Harem Apocalypse: Every Moan Levels Us Up!

The light through the window pulled me out of sleep.

It came in at an angle, the kind that only happened early, before the sun had fully committed to the day. It caught the dust in the air and held it there, slow and suspended, the way mornings do when nothing has happened yet. I watched it for a moment without moving.

I stretched. The floor was hard enough that I’d gotten used to it, which was still better than most surfaces I’d slept on in my life. I lifted my head, still dizzy.

Sherry was already sitting up on the bed, dressed, waiting for me to wake with the patience of someone who had been awake for a while and had spent the time thinking. The same light that had found me on the floor had found her too, sitting on the edge of the bed like it had been there the whole time, waiting with her.

"Finally," she said, and stood.

"I’ll go to my room to prepare." She said it in a tone that was not angry and not normal. Somewhere between the two, carefully held.

She was still processing. I could tell by the way she moved through the room. She had seen the fight. She had seen the God-Hand punch and the electrical discharge. She knew I wasn’t a healer. She just hadn’t decided yet what to do with knowing.

"Sherry." I sat up as she reached the door.

She stopped.

"Good morning," I said, keeping my voice easy. Normal. As if things were normal.

"Good morning, Bram." She said it back with the same energy I’d given it, which meant she had decided, for now, to meet me at normal and see what happened there.

"Anything you want to talk about?" I asked.

She shook her head. "Just get ready. We’ll go to class."

She went out. Her door opened next door. I lay there for a moment.

She witnessed everything. The fight. The skills. The current. All of it. And she’s choosing to say nothing.

Maybe she didn’t know who to trust inside these walls yet. Maybe she was investigating quietly in the way she did everything, thorough and without announcement. Maybe, after four days of watching me navigate this place, she had decided I was the closest thing she had to an ally and was protecting that over the need for answers.

Whatever the reason, she was giving me room. I was not going to waste it.

I bathed, dressed, and stepped out.

Sherry was already in the corridor. Short brunette hair curled, school uniform, arms loose at her sides. She looked settled in herself in a way that told me she’d made her peace with whatever she’d worked through this morning.

We walked to class. Talking but not openly. The comfortable kind of silence with words in it.

***

The classroom was its usual arrangement.

All my girls in their seats. May near the middle, already looking elsewhere. Mable and Annabelle at the front, quietly present. Isabelle. The others.

And Mute, in the far corner near Wells.

We looked at each other across the room. Two people carrying the same secret from opposite sides of it. Last night’s corridor. The cracked plaster. The things said and unsaid.

He looked away first. I sat down. Sherry beside me.

He was holding himself differently.

Subtle, but there. Shoulders tighter than usual. Weight shifted just a little too carefully when he moved. Most people wouldn’t catch it. I did.

Last night had cost him something.

Not enough to slow him down. Not enough to make him hesitate. But enough that he knew it, and more importantly, enough that he knew I knew it.

Good.That made two of us.

I leaned back in my chair like none of it mattered. Across the room, he didn’t look at me again. But he didn’t relax either.

Miss Brown entered with Sophia Vale, who stopped in the doorway and leaned against the frame with the easy posture of someone who had decided to observe rather than participate. She was still here. Sophia had arrived to inspect, inspect she had, and apparently found a reason to stay.

What are you waiting for, I thought, watching her.

"Good morning," Miss Brown said.

The class replied in unison.

"I want to first congratulate Anna and Mable." She looked at them with genuine warmth, the kind that couldn’t be performed. "You’ve worked hard and you’ve made Hogsby proud."

The class clapped. Annabelle and Mable received it with the composure of two people who knew exactly why they had leveled up and were keeping it professional.

Miss Brown paused. Something in her posture settled, the way a person settles when they’ve made a difficult decision and are now on the other side of it.

"Last night I received a call from the central board," she said. "An offer of a larger institution. A promotion."

The room went quiet.

"I declined."

Students clapped. Genuine this time, the sound of people who had just been told someone was staying when they expected them to go.

In the doorway, Sophia’s expression did something careful and controlled.

She had convinced Miss Brown to accept, I thought. Or she believed she had. Whatever conversation had happened in that office yesterday, Miss Brown had sat with it overnight and come out the other side with a different answer.

"I have been dean of this place for years," Miss Brown continued. "I will not leave until every one of you has leveled up." Her voice carried something underneath it, not performance, actual conviction. The class felt it.

"However." She paused. "The central board has responded by cutting Hogsby’s funding."

Silence.

"Don’t worry," she said, before it could settle into panic. "I have it figured out."

Sophia pushed off the doorframe.

"You’re out of your mind, Brown." She said it clearly, for everyone to hear. "You’re not thinking clearly."

Miss Brown looked at her once and walked out of the classroom. I watched her disappear through the window at the end of the corridor, moving fast, the specific speed of someone who had made their decision and was done being argued with.

Sophia turned and went the other direction. Out of Hogsby, probably, back to whatever calculation she was running that Miss Brown had just disrupted.

"Wells. Mute. Anna." Miss Brown’s voice, coming from somewhere down the corridor. "Abram. Sherry. My office."

I didn’t move immediately.

Five names. I stood with the others, but something about it sat wrong.

***

The office was warm and large and Miss Brown was already standing when we entered. In the chair beside her desk, where Sophia had been yesterday, sat a man I hadn’t seen before.

Heavy. Well dressed in a coat that was doing its best against his frame. A thick mustache. The comfortable stillness of someone who had been waiting a while and hadn’t minded.

We settled into seats. I ended up between Mute and Sherry, which was its own kind of comedy that I kept off my face.

"You all know what’s at stake," Miss Brown said, staying on her feet. "There are people who want Hogsby closed. I can’t accept that."

We listened.

"Hogsby feeds and houses over seventy students on central board funding. That funding is now gone. We need to survive independently while I work on bringing the government in, which will take time."

She’s not explaining. She’s building toward something. Everything before the something is context.

"This is Mr Kim." She gestured toward the man in the chair, who stretched slightly as his name was said, his coat protesting the movement. "An old friend. His family was instrumental in the building of the original walls. He has a job for us."

Mr Kim nodded once. Small movement. A man who let other people do the talking until the moment came for him to do it.

"One day. In the city. Enough funding to sustain this campus while we find our footing." She looked at each of us in turn. "I chose you because I see capability in every one of you." A pause. "If anyone is not interested, I understand. You can go back to class right now."

Nobody moved. She asked again. Nobody moved.

"Okay," she said, and something in her exhaled slightly. "Then let me tell you what the job is."

"This job goes against the government. Which means if we’re seen... we’re not students anymore."