Mystic Academy 📖 [On-Hold]

If there was one thing I knew for certain, it was that letters don’t arrive in glowing envelopes... at least, not in the normal world.

I am Aislinn—Ash for short—a sixteen-year-old girl whose life used to be aggressively ordinary. Ordinary in the sense that everything was simple.

Life was simple. Life was normal. I dealt with normal teenage problems, lived in a normal apartment, and harbored a normal amount of dread for school night deadlines. But as all stories go—or at least, as mine did—that normalcy shattered just after midnight.

I was in my bedroom, rubbing the bridge of my nose as my eyes throbbed from the harsh glare of my laptop. I had just finished a three-page essay on the difference between fiction and non-fiction for my literature class. And for some reason beyond human comprehension, my teacher deemed that three pages required fifteen separate citations and fifteen book references. At that point, I was entirely convinced I had spent more time hunting down obscure sources than actually writing the words. But, fortunately, it was done. Finally.

Exhausted, I was about to collapse into bed without even bothering to change into pajamas. And then...

I saw it.

There, on my windowsill, sat an envelope that shimmered faintly in the dark, as though it held moonlight captive within its folds.

"What the... That wasn’t there a minute ago." I thought, then froze.

The elegant, looping gold ink traced something that made my heart skip. My full name—Aislinn Enid—practically jumped out at me. The calligraphy was far too elegant, too fancy, for anyone who knew me.

With my dark blue eyes reflecting the dim light of my room, I stared at the letter for a long time, half convinced that it would vanish if I blinked even once or twice.

My immediate thought?

This is a scam. A very elaborate, sparkly scam.

Driven by a mix of disbelief and curiosity, I crossed the room. My hand hovered over the windowsill before my fingers finally brushed the paper. A faint, rhythmic vibration pulsed against my skin. The paper was thick, heavily textured, and strangely warm, as if it had been resting right beside an open hearth.

I flipped it over, noting the distinct absence of a return address. There was no wax seal, just the heavy volume of the packed envelope, and a single royal indigo stamp in the upper corner featuring a crescent moon cradling a stylized, watchful eye. A logo of a secret organization? Or something else entirely? I wasn’t sure.

Carefully, I worked the edge open. Inside, written in that same physical, embossed gold script, was a single line:

You’ve been forgotten.

. . .

Instantly, I let out a dry, nervous laugh. “Right. Good joke.”

But the laughter died in my throat as the gold ink flared, and a sharp tingle raced up my fingertips.

I checked the words again. Twice. Thrice. I frantically leaned out the open window, scanning the alleyway below. It was impossible. I lived on the third floor. No one could have slipped this onto my ledge and vanished into thin air.

I stared back down at the word forgotten, and a cold knot tied itself in my stomach. Because, despite my denial, a cruel truth was catching up to me...

Actually... For the past few weeks, chunks of my life had been fading. My memories before age twelve were like watercolors left out in a torrential downpour: blurred, bleeding together, and impossible to piece back together. That wasn’t the worst part, though.

The world around me was slipping. Classmates and teachers forgot my name. My own parents looked startled when I walked into the kitchen, as if they had momentarily forgotten I lived there.

I had forced myself to believe it was normal. People get distracted. People forget things. But holding this piece of paper, the lie fell apart...

Is that what the letter meant? These moments of forgetting… did they actually mean something?

I felt uneasy. My breath caught as I thought about it.

Suddenly, the air in my bedroom thickened, pressing against my chest like a held breath. The ambient light of the city outside flickered out. The room tilted violently, spinning on an invisible axis. Panic flared in my chest as I tried to step back, but my feet felt glued to the floorboards. Then from somewhere impossibly distant, the faint, melodic chiming of bells echoed through the air.

The parchment in my hand erupted into a sparkle of brilliance, burning warm like a candle flame, but leaving no pain. In seconds, it dissolved like fragile ash, scattering into a cloud of glowing silver dust that swept past my face and drifted out into the night sky. It weaved a glowing trail through the darkness.

My body, then, went entirely numb. The world shifted with a sickening lurch, and just like that...

The floor vanished beneath me...

And everything... turned dark...

When my eyes snapped open, the familiar walls of my apartment were gone. I wasn’t home.

“Mom? Dad?” I called out, but the words caught in my throat.

I was on my hands and knees, pressing against a floor made of highly polished, freezing obsidian. Massive walls of chiseled stone and embedded crystal stretched upward toward a soaring ceiling. High above, a sprawling tapestry of painted constellations shifted and swirled in real-time, as though a piece of the living cosmos had been trapped behind glass.

And suddenly, I scrambled to my feet, my heart hammering against my ribs, and realized I wasn’t alone. Before me were dozens of teenagers scattered across the grand hall. I blinked, rubbing my eyes, certain I was hallucinating. To my left, a boy was nervously flattening a pair of soft, distinct fox ears against his head. To my right, a girl’s hair literally flowed like a continuous, cascading waterfall. Nearby, a tall figure stood perfectly still, though his shadow danced and detached itself from his boots entirely.

I pinched my forearm hard, but the sharp sting brought no awakening. This wasn’t a sleep-deprivation dream.

Before the panic could completely take over, a figure stepped out from the shadows at the front of the hall. It was a woman who moved with an impossible, liquid grace, her heavy cloak trailing behind her in perfect rhythm with her steps. Her hair cascaded in long, metallic waves of pure silver, but it was her eyes that held everyone captive. They were a striking, unnatural violet, gleaming like polished amethysts.

“Welcome, all,” she announced. Her voice carried the exact, bell-like chime I had heard right before collapsing, echoing flawlessly off the stone walls. “Rest assured, my dear ones, you are not lost. It is no accident that you have safely arrived at the Mystic Academy for the Forgotten.”

She paused, her gaze sweeping over the crowd. Some terrified. Some nervous. Some still.

“You are here to find what was taken,” she continued softly. “To uncover your true nature. Your purpose. Your strength. You are here to find your true self.”

My mind raced, bouncing between every fantasy book and anime trope I’d ever consumed, trying desperately to find a logical anchor for the madness. And then, before my brain’s filter could stop me, the sheer absurdity of the situation pushed a vocal thought right past my lips...

“...True self?”

The words rang out, entirely too loud in the sudden silence of the hall, causing a collective chill to travel down my spine as the crowd instantly snapped to focus on me. I instinctively took a half-step back, wishing the obsidian floor would open up and swallow me whole.

But... The silver-haired woman didn’t look angry. Instead, her lips curved into a knowing, enigmatic smile. Those bright amethyst eyes locked onto mine, glinting with a spark of recognition, as if she had been waiting for my specific voice all night.

“Yes... your true self,” she replied, her voice dropping to a resonant, personal tone. “That is precisely why you are here. Welcome... Aislinn Enid.”