The hallways are silent. They are empty, devoid of all life. Where students would have once walked, laughing and smiling and chatting and [i]living[/i], there is only nothing. Here, in the darkness of a school long long dead, there is only the chill and the wind to accompany her. Only the eerie scratching of branches against glass, the quiet creaking of rotting floorboards beneath her feet, the slow, staggered breaths that continue to escape her lungs. There is nothing here. Nothing but her. Gratia Mindaro is alone. She cannot mock Venetia's delusionally optimistic platitudes yet take comfort in their reassurances. She cannot ignore Fiordilatte's off-colour brand of dark humour yet admit their creativity. She cannot listen to Harken's quiet prayers to the Lord and join in with her muttered own. There is no Nuit, willing to brave the moonless night sky beyond the halls in search of safety. Vignoble is nowhere to be seen. Nowhere at all. Gratia Mindaro is alone. The power is gone. The lights yield no warmth. The rooms open effortlessly but there is nothing there. Chairs and desks coated by a light layer of dust. Blackboards utterly free of the touch of chalk. Curtains, dark and pale in the night, flutter with each cold breeze from the only open window. Everything is untouched. Unliving. There is nothing. Nothing but her. Nothing. More of the same greets her in the next room. Nobody stands before the giant screen. There is no lecturer teaching. There are no students learning. A hundred chairs. She counts. A hundred empty chairs. Visibility dies mere rows down, engulfed by the dark. The bottom of the pitched floor is shadowed. Completely shadowed, invisible to her eyes. A gaping maw, empty of life and light. Nobody is here. Nobody but her. Gratia Mindaro is alone. She finds the Grimm cages. The iron is rusted, blood-orange in the dark. They are locked but no monster lies inside. No monstrous growls. No threatening hisses. Even the night is devoid of its sons. The metal slowly erodes. Long gouges and scratches, old and worn, crisscross it. They had once trapped monsters. But they are locked. She sees the futile attempts to escape. The wild tears in the metal. The cages are locked. They had faded away into the night. There is nothing left. Nothing. Gratia Mindaro is alone. The eyes of the boar watch her. All four, bright vermilion in the shadows. Rows upon rows of jagged, gleaming-white teeth. Curved ivory tusks, deadly but mere fakes. A facsimile of a monster, red and black and white and utterly, utterly unreal. An illusion aspiring to be the reality. She struggles to view the taxidermic bust. In this hall so far from light, whether it is illusion or not no longer matters. In the dark, the boar seems real. Utterly real. It rests upon the floor, knocked down from its perch. A stance of attack. A predator about to charge its prey. But it is not. She knows in her mind it is not. She knows that there is nobody here. Nobody here at all. Nobody. Her footsteps, loud and clear against the silence of the floorboards, carry her to the library. Equally empty. Equally untouched. No librarian graces the counter. No students are quietly studying for exams. Rows upon rows upon rows of books, unopened, unread. Tables left utterly bare. A place of silent learning. Now too silent. Far too silent. Too dark to read. Too lifeless, too cold. A graveyard rather than a incubator. She reaches for a softcover. Her pale fingers leave imprints on the dusty leather. What it contains doesn't matter. It never will. A dead book in a dead library. Offering nothing. Nothing at all. Gratia Mindaro is alone. She remembers the tour. Clear as the day. Nuit and Felicia. Venetia and Tala Dei. Fiordilatte. The energy. The sounds of life. It's gone now. As if they had never been. She doesn't know why. She doesn't know how. The chairs screech like a dying animal against the floor. The wooden seats are hard and cool to the touch. It isn't welcoming. She sits and listens to the dark silence of the library. No noise. No warmth. Nothing. There's nothing to welcome her. Nobody to welcome her. Gratia Mindaro is alone. Tomes lie upon a trolley, waiting to be returned. No librarian will do so. Not anymore. They languish next to the empty spots on the shelf. So close. Yet they will never be. She has a mind to put them back. To return the library to its pristine, hollow state. And rid her of the only sign that anyone had been here. That there had been anything here. The last sign of life. So she puts them back. The library is untouched. Unchanged. Nothing but her. Nothing. Nothing. The dormitory. A home away from home. Safety. She can't feel it at all. It's dark and cold. The beds, sheets pale and eerie under within the night, are empty. There is nobody here. The wind rushes against the windows, clattering. She doesn't dare exit to the balcony. Fiordilatte's weapons ... neatly arranged, but no longer calling for a wielder. Venetia's clothes, tidily folded upon her bed, never to be worn again. Harken's shrine, waiting for an answer from above. Her team is gone. There is nobody here. Gratia Mindaro is alone. She cannot find them. No trace. No sign that they had ever existed. It is a shell, empty and lifeless. That is what her dormitory has become. Her breathing is quiet, slow, resigned. It's the only sound left. No more arguments. No more laughter. Vignoble is gone. Only the sounds of her and the cold, cold wind. No trace. No sign. There is nothing here. Nothing but her. Gratia Mindaro is alone. Only four urns, simple, unadorned, a dull bronze in the darkness. They sit upon her bed. Unassuming. She laughs. It's a hollow sound. Hollow. Lifeless. Spiritless. The heresy amuses her. It does. They are unopened. Or maybe sealed close. She runs her fingers down the side of one. The touch of rough pottery against her. Only her and four urns. A fifth, oozing crimson, sits open on the opposing side of the dark, dark room. She doesn't remember. Maybe she does. But she's alone. Utterly alone. Nobody here but her. She turns around for the door. The dorms offer her nothing. Nothing. Gratia Mindaro thinks she is alone. She isn't.