Cassian’s eyes parted, revealing an unfamiliar ceiling. The rain pitter pattered outside the window as he tossed and turned in bed, rustling the covers. The only thought in his mind being déjà vu, the repeat of yesterday… and the day before, and the one before that.

  Groaning, he surrendered the opportunity to sleep any more, leaving the comfort of his bed onto the glossed wooden floors. He gnced back at the mess he had made, an involuntary breath escaping his mouth knowing he’d have to fix the bed sheets once more.

  The air smelled of dew and ozone filled the air, and the bzing moonlight permeated through the windows gss, reflecting onto Cassian’s hands as he straightened the white fitted sheet of his dorm mattress.

  He never thought he’d be able to have this opportunity – being a low-css country-bum after all. What was even more surprising to him was the dormitory’s spacious room, size-wise it stretched further than his room back in Ashbrook.

  Two identical bedside tables fnked his bed, their surfaces bare, as if discouraging anything personal. The metallic desk stood against the wall, cluttered with an untouched slim digital tablet, scattered e-paper notebooks, and a few coloured styluses. Cassian’s gaze lingered on the sparse furnishings—just a bed, a desk, nothing more. A living space stripped down to function over comfort. He exhaled, it reinforced what he thought the world had become – a cesspool of productivity, devoid of bance.

  Even an old-fashioned school succumbed to it… Goes to show how much they truly care about our well-being.

  Cassian’s thoughts were not without his gratefulness of the hospitality and spaciousness, but rather a critique of the significant shift of focus within all major bodies. He frequently indulged in this habit, dissecting inconsistencies within various systems – including people’s emotions.

  After tidying up his resting pce, he strode over to the slim screen mounted above his desk, tapping it with two fingers. The surface flickered to life, revealing a muted blue interface with the current month dispyed in neat, organized rows. The past seven days were already crossed out with sharp red "X"s—his own doing.

  He pressed on today's date, and another red mark appeared, the colour stark against the otherwise dull screen. A small, unobtrusive prompt hovered in the corner: "Morning Schedule: None", confirming what he already knew. He exhaled softly, closing the screen with another tap before grabbing his uniform.

  Shoving his hands through the white shirt’s sleeves, Cassian stood in front of the mirror, his fingers grazed the edge of his school tie. He didn’t need to look to tie it—he’d done this countless times before, yet his gaze snagged on the embroidered school logo in the corner, its threads too bright under the bathroom lights.

  A prickle of unease tightened his throat. The uniform still felt alien: the starched shirt with its too-stiff colr, the sleek bck tie that never quite sat right, the charcoal-gray trousers that whispered prestige with every step. Like pying dress-up in someone else’s skin.

  Cassian slid the door open and stepped into the cavernous hallway, its length swallowed by rows of identical doors. He moved like a shadow between them, barely disturbing the silence. The dorm’s entrance yawned wide, a calcuted design to funnel the daily tide of students, before narrowing into the cramped veins of personal rooms. Even now, he could almost hear the ghost of their ughter, the sm of backpacks, the chaos of bodies rushing to cim their space after css. But this early? Only his breath and the creak of floorboards answered.

  The campus y still in the rain-smeared dawn, empty of students at this hour. Most csses didn’t begin until afternoon which incentivised te risers. Cassian had cimed these quiet hours for himself, tracing the slick stone pathways to memorize the school’s byrinthine yout, cataloguing sheltered study spots: the alcove where rain drummed a steady rhythm against stained gss, or the library corner where the hum of old radiators drowned out the storm.

  His shoes scraped against the weathered stone path as he pressed close to the iron-wrought fence, its checkered bars framing the world beyond like a fractured window. The cityscape loomed—a smudged painting of spires and fog, its edges bleeding into the rain’s silver haze. Above him, rusted vines choked the gate’s crest, their emerald tendrils cwing over the steel emblem’s engraved words: Tidewater Academy.

  The moon’s glow bled away as steel-grey clouds smothered the sky. Rain drizzled down, only to shatter against an invisible barrier above Cassian—each droplet exploding into fleeting silver veins. Around him, the world was sealed behind walls of reinforced gss-alloy, thick as aquarium panes. How fitting, he thought. They were the fish now, suspended in dry silence while the storm pressed in, liquid and hungry.

  Cassian’s footsteps echoed off the vaulted archway as he approached the library’s entrance—a monolithic sb of bck oak, its surface carved with fading academic crests and snarling gargoyle hinges. With a low groan of iron, he shouldered it open, unleashing a bde of sulphur-yellow light that split the twilight grounds outside. The glow spilled across the fgstones like aged parchment, revealing dust spiralling in the sudden draft.

  Inside, the scent of crumbling leather and ink clung to the air, thick as a tomb’s breath. Cassian’s gaze flicked from the front desk to the shadowed corners, skimming the aisles of dust-filmed books, hunting for a presence that should’ve been there. But the air hung still, unyielding-

  "You’re the only student haunting my shelves at this hour," the librarian murmured, materializing between the stacks.

  Cassian shrugged. "Bme my internal clock. 5:30am, like someone’s hammering a nail into my skull. Might as well be useful."

  "That sounds… medical." The librarian’s gsses glinted in the low light. "You’ve seen a doctor?"

  "Why? I’ve got extra hours. The library’s quiet. Guess my body’s trying to tell me I should be studying." A bulb flickered to life in his head, “Hey wait, why don’t students come here anyway? Is it too outdated for them?”

  The librarian’s eyebrow arched, a spark of something unreadable in her eyes. "Oh, it’s more than that," she said, running a finger along a book’s spine. "You can’t miss quiet if you’ve never known it. Most of them wouldn’t recognize peace if it bit them. And this?" She gestured to the amber glow pooling around them. "This is alive. Not like those sterile cssroom lights—harsh, dead things. Here, the air breathes."

  Cassian’s chest tightened. "My grandmother used to say something like that."

  "Then she was a woman who understood magic," the librarian replied, smiling. "The kind that lives in paper and silence."

  Cassian lingered for a moment, absorbing the librarian’s words before offering a small nod. “Thanks for that. You’ll probably see me same time tomorrow, unless my body finally gets the memo.”

  As he stepped back through the heavy door, he half-turned, lifting a hand in farewell. “See ya, Lizz.”

  The door groaned shut behind him—but not before he caught her through the narrowing gap: her wave mirroring his in a damp gold mplight, as if the air itself clung to her fingers, her smile faint but there.

  Cassian wanted to stay longer, but there was something itching in his brain he needed to scratch urgently. The stone path darkened under creeping moss as he approached the sports complex, its walls cluttered with weathered equipment racks. Beyond it stretched an immacute field, twin goals gring at each other across the turf. A border of dense trees stood like silent sentinels, their tangled undergrowth marking where school grounds ended, and wilderness began.

  The gss ceiling arched overhead like a cathedral to competition, sealing in the scent of sweat and fresh-cut grass. They really covered this too? Cassian blinked. First the courtyard, now the sports complex—despite being a suburban school with less than 300 students, they seemed to have very deep pockets.

  Cassian crossed the field, the grass whispering against his shoes, until he found it—the itch he’d been unable to ignore. Tucked beyond the tree line, a narrow footpath cut through the school’s fence like an afterthought, its edges worn smooth by years of trespassers. And there, in the distance, crouched a skeletal shed. Half the size of the gleaming sports complex, it hunched in the weeds, its corrugated metal walls dull under the sky. No signs, no paint, just a box waiting to be forgotten.

  Cassian’s pace slowed as he converged on the fence opening. His hairs began standing up, heat began stirring up deep inside his body, a drop of sweat traced his spine, cold as a fingertip, staining his shirt. His pulse hammered in his throat, raw and insistent, as if his body knew something he didn’t. Move. Run. Fight. It could have been anything, but the signal was all static, a scream with no words. His fingers shook as he reached for the gate, his body a live wire sparking ‘no,’ while something deeper whispered ‘yes.’

  Interrupting his mental tug-of-war, something moved through the grass ahead, a wet rustle, no louder than a page turning in the wind. From behind one of the rge trees near the shed, a figure appeared, moving with casual fluidity. Her movements too quiet, too smooth, as though she’d been watching him for some time.

  "Hey," Cassian called out to the advancing character, trying to keep his voice steady, though he couldn’t help the small edge of curiosity in his tone. “You know about that pce?” pointing to the unusual building behind her.

  She quickened her pace, closing the distance between them almost too quickly. Up close, Cassian gazed at the woman in-front of him. Her wavy bck hair fell like spilled ink past her shoulders, catching the light in subtle ripples. Pale skin—not porcein, but the kind that flushed easily. They contrasted with her green eyes, which held a quiet intensity of a cat watching from a windowsill, unremarkable until you realized they’d been tracking you all along. But, there was something unsettling in her stillness, the way she seemed to pause a half-breath longer than necessary, like a character in a film waiting for its cue.

  She arched a brow. "Ever heard ‘curiosity killed the cat’?" Not answering his question, instead letting the silence stretch. He could feel the weight of her gaze on him, though he couldn’t tell if she was sizing him up or just having fun with the moment.

  Cassian’s lips quirked. "Sure. But satisfaction brought it back—or did I get the memo wrong?"

  "Who even remembers the real saying anymore?" Selene muttered, more to herself than to him. "Anyway—you can't go past this point. Club territory and all that." She waved a hand dismissively. "And before you argue, yes, we have the principal's blessing to cim this sad little corner." Her tone danced between defensive and pyful, like she didn't quite believe her own authority.

  "What was your name again?" Cassian asked, nodding as if he filed away her expnation.

  "Selene," she said, leaning slightly forward. "And this is normally where you'd offer yours in return—unless we're pying the mysterious stranger angle?"

  “Cassian, name’s Cassian. Wh-.” cut off by a shrill arm pulsating from her wrist. Cassian’s eyes snapped to her wrist. The fshing symbol—a stylized eye, blinking red—looked more like a warning than a notification.

  "Shit. Duty calls." She fshed a grin that didn't reach her eyes. "You should scram too, unless you enjoy being te." With a backwards wave, she disappeared into the building's gloom, leaving only the echo of her "hehe!" hanging in the air.

  Cassian stared at the empty pathway. Csses don't start for forty minutes. His fingers twitched at his sides. Not to mention the club... What kind of club meets in a decrepit pce like that? And how the hell would she know my schedule?

  There was no use arguing, she’d made her point clear, and Cassian wasn’t willing to get tangled up with the principal on the first week. Yet as he turned, his skin prickled. The itch hadn’t faded; it had migrated, burrowing deeper. Selene’s grin fshed behind his eyelids; it was too wide, too practiced. The way she’d spoken, like she was sharing a secret, while her eyes stayed ft as a doll’s. Every part of her screamed calcuted, yet none of the math added up.

  His hands couldn’t scrape it, couldn’t reach it, a phantom tremor he’d never fully be able to rid – annoying him all the more.

  The cssrooms loomed ahead, their windows reflecting the damp midday clouds like bnk, staring eyes. He forced his legs into motion, each step heavy with the weight of unanswered questions.