Chapter 47: Unexpected Curiosity
Claire sat cross-legged on the edge of her bed, the tablet resting lightly in her lap. The sterile white walls of her room were as familiar as ever, but tonight she felt an unusual sense of restlessness. After a long day of testing, her muscles still hummed with the residual strain of manipulating sound waves, but mentally, she was searching for something to keep her engaged.
The Academy had given her this tablet awhile ago, a reward for her cooperation—another way to keep her under control while making her feel like she had earned some level of freedom. Claire wasn’t fooled. The device was more of a distraction than a privilege, but tonight, she welcomed it.
She swiped idly through her social media feed, scrolling past news stories, videos, and trivial updates. Claire rarely cared about the outside world—her life was confined to the Academy, and most of what went on out there felt distant, irrelevant. But something caught her eye.
It was a selfie, posted by a young student at the Academy. He was grinning widely, standing in what appeared to be the common area. Claire almost scrolled past it, but the two figures in the background made her pause. There was something about them—the way they stood, the expressions on their faces—that simply drew her attention.
The caption under the photo read: “Can’t believe they’re here. Crazy seeing Class 5s in real life. #GalewoodSurvivors”
Class 5? Claire frowned, her finger hovering over the screen as she zoomed in on the image. Behind the boy, there were two boys who clearly didn’t belong in the casual selfie. The first, tall with dark hair and a rigid stance, looked like he was barely holding it together. His intense gaze seemed to scan the room like he was constantly on guard. The second boy stood next to him, his white hair and glowing red eyes impossible to miss. Unlike the first, this one had a smirk on his face, as if none of it mattered.
Claire’s frown deepened. These weren’t familiar students.
Curiosity piqued, she scrolled down to the comments section beneath the post.
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“Wait, are those the guys from Galewood? I thought they were locked away.”
“They’re Class 5s! What are they even doing out in public?”
“Yeah, that’s Levi Blackwell and Jake Foster. They survived the explosion. Freakin’ legends.”
“Legends? More like dangerous. Heard Foster was the one who caused the whole thing.”
“No way, they’d never let someone like that out.”
“Why would the Academy even let them near the rest of us?”
The comments went on, filled with awe, fear, and speculation. Claire’s interest sharpened as she absorbed the words. Class 5s. The Galewood explosion. Survivors. The pieces started to click together in her mind, pulling her attention back to the two boys in the background of the photo. These weren’t just any students. They were something else. Something far more dangerous than the Class 4s, like her, that the Academy kept under tight control.
She vaguely remembered the news stories about Galewood. It had been impossible to avoid the coverage at the time—an entire city wiped out in an instant, a catastrophe that no one had been able to fully explain. At the time, Claire hadn’t paid much attention. It wasn’t her world. But now, with the revelation that two Class 5 metahumans were involved and they were here… her interest was piqued.
The boy with the dark hair, Jake Foster, looked like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders. He was the one the comments hinted at—the one who might have caused the explosion. But the other one, Levi Blackwell, seemed different. He looked like someone who didn’t care about the chaos surrounding him. Someone who found amusement in it.
Claire leaned back against her pillow, staring at the screen for a long moment. She had been at the Academy for years and had seen her share of powerful metahumans, but Class 5s? That was a whole new level. And the fact that the Academy was keeping them here, letting them out into public spaces now, meant something had changed.
She clicked through the comments again, reading about the rumors surrounding the Galewood explosion. Most of the students seemed to think Jake had been responsible, but no one knew for sure. The Academy hadn’t given out much information, and the public seemed to be just as in the dark.
It made sense, Claire realized, why these two had been kept isolated. Class 5 metahumans were dangerous. Unpredictable. And if the Academy couldn’t fully control them, it explained why their presence had created such a stir among the students.
She stared at the image of Jake and Levi again, her curiosity deepening. She’d spent so much time keeping to herself, focusing on her own survival in the Academy’s world of experiments and control, that she wasn’t even aware of the new arrivals. But now, she couldn’t help but wonder what had really happened in Galewood—and what these two were capable of.
As the night stretched on, Claire found herself scrolling through more posts, trying to piece together the fragments of information about the two boys. The students were always whispering about the Class 4s like her, but this was different. Class 5s were truly in a league of their own.
Tomorrow would be another day of testing, another day where she’d be pushed to her limits, but tonight, Claire’s mind buzzed with new possibilities. Jake Foster and Levi Blackwell—two names she would be keeping an eye on. Not because they were dangerous, but because they represented something new, something unknown.
And in a place like the Academy, something new, was certainly interesting.