The morning sun of Forest City hung low over the horizon, casting long, amber-colored shadows through the arched windows of Class 2-Spirit. The light caught the dust motes dancing in the air, but the students sitting at their desks were far too preoccupied to notice the beauty of the day. The atmosphere in the room had reached a state of pressurized stillness, the kind of silence that preceded a lightning strike or a tectonic shift. It was the heavy, suffocating weight of anticipation.
Every student was a statue of nervous energy. Some gripped the edges of their mahogany desks until their knuckles turned a bloodless white; others stared at the front of the room with a hollow, frantic intensity. This was the day of the Awakening Ceremony, the singular moment in the life of a citizen of The
