Life at Solus Institute could be considered tolerable, perhaps even good, if you were born here and didn’t know anything else.
But for someone like me—someone who had a life before this place—good was a laughable stretch.
I remember what I had before: a mother who loved me fiercely, and friends who made every day an adventure.
Solus Institute stripped all that away, leaving behind a rigid routine and hollow halls filled with kids who had no one left.
The mornings are the worst.
At 6 a.m., the cold, metallic clang of the bell startles us awake.
The air smells like soap and damp fabric, a combination of freshly laundered sheets and the mildew lurking in the corners.
We make our beds with precision, shower quickly under lukewarm water, and dress in dull uniforms of gray and navy.
By 6:45, we stand by our beds, backs straight and eyes forward, waiting for inspection.
Breakfast at 7 brings no comfort—just the bland taste of porridge and bread.
Classes begin at 8, drilling into us the rules of the world and the lore of the factions.
At 3, when lessons end, we’re granted one hour of free time.
It’s a laughable gift, spent in stiff conversations under the watchful gaze of the supervisors.
Then it’s back to our rooms, back to preparing for dinner at 6, and lights out at 8.
Everything runs like clockwork, overseen by the Watchers—stone-faced enforcers who miss nothing.
Step out of line, and it’s the White Room for you.
No one talks about what happens there, but the results are clear.
Kids come back hollow, their eyes distant, their laughter snuffed out like a candle.
They never break the rules again.
It’s a far cry from my life before the Patefaction—the day the supernaturals stepped out of the shadows and revealed themselves to the world.
Humans like to think they’ve pieced together the truth, but they’ve barely scratched the surface.
Officially, there are three factions: the Ragana, the Upir, and the Vlokodlak.
But even the humans suspect there are others lurking in the dark.
They’re right, of course, but that’s a story for another time.
The Ragana, witches, are as human as they come—at least on the outside.
Their magic is something else, though.
It thrums through them like a second heartbeat, drawing power from the elements or, for the bold and reckless, from the shadow.
The Upir, or vampires, are everything you’d expect, except they don’t burst into flames under the sun.
Their need for blood is more measured, a sip here and there to sharpen their senses.
The Vlokodlak, or werewolves, are equally misunderstood.
They don’t need a full moon to shift, and the biggest myth?
That they or vampires can be made.
They can’t.
Both are born.
A vampire or werewolf can mate with a human, and their offspring will almost always inherit the supernatural lineage—a 99% certainty of becoming a vampire or a werewolf.
The rare 1% who remain human is often viewed as a quirk of nature, a faint echo of what could have been.
Vampires and werewolves can also mate with witches, producing what’s known as a Hibridni, or hybrid—a being that fuses magical abilities with the raw power of their vampiric or lupine bloodline.
But a vampire and a werewolf producing offspring together?
That’s unheard of.
Never in history has such a union resulted in life.
It’s an immutable law of the supernatural world—or so everyone believed.
Until me.
My mother called me a Tribrid.
No fancy origin word.
No lore.
Just me.
The first of my kind.
While humans were only just discovering the existence of the supernatural world, it had always been my reality.
I was born into its secrets, its rules, and its dangers.
My mother, a hybrid vampire with magic coursing through her veins, broke every expectation when she fell in love with a wolf.
Their love wasn’t just forbidden—it was unthinkable.
So, she did the only thing her heart allowed: she ran away with him, leaving her family behind.
For a year, they built a life together, hidden from the prying eyes of both their worlds.
But secrets don’t stay buried for long.
My father’s pack eventually tracked them down, dragging him back home kicking and screaming.
They gave him a grim ultimatum: if he ever tried to contact her again, they’d find her—and kill her.
My father had no choice but to stay away.
But two months later, my mother discovered she was pregnant.
With me.
I wasn’t supposed to happen.
I wasn’t supposed to exist.
My very being defied the natural laws of the supernatural world, an anomaly no one had ever anticipated.
For the first ten years of my life, my mother made it her mission to keep me hidden.
She taught me how to blend in, how to mask the parts of me that could give away the truth.
Every day was a lesson in survival—keeping my instincts buried, my abilities contained, and my identity a secret.
We didn’t know what would happen if anyone found out about me, and neither of us wanted to find out.
Then, ten years ago, I lost her.
Literally.
It started like any other day.
Mom woke me up with her usual soft knock on my door, fed me breakfast—a lopsided pancake that smelled faintly of vanilla—and dropped me off at school.
Her goodbye smile lingered in my mind, warm and reassuring.
I never thought it might be the last time I’d see her.
By midday, the world had shifted.
Chaos erupted like a storm, sweeping through everything I knew.
The emergency broadcast interrupted every channel, revealing the truth about the supernatural world.
Vampires, witches, werewolves—they were real, and they had been living among humans undetected for centuries.
Panic spread faster than the news itself.
Fear twisted into violence as humans lashed out at anyone they suspected of being supernatural.
Innocent lives were lost—human and supernatural alike.
What humans didn’t understand, what they couldn’t comprehend, was that we had coexisted for generations in silence.
We were their neighbors, their friends, their coworkers.
And now, their fear made them blind.
They believed they could spot us, as if there were some clear marker, some telltale sign.
But there wasn’t.
And that ignorance turned deadly.
The panic spread so quickly that the school shut down early, sending us all home so parents could keep their kids safe.
I stood on the steps out front, clutching my backpack, scanning every car that passed.
I waited for hours, the crisp afternoon air giving way to the chilly bite of evening.
But my mom never came.
When the principal finally noticed me, still sitting on the front steps as the last teachers left, she called the police.
They searched for her for weeks—days filled with endless questions, fruitless searches, and growing silence.
No leads, no answers, no closure.
Eventually, they gave up.
With no family to claim me, I was sent into foster care.
It was there, surrounded by strangers, that I let my secret slip.
I don’t even remember how it happened—maybe I was scared, or maybe I just wanted someone to understand why I didn’t belong.
But the moment I admitted I was a hybrid, the authorities whisked me away to the Solus Institute.
A place for “special cases,” they said.
A place where the truth about kids like me wouldn’t unsettle the fragile human world.
It’s been ten years since the Patefaction, the day the supernatural world revealed itself.
Things have calmed down—on the surface, at least.
Humans and supernaturals, or supes as they’re often called, now live side by side in a fragile harmony.
But the world has changed.
A new leadership, the Concillium, was formed, with representatives from the four major factions: witches, vampires, werewolves, and humans.
They govern this uneasy peace, delegating laws and mediating disputes, but their reach doesn’t feel much like protection to someone like me.
Places like the Solus Institute were created in the aftermath.
Officially, they’re homes for parentless children, providing care and structure for those left behind in the chaos.
Unofficially, they’re training grounds—designed to mold us into something manageable, to ensure we’re ready for our twenty-first year.
That’s when everything changes.
At 21, we’re shipped off to academies to learn to control our powers, hone our abilities, and embrace the roles the Concillium expects us to play in their new world.
So far, I’ve managed to convince everyone I’m only a hybrid—a rare enough oddity that it keeps most questions at bay.
But I know the truth won’t stay buried forever.
My twenty-first birthday is three months away, and with it comes my first shift as a werewolf.
When that moment comes, when the wolf inside me awakens for the first time, there’ll be no hiding it.
Not with so many eyes watching.
My mom and I had a plan.
It wasn’t perfect, but it was ours.
She’d keep me safe through my first shift at home, away from prying eyes and the scrutiny of the Institute.
Afterward, I’d go to the academy like everyone else, but I wouldn’t go unprepared.
Mom was going to make me a potion, something to mask my scent and keep my wolf side hidden.
I’d take it every day, blending in seamlessly, and no one would ever know what I truly was.
But now, she’s gone.
I’m three months away from my seventeenth birthday, and the plan we made is nothing but a memory.
The shift is coming—I can feel it, like a storm building just beyond the horizon.
And when it does, there’ll be no hiding what I am.
No potions.
No protection.
I have no idea what to do.