[BL]Hunted by the God of Destruction Chapter 2: Empty apartment

Elias looked at his phone as if it were about to explode.

His roommate, Ruoxi Nun, a female alpha and direct mber of the infamous Nun family, had left him a voicemail.

She hated talking on the phone.

She preferred texting, usually short and full of emojis, so of which he still didn’t understand. Most of the ti, her ssages were chaotic strings of exclamation marks, inside jokes, and knife emojis. Voice ssages weren’t just rare. They didn’t happen.

This one was thirty-nine seconds long.

He didn’t press play right away.

The classroom was empty now. The hum of the lights still lingered in the air, faint but insistent. Elias sat back down at the desk, phone still in hand, thumb hovering just above the screen.

Then he hit play.

Nothing. There was nothing other than static. Elias’s brows furrowed.

’Has Ruo butt-called again?’ he thought, frowning slightly as he adjusted the volu. He kept listening just in case she accidentally sent audio clips while attempting to forward s with sound. This wasn’t that.

There was no music. No background chatter. No sudden laughter.

The only sound was a low, uneven crackle of static, punctuated by what appeared to be breathing. Or there might have been interference.

It went on for thirty-nine seconds.

Elias stared at the screen.

Then sighed.

He tapped the call button with a little more force than necessary. Either sothing was wrong, or she’d finally lost it completely. He wouldn’t be surprised by either.

The phone rang. Once.

Twice.

Three tis.

Then it cut. Straight to voicemail. No ringing out, no chanical ssage. Just a flat, silent disconnect.

Elias looked at the screen again, his brown eyes softened by the autumn sun.

Sothing wasn’t right.

He stood slowly, slipping the phone into his coat pocket, and the buzz of unease began to settle low in his chest.

Ruoxi didn’t make mistakes.

And she never sent silence.

—

Elias entered the apartnt just after sunset.

The hallway lights buzzed faintly overhead as he unlocked the door using his usual code. There are no signs of forced entry. No alerts. Everything is exactly as it should be.

The door clicked open.

Silence.

He stepped inside, toeing off his shoes automatically. The scent of jasmine shampoo still lingered in the air, faint and familiar. Her favorite body mist was still on the hallway table, beside a half-used bottle of nail polish she hadn’t touched in weeks.

That was odd.

Elias had left the apartnt two weeks ago in favor of a temporary dorm, just until he finished his sester report for his PhD. It had been easier that way. Quieter. He didn’t work well with distractions, and Ruo was, by design, a walking distraction.

But everything appeared to be exactly as he had left it.

The lights were off. The dishes in the drying rack were the sa ones he’d washed before leaving. The throw blanket on the couch remained folded exactly as he had folded it, too neat and square, because Ruo never folded anything that perfectly.

He paused at the entry to the kitchen, his hand brushing over the edge of the counter. The sa tea bag wrapper sat by the kettle. Sa chipped mug with the badly printed cat on it.

Unmoved.

Untouched.

Ruo and Elias had an unusual relationship. Most of their friends assud they were a couple. They never corrected anyone, easier that way, but it wasn’t true.

Elias was a recessive oga, and despite Ruo’s dominance, pedigree, and alpha status, he had never felt anything other than brotherly love for the girl who referred to her own family as a bunch of demons whenever she had the opportunity.

Their connection had never needed romance to an sothing. Ruo had liked the quiet, and Elias had given her that. He had liked the noise, and she had filled the apartnt with it. It wasn’t balanced, exactly, but it was familiar. Safe.

He glanced at their reflection in the old hallway mirror as he stepped past it, just a flicker. His soft brown hair was falling slightly over his brow again, the ends curling from humidity. He made a ntal note to trim it, though he probably wouldn’t. His brown eyes looked darker than usual, made richer by the low light, and the gold rims of his glasses caught the glare of the ceiling lamp.

He didn’t look bad. He never had.

There had been complints before, polite ones. Strangers told him he looked clean and elegant in that academic, slightly distracted way. People liked his voice. Liked that he listened.

But he couldn’t hold a candle to the others.

Not to the alphas with shoulders that took up space and confidence that walked into a room before they did. Not to the dominant ogas with sharp features and sharper ambition. He was recessive. Quiet. Passable.

It never bothered him. Not really.

And it had never bothered Ruo.

She never comnted on his lack of pheromone signature. Never tried to push him, prod him, or ask why his heat cycle hadn’t changed in years. She’d teased him about being the most boring oga she’d ever t and then defended him like a lion the first ti soone else tried to say the sa thing in a less affectionate tone.

She had understood him.

Or at the very least, she hadn’t tried to change him.

And that had been enough.

He stepped into her room again, eyes scanning the chaos she had always insisted was organized. Her posters remained on the wall, half-peeled, neon-backed, and crowded with sharp-lettered slogans from protest campaigns she had never explained. Her headphones sat on the desk, tangled. One of her bracelets, silver and beaded, was lying in the middle of the floor, as if she had dropped it on her way out.

Only one.

He bent down slowly and picked it up.

It wasn’t like her to forget it. She wore that one constantly, said it made her feel normal when she was surrounded by things that kept trying to make her divine.

He turned it over in his hand, his thumb brushing over the worn elastic. It didn’t hum with pheromones anymore, not even faintly. It had been left here long enough to go cold.

He turned the bracelet over once more before setting it on the desk beside her headphones.

Then he heard it.

A faint buzz, more vibration than sound, low and brief, coming from the far side of the room.

Elias stilled.

The buzz ca again, a little stronger this ti.

A phone, on silent.

He moved toward the dresser, pausing in front of the top drawer. The second buzz was followed by a dull thud, like sothing shifting under a pile of clothes. He opened the drawer.

Buried beneath two folded sweatshirts was her phone.

Not a backup. Not a broken one.

Her current phone. The one she took everywhere. The one she never turned off, even in etings or labs.

It was here. In the apartnt. Charging, but not plugged in. Three missed calls blinked across the screen.

He reached out for it.

The phone was warm, too warm for sothing that hadn’t been plugged in. It buzzed again as he lifted it, the screen lighting up to show two missed calls were from an unknown number and one was from him.