First contact was supposed to be humanity's greatest achievement. At Meridian Academy, it became a test no one was prepared to take.

Elena Thornfield has spent two years at the prestigious boarding school wondering what happened to her brother Marcus—one of Meridian's most brilliant graduates who disappeared on a deep-space mission. Isolated in the Canadian wilderness, the academy has trained generations of space explorers, many of whom never return. Elena assumed she understood the risks of reaching for the stars.

Then the stars reached back.

When a metallic sphere crashes through the dining hall ceiling during evening meal, everything changes. The alien artifact responds to Elena's touch, creating holographic webs that sing with otherworldly harmonies and show glimpses of impossible worlds. But first contact comes with a price: each day, another member of the school community vanishes in a beam of light, marked by mysterious glowing rosaries that appear without warning.

As the academy itself begins to transform—paintings shifting to show parallel realities, architecture morphing into alien geometries—Elena realizes the extraterrestrial visitors aren't just making contact. They're conducting an examination. And humanity is failing.

Elena must decode an alien culture that communicates through touch and song, navigate the deadly politics of academic prestige, and discover whether the missing students—including her brother—were victims or something else entirely.

Because in the halls of Meridian Academy, the question isn't whether humanity is alone in the universe. It's whether we deserve to survive among the stars.

Some lessons can only be learned once. Some tests have no second chances.

A dark academia thriller where The Secret History meets Arrival in an elite boarding school.