EIRA'S POV
"Is anyone there?"
My voice trembled through the darkness, fragile and uncertain. The forest swallowed my words, returning them in hollow echoes that seemed to drift between the trees long after I had fallen silent.
I stood motionless, straining to hear something—anything—that might reassure me I wasn't alone.
But the silence was suffocating.
Ancient trees towered above me, their twisted branches clawing at the moonless sky. Tangled roots coiled across the forest floor, while shadows stretched between the trunks like dark fingers reaching for me. The air was unnaturally cold, carrying the damp scent of earth and something faintly metallic.
My instincts screamed at me to run.
I shouldn't be here.
I needed to leave.
Now.
I spun around—
And my blood turned to ice.
A black snake lay coiled a few feet away.
Its body glistened faintly in the darkness, its scales catching what little light filtered through the canopy. It hadn't moved. Hadn't made a sound.
It was simply watching me.
Two obsidian eyes remained fixed on mine, unblinking and disturbingly intelligent.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then it lifted its head.
I stumbled backward, my heel catching against a protruding root. A strangled gasp escaped me as I fought to regain my balance.
"Help! Somebody, please!"
My voice cracked, dissolving into the oppressive stillness.
The snake began to move.
Slowly.
Deliberately.
Its body slid over the dead leaves with a faint, dreadful rustle. Every inch it advanced seemed to tighten something around my lungs, stealing the air from my chest.
I tried to run.
My legs refused to move.
The distance between us dwindled, and panic surged through me so violently that my fingers began to tremble.
"Please…"
The word escaped as little more than a whisper.
The snake struck.
I squeezed my eyes shut—
And suddenly, warmth enveloped me.
A strong arm locked around my waist, lifting me effortlessly off the ground. A startled cry tore from my throat as I was pulled backward, away from the deadly creature, and collided with a solid chest.
For one disorienting second, I couldn't comprehend what had happened.
Then I looked up.
And forgot how to breathe.
Black eyes stared down at me.
Not merely dark, but fathomless—as though the night itself had gathered within them, concealing something ancient beneath its surface.
His lower face was hidden behind a dark cloth, leaving only his eyes visible.
But those eyes were enough.
They held an intensity I couldn't explain, a depth that seemed to reach somewhere inside me I hadn't known existed. There was something unbearably haunting about them, something that made the entire world fall silent around me.
For one suspended moment, I forgot the forest.
The darkness.
The snake.
Everything.
All I could see were his eyes.
They were impossibly still, carrying an emotion I couldn't name. They seemed to hold a sorrow too profound to understand, as though he had lost something precious long ago and had never truly recovered from it.
I didn't know why I saw such sadness in them.
I didn't even know if it was really there.
Yet I couldn't look away.
His arm remained firm around my waist, holding me against him as though protecting me required no thought whatsoever. I could feel the steady strength of his body beneath my trembling fingers, and for reasons I couldn't begin to explain, the terror consuming me slowly began to recede.
His touch made me feel safe.
It made no sense.
He was a stranger. I didn't know his name, his face, or anything about him.
Yet, in his arms, I felt as though nothing could hurt me.
The forest was still dark. The snake was still there. I was still a stranger in a place I had no business being.
Yet, beneath the weight of his gaze, something inside me settled.
It was a peculiar sensation—an inexplicable familiarity that stirred somewhere deep within my chest.
As though a part of me recognized him.
As though I had been searching for those eyes long before I had ever seen them.
Who was he?
Before I could find an answer, my gaze shifted toward the snake.
It lunged again.
Everything happened too quickly.
His gaze shifted.
His arm tightened around me.
And then—
He moved.
I barely registered the motion. One moment, he was standing before me; the next, his body had shifted with a speed that seemed to defy everything I understood about the world.
His free arm swept outward.
A sharp movement.
A blur of black.
The snake was hurled through the air, striking the undergrowth before disappearing into the depths of the forest.
I stared, stunned.
It had happened so effortlessly that I couldn't even comprehend what I had witnessed.
He hadn't hesitated.
Hadn't flinched.
He had simply moved, as though the creature had never posed a threat to him at all.
My lips parted, but no words came.
I turned back toward him.
"Th—"
He was gone.
I froze.
The space before me stood empty, the shadows undisturbed. No retreating footsteps broke the silence. No rustle of leaves betrayed his departure.
Nothing.
It was as though the forest had opened its darkness to him and swallowed him whole.
I stared into the trees, my heart pounding wildly.
Where had he gone?
How could someone disappear so completely in the space of a heartbeat?
I took a hesitant step forward, searching the shadows for even the faintest glimpse of him.
There was no one.
No explanation.
No proof that any of it had happened.
Only the lingering warmth around my waist, the memory of a strong arm holding me, and those impossible black eyes burned into my mind.
Had I imagined him?
Was this another dream—one of those vivid, inexplicable dreams that felt more real than waking life?
I pressed a trembling hand against my chest.
My heartbeat was still racing.
Whatever had happened in that forest, one thing was certain.
I would never forget those eyes.
Not for as long as I lived.
Forcing myself to move, I stumbled toward campus, glancing over my shoulder every few seconds.
The forest seemed different now, its shadows deeper, its silence more watchful.
Fear followed me all the way back.
But it wasn't alone.
Beneath it lingered something unfamiliar, something that refused to fade no matter how desperately I tried to understand it.
A question.
A feeling.
And the haunting certainty that somewhere in the darkness, a stranger with midnight eyes had just changed something I couldn't name.
THE NEXT DAY
By the following morning, I had discovered two things about my new college.
First, the campus was ridiculously enormous.
Second, apparently, I possessed absolutely no sense of direction.
I stood in the middle of the crowded courtyard, clutching my timetable as though it contained the secret to my survival. Students streamed past me in every direction, their conversations blending into a constant hum of laughter, footsteps, and hurried greetings.
Everyone seemed to know where they were going.
Everyone except me.
For the past twenty minutes, I had wandered through corridors, climbed staircases, and consulted my timetable so many times that I was beginning to suspect the problem wasn't the campus.
It was me.
I glanced at the schedule again.
Then at the corridor in front of me.
Then back at the schedule.
"You have got to be kidding me," I muttered.
I had somehow managed to walk past the same classroom three times.
Three.
At this point, I was fairly certain the building was deliberately rearranging itself just to torment me.
With a frustrated sigh, I turned another corner, my eyes fixed on the crumpled timetable in my hands.
And walked straight into someone.
The collision sent a stack of books tumbling to the floor.
"Oh my God! I'm so sorry!"
I dropped into a crouch, scrambling to gather the scattered books before the person I had assaulted with my complete lack of spatial awareness could report me to the authorities.
"Wow."
The voice above me was female, amused, and entirely too entertained by my misery.
"Most people at least buy me dinner before throwing themselves at me."
I froze.
Then slowly lifted my head.
The girl standing before me had a mischievous smile and bright, curious eyes. She looked far more amused than offended.
For a second, I could only stare at her.
Then the absurdity of the situation caught up with me, and a startled laugh escaped my lips.
"I'm Eira," I said, offering her the last of her books.
"Tessy." She accepted them before extending a hand toward me. "Professional victim of hallway attacks. Apparently, it's a dangerous occupation."
I laughed again, this time without feeling quite so embarrassed.
Something about her was effortlessly reassuring. She possessed the kind of confidence that made awkward silences feel unnecessary and strangers feel less like strangers.
Within minutes, we were walking together as though we had known each other for years.
Tessy talked enough for both of us, filling the journey with sarcastic observations about the campus, the professors, and the mysterious disappearance of any useful signboards.
For the first time that morning, I stopped worrying about being lost.
I was beginning to think transferring here might not be such a terrible decision after all.
Then we entered our classroom.
And my newfound optimism promptly died.
"Before we begin," our teacher announced, placing her books on the desk, "I'd like everyone to introduce themselves. Tell us your name and a little about yourself."
My stomach dropped.
Of course.
Because navigating an enormous campus, apparently, hadn't been enough humiliation for one day.
Now I had to stand in front of a room full of strangers and speak.
One by one, students rose from their seats. They spoke with easy confidence, introducing themselves, sharing their interests, and occasionally earning a few laughs from the class.
I barely heard a word.
My fingers tightened around the edge of my notebook.
Please don't call me.
Please don't call me.
Please—
"Eira?"
I nearly jumped out of my seat.
Every head turned toward me.
My throat closed.
I stood slowly, painfully aware of the dozens of eyes fixed on my face. Suddenly, the room seemed too bright, too quiet, too full of people who were waiting for me to embarrass myself.
"H-hello," I managed.
My voice came out so softly that even I could barely hear it.
"M-my name is Eira. I… I transferred here recently."
Silence.
A few seconds of it.
That was all.
Yet they stretched unbearably, each one making me more conscious of my trembling voice and the heat creeping up my neck.
I wanted to say something else. Anything that might make me sound less painfully awkward.
But my mind had abandoned me.
I sat down as quickly as possible, staring at my notebook and silently wishing I could somehow erase the last thirty seconds from everyone's memory.
Then a chair scraped against the floor.
A girl near the window stood up.
Victoria.
I hadn't learned her name yet, but I would remember it.
She tilted her head, arranged her face into an exaggerated expression of nervousness, and began mocking me.
"H-h-hello. M-my n-name is E-Eira."
Laughter erupted.
A few students covered their mouths. Others didn't even bother pretending to be subtle.
Victoria smiled, pleased with the attention.
"Seriously, you sound like a piece of garbage trying to learn how to talk."
The laughter grew louder.
Something inside me folded in on itself.
I lowered my gaze, staring at the words printed on my notebook until they blurred. My cheeks burned, and I could feel the humiliating sting of tears threatening to gather behind my eyes.
I had barely been here for a day.
Was it really so easy for people to hate me?
Before I could find an answer, Tessy leaned back in her chair and crossed her arms.
"Victoria," she said pleasantly.
The sweetness in her voice was almost alarming.
Victoria turned toward her.
"Yes?"
Tessy smiled.
"That's funny. Because listening to you makes me wish I were deaf."
The room fell silent.
A couple of students choked on their laughter.
Victoria's expression hardened so quickly that I almost forgot to feel miserable.
"Excuse me?"
"You heard me." Tessy shrugged. "Clearly, your hearing works better than your sense of humor."
Someone snorted.
Victoria shot them a furious glare before turning back to Tessy, her smile now nothing more than a thin, brittle line.
I stared at my new friend in disbelief.
Tessy merely winked at me, as though verbally dismantling people who insulted her friends was a perfectly ordinary part of her morning routine.
For the first time since I had entered the classroom, I felt something other than embarrassment.
Gratitude.
Perhaps I wasn't entirely alone here after all.
Thankfully, the bell rang before Victoria could respond, ending the confrontation and allowing the class to dissolve into movement and conversation.
I exhaled a breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
Tessy nudged my shoulder.
"Don't worry about her. Victoria thinks the world is a mirror, and she's the only person worth looking at."
I laughed softly.
And for a little while, the unpleasantness of the morning faded.
Unfortunately, I had no idea that the day had something far worse waiting for me.
Something with black eyes.
Something I had spent the entire night remembering.
THE CANTEEN
By lunchtime, Tessy had successfully convinced me that college life was a carefully constructed conspiracy designed to exhaust students, empty their wallets, and destroy whatever remained of their sanity.
I was beginning to believe her.
We sat at a table near the windows, our trays between us, while she animatedly recounted a disastrous encounter with one of our professors.
"And then he looked directly at me," she said, widening her eyes for dramatic effect, "and asked me to explain the answer I'd just spent five minutes pretending to understand."
I burst out laughing.
"What did you say?"
"I told him I was still processing the question."
I laughed harder.
"He told me to process it faster."
"That sounds awful."
"It was a personal attack on my intelligence."
"Maybe you should try having some."
She gasped, pressing a hand to her chest.
"Eira! I thought we were friends."
I was still laughing when the atmosphere changed.
It happened so subtly at first that I barely noticed.
A conversation at the next table faltered.
Then another.
Laughter dwindled into awkward silence. Forks paused halfway to mouths, and heads began turning toward the entrance one after another.
The change spread through the canteen with an almost unnatural swiftness, as though an invisible hand had swept over the room and extinguished every trace of its liveliness.
My smile faded.
A strange chill crept across the back of my neck.
"What happened?" I whispered.
Tessy didn't answer.
She was staring toward the entrance.
Curiosity overcame my confusion, and I followed her gaze.
A boy had just walked in.
He wore a black jacket and dark trousers, both immaculate, and moved with the unhurried confidence of someone who had never once needed to ask permission to occupy a room.
He didn't look around.
Didn't acknowledge the people staring at him.
Didn't appear to notice the sudden silence that followed his every step.
And yet, somehow, he seemed to command all of it.
His skin was pale, almost unnaturally so beneath the harsh canteen lights. His features were sharply defined, his expression cold enough to discourage even the most curious stranger from approaching him.
He was devastatingly handsome.
The kind of handsome that made people pause, stare, and forget whatever they had been doing.
There was something almost unreal about him, something that drew every gaze toward him without the slightest effort on his part.
But it wasn't his appearance that made my heart stumble.
It was his eyes.
Black.
Endlessly, impossibly black.
There was something haunting about them, something that made me think of an emptiness too deep for words—as though they had witnessed things no one should ever have to endure.
I didn't understand why those eyes affected me so deeply.
I only knew that the moment I saw them, everything else seemed to disappear.
The tray in my hands suddenly felt heavier.
My fingers went cold.
For one suspended moment, the canteen disappeared around me. The conversations, the tables, the people—all of it receded until there was nothing left but the memory of a dark forest and a pair of eyes watching me from beneath a concealed face.
Those eyes.
I knew them.
I had seen them in my dreams.
No.
Not in my dreams.
In the forest.
The stranger who had appeared out of nowhere, lifted me into his arms, and thrown a deadly snake into the shadows as though it weighed no more than a fallen leaf.
The stranger who had vanished before I could even ask his name.
My breath caught painfully.
It was him.
He was here.
In my college.
A strange, disbelieving warmth spread through my chest, pushing aside the uneasiness that had haunted me since the previous night.
I had spent hours wondering whether I had imagined him.
Now he was standing only a few tables away.
Real.
Solid.
Unmistakable.
I should have felt relieved.
Instead, my heart began racing for an entirely different reason.
I needed to thank him.
The thought arrived with such certainty that I was already pushing my chair back before I had fully considered it.
Tessy caught my wrist.
"Eira. What are you doing?"
"I need to thank him."
"Thank who?"
I nodded toward the boy.
Her eyes followed mine.
Then widened.
"Oh, absolutely not."
Before she could say more, I walked toward him.
The closer I came, the more oppressive the atmosphere seemed to become. It wasn't simply that he looked intimidating. There was something about his stillness, his absolute indifference to the world around him, that made me feel as though I were approaching a predator who had never needed to chase anything in his life.
My steps faltered.
Only for a second.
Then I remembered the forest.
His arm around my waist.
The way he had pulled me out of danger without hesitation.
He had saved me.
Surely, beneath that intimidating exterior, he couldn't be as frightening as everyone seemed to believe.
Clinging to that thought, I reached his table.
He sat alone, leaning back in his chair, one arm resting casually along its edge. His posture was relaxed, almost careless, yet there was nothing vulnerable about him.
Even seated, he possessed an unsettling presence.
Up close, he was even more devastatingly handsome.
Sharp cheekbones. A perfectly sculpted jaw. Pale skin that seemed almost untouched by the warmth of the living world.
And those eyes.
God, those eyes.
They looked even darker at this distance, their depths impossible to read.
For several seconds, I stood beside his table, waiting for him to acknowledge me.
He didn't.
His gaze remained fixed somewhere ahead, as though I were no more significant than the empty space beside him.
I swallowed.
"Adrian?"
He turned his head.
His gaze settled on me.
He didn't merely glance at me.
He stared.
His black eyes held mine with an intensity that made my breath catch, yet his expression remained utterly unreadable. There was no curiosity in his face, no surprise, not even the faintest indication that he recognized me.
He simply stared at me, cold and unyielding, as though he were looking straight through me.
"I just wanted to—"
"If you want to sleep with me," he interrupted, his voice cold and utterly devoid of interest, "then say so."
The words struck harder than I could have imagined.
For a moment, I simply stared at him.
My mind refused to make sense of what I had heard.
"What?"
He continued looking at me.
There was no warmth in his eyes.
No flicker of recognition.
Not even the slightest trace of the strange gentleness I thought I had glimpsed in the forest.
He looked at me as though I were an inconvenience.
As though my very presence disgusted him.
The canteen had gone silent.
Then someone laughed.
A single, sharp burst of amusement.
Another followed.
And another.
Within seconds, the entire room seemed to erupt around me.
My face burned.
I could feel every pair of eyes turning toward us, every whisper and stifled laugh settling against my skin like a thousand tiny cuts.
Victoria's voice sliced through the noise.
"Oh my God! Did she seriously come over here for that?"
Her laughter rang out, loud and merciless.
"Someone should tell her who she's talking to."
A boy at the next table leaned toward his friend.
"That's Adrian Blake. His family practically owns half the city."
"Half?" another scoffed. "Try the entire city."
"People wait months just to get an invitation to one of his parties."
Victoria smirked, looking me up and down with open disdain.
"And she really thought she could walk up to him like she belonged here?"
More laughter.
It seemed to come from everywhere at once.
I stood frozen beside his table, my hands hanging uselessly at my sides, unable to find a single word that might defend me.
I lowered my gaze, desperately trying to steady my breathing.
Don't cry.
Not here.
Not in front of them.
I would not give them that satisfaction.
But the tears were already burning behind my eyes, and I could feel the last fragile threads of my composure beginning to unravel.
I took a step backward.
Then another.
Adrian said nothing.
He didn't even look at me again.
It was as though I had already ceased to exist, as though sparing me another glance would be a waste of his time.
His indifference was absolute.
And somehow, that was worse than the insult itself.
I turned and ran.
Voices rose behind me, and the laughter followed as I hurried past the tables, my vision blurring at the edges.
Someone called my name.
"Eira!"
Tessy.
I heard her chair scrape violently against the floor, followed by the hurried sound of footsteps.
But I couldn't stop.
I couldn't look at her.
I couldn't face anyone.
Not Victoria. Not Tessy. Not the strangers who had watched me humiliate myself.
And certainly not him.
I rushed through the canteen doors and into the corridor, my breath catching painfully in my chest. My shoes struck the floor in uneven rhythms as I hurried past classrooms and staircases, desperate to put as much distance between myself and that room as possible.
I sank onto an empty bench in the deserted courtyard, unable to hold back my tears any longer. With no one around to see me, I let them fall as the events of the past few minutes replayed in my mind.
How could he say something like that?
Just yesterday, those same black eyes had belonged to the stranger who appeared when I was certain I was going to die. He had saved me when I had nowhere to turn, and somehow, even in the darkness of that forest, his presence had made me feel safe.
But today, those very eyes had regarded me with such cold indifference that I had never felt so humiliated in my life.
And he hadn't even cared.
I wiped my cheeks with the back of my hand, struggling to reconcile the stranger who had saved me with the boy who had humiliated me in front of everyone. I had approached him only to thank him. I hadn't expected a smile or even a kind word, but I had never imagined he would make me regret it.
I didn't know Adrian Blake.
He was a stranger. A complete stranger.
I pressed my palms against my eyes, but his words remained stubbornly clear in my mind.
Why had he spoken to me like that? Had I done something to deserve it?
I lowered my hands and stared at the ground, unable to make sense of his cruelty. I barely knew him, yet somehow, his words had hurt far more than they should have.
"I hate you, Adrian Blake," I murmured, my voice barely audible. "I really do."
Even as I said it, the words felt strangely inadequate. I wanted to be angry with him. I wanted to forget the encounter and never give him another thought.
But my mind kept returning to those cold black eyes.
"Why?" I whispered into the emptiness of the courtyard. "Why did you have to be so cruel?"
My voice faltered. I quickly brushed away the tears gathering on my cheeks, embarrassed by how deeply a stranger's words had affected me.
He was a stranger. His opinion shouldn't have mattered to me.
And yet, somehow, it did.
I didn't understand why, and I didn't want to.
The trees swayed gently in the breeze, their shadows stretching across the deserted courtyard.
They offered no answers.