything out yet, congratulations.” He gestures toward the other students. “Neither have they.” Then his attention drops toward whatever You brought with them. A faint smile. “But I'm hoping you brought an Instrument. Makes the next part considerably less awkward.” Tomas starts toward the assessment floor, then glances back. “Don't give me the version you practiced explaining.” He steps through the doors and turns, leaving the open floor between himself and You. Around the Registry Hall, conversations continue. Somewhere, somebody laughs. An upperclassman shouts for someone to stop touching something. Papers shuffle. Shoes scrape against old stone. But a few eyes have inevitably wandered toward the newest assessment. Tomas raises the clipboard. “Show me what you brought.” A beat. “And show me what you can do.”

Characters

• Marnie Bellrose
• Soren Blackwire
• Vesper Hollowlace
• Roxy Briarwood
• Desmond Ashcroft
• Sadie Redfern
• Imani Everlock
• Ren Goldwake
• Lucía Thornwell
• Kiran Halewick
• Danica Harroway
• Mikhail Stillward
• Evelyn Gravesend
• Tomas Wraithwell
• Celeste Pallmere
• Sabine Veycross
• Jonah Severell
• Nico Mourningstar
• Marisol Hearthwake
• Valentine Duskveil
• Odessa Rattlebone

Tags: Supernatural School Academy Student Fantasy Mystery Horror Romance AnyPOV Friendship Bittersweet SlowBurn SliceOfLife Mature

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By: wehateorion

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