Night Class

Opening scene

The seminar room smells of rain and old radiators, and the seat they've left for you is next to the tall one who hasn't blinked since you sat down. Eight faces around the table. You count, out of habit, how many are breathing. It comes to six.

"You're the new flatmate," she says, before the tutor arrives, and her voice does something to the vowels that you feel in your teeth. She slides a key across the table — your key, warm, as if she's been holding it. "I'm Wren. I already cleared a shelf for you." A pause that lasts exactly one heartbeat longer than it should. "The far one. You'll want the light."

The tutor sweeps in talking about the reading. Under the table the key is still warm in your palm, and Wren is watching you decide whether to say thank you or run.

Turn 1 of 12

I take in the scene, and act on what matters most.

You look at the key in your palm, then back at Wren. The seminar room is a cocoon of dust motes and the low hum of the radiator, a space that feels entirely severed from the rest of the campus. Tutor Halloran is droning on about the social contract in the early nineteenth century, but his voice is little more than a rhythmic background vibration, a sound meant to justify his presence while he pointedly avoids looking at your corner of the table. You are keenly aware of the space between your chair and Wren’s, a physical gap that she seems to occupy as much with her stillness as her body.

"Thank you," you say, your voice sounding thin and small against the steady drone of the lecture. You slide the key into your pocket, your fingers brushing the cool metal against your thigh. The sensation is grounding, a tether to the mundane reality you were hoping to preserve, yet the warmth lingering on the key from her touch makes the act feel intimate, almost like an exchange of secrets. You try to keep your face neutral, a mask of disinterest, but you feel the heat rising in your cheeks under her unwavering, unblinking gaze.

She offers a faint, slow smile that doesn't quite reach her eyes, a gesture that feels like a test or a quiet admission of something you aren't yet prepared to name. Wren shifts slightly, the fabric of her coat rustling against the desk, and for a moment you catch the faint, sharp scent of rain and ozone. It is a clean, cold smell that makes your breath catch in your throat, a sensory detail that suggests she has been standing outside in a storm that no one else in this room has felt. She doesn't pull away, nor does she look back to the tutor, her focus entirely fixed on the way you are processing her presence.

"The shelf is really empty," she says, her voice dropping to a register that only you can hear, vibrating just beneath the sound of Halloran’s voice. She leans in a fraction of an inch, the movement deliberate and slow, asserting a claim over your attention that you find surprisingly difficult to ignore. There is an unspoken expectation in her words, a challenge to see if you will accept this small domestic offering or if you will continue to try and keep her at a distance. You realize then that the distance you craved is being dismantled by her quiet, persistent proximity, and the realization is equal parts terrifying and magnetic.

"I appreciate the space," you reply, forcing yourself to lean back into your chair, though your heart is hammering against your ribs like a trapped bird. You want to ask her what she is, why she doesn't blink, and why the air around her seems to pull the heat out of the room, but you hold the questions behind your teeth. The seminar continues, the world outside the room fading into a grey blur, leaving only this small island of tension. You have entered a room where the rules are written by someone who is clearly not a student, and you are starting to suspect that your room assignment was not a matter of chance.