The announcement appeared before most students were even awake.
Printed on cheap white paper, taped unevenly to the bulletin boards outside every major building:
We regret to announce the passing of Professor Victor Alano.
Cause of death: personal circumstances.
We ask the community for sensitivity and privacy at this time.
The paper fluttered in the morning breeze, careful words bending at the corners like they were reluctant to stay put.
Students stopped to read it.
Faces twisted.
No one asked what personal circumstances meant.
They already knew.
By lunchtime, St. Aurelius sounded like a beehive someone had kicked.
Conversations hissed in every corridor.
“Guess karma hits fast.”
“I heard he was blackmailing freshmen.”
“My roommate said they found video files on his computer.”
“Creepy bastard.”
“No one’s mourning him.”
The cafeteria throbbed with disbelief and relief tangled together.
Tray after tray clinked onto long tables as rumors filled the empty space where grief should have been.
The university’s phrasing had been careful—a death boxed shut with ribbon and tape—but the student body tore it open without hesitation.
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No administrators stepped forward to challenge the noise.
None needed to.
Silence protected institutions.
Gossip protected the girls.
Not one victim spoke aloud.
No interviews.
No formal complaints.
No pointed fingers.
They didn’t need to.
A dead man told no stories, and whatever he had taken from them went into the ground with him.
Across campus, while rumors sharpened into legend, Seraphine Calderon walked through it all untouched.
Same clothes.
Same stride.
Same unhurried poise.
She moved as though nothing had shifted in the world overnight.
Students pressed themselves unconsciously aside to let her pass—maybe politeness, maybe instinct.
A pair of boys stopped mid-joke when she stepped into earshot.
One cleared his throat, suddenly unable to meet her eyes.
A girl whispered to her friend, breath barely a thread:
“She was in his class, wasn’t she?”
“She must have been terrified.”
“Maybe she’s the lucky one who escaped.”
The word lucky floated after her like a wrong note.
Seraphine didn’t react.
Didn’t look left or right.
Didn’t tighten her grip on her bag.
She bought her lunch from the student counter and took her usual seat beneath the jacaranda tree, where lavender petals fell one by one onto the bench beside her.
She opened her psych textbook, slid her fork into her rice, and read calmly while the storm raged around her.
For a few minutes, it almost looked like peace.
Almost.
But peace was a fragile thing—more echo than truth.
Even as she ate, eyes found her.
A professor slowed his pace as he passed, gaze snagging for a beat too long.
A classmate lingered near the corner of the courtyard, his backpack slung over one shoulder, pretending to scroll his phone while looking her way whenever he thought she wouldn’t notice.
Attention changed shape, but it never disappeared.
A wolf had been driven out.
The pack scattered.
Now, lesser predators sniffed at the edges.
Hunger didn’t vanish with a single death.
It simply waited.
Seraphine turned a page.
Her expression remained serene, eyebrows relaxed, a quiet student enjoying a quiet afternoon.
A petal fluttered down and brushed her shoulder.
She didn’t brush it away.
Her lips curved the faintest degree— not enough to be a smile, just enough to betray thought.
Predators rarely disappeared.
They only paused.
Somewhere, another gaze would shift too long.
A hand would stray where it wasn’t invited.
A promise would turn into a threat.
And when it did, Seraphine Calderon would be ready.
She swallowed the last bite of her lunch, closed her book softly, and stood.
The jacaranda’s petals swirled at her feet in a lazy spiral.
She stepped through them with the poise of someone who had already mapped the battlefield ahead.
Life went on.
And she walked into it unafraid.
