Shit.
Her breathing sounded a little rough as she leaned back against the door. She didn't remember walking inside.
All she recalled was that flashlight at the far end of the corridor. Then there was a sound: metal scraping. She remembered turning back, but why did she?
When the sound came from inside her head.
Tap. Tap.
She held her breath again. The sound of footsteps was right outside the door. She closed her eyes and waited.
Slowly, the sound faded.
Only then did she slowly open her eyes and think of an answer as to where she had ended up.
"Cold."
The room temperature had gone much colder than before. Her eyes moved to the left. Steel drawers stacked along the walls, a light above brightening the whole room. Looking right, more stacked steel drawers.
This wasn't the room she was supposed to enter.
She walked forward slowly. The floor beneath reflected her distorted figure, each step measured, as if the floor might shift with one wrong step.
Sara stopped in front of the nearest drawer. It showed no labels or names, just a number scraped against the metal.
She brushed her fingers against the cold metal, then reached for the handle. It opened with no effort.
Inside: a body, still, eyes closed, dead.
All the remaining heat inside her body vanished, but her hand didn't stop. She pulled the tray out.
Her eyes moved mechanically, with ease. The first thing she noticed was stitches at the chest and abdomen. They looked careful, as if whoever did it had taken their sweet time to cover whatever was inside.
She also noticed the marks of another injury on the left arm.
"What could've brought him here?" she thought, as she closed the drawer and moved to the next.
The next body was of a female, late twenties.
A dark red circle around her neck, followed by two on both wrists. Then the stitches—a long line from her chest to abdomen, splitting the body in two. No signs of any chaos; it had been carefully done.
"Postmortem?" Sara wondered. But she didn't recall anyone talking about this. "Or is this place also for practice? For newcomers?"
She let the question hang and moved to the next one.
Another body. Same patterns. The stitches were cutting across the chest and abdomen.
And to the next. She opened and closed—repeated the same movements over and over again. What she witnessed was also the same.
Her breathing grew shallow, fingers twitching slightly. She leaned closer, examining the body carefully this time.
First, she opened the dead's eyes.
Nothing.
Only a pitch-black hole remained. It was as if someone had scooped it out from there.
Then her hand hovered at the chest; she touched the stitches, spread long across the body. She stopped her fingers and added some pressure. It sank quite easily. She did the same at the abdomen, and her fingers sank inside.
Something was missing.
She opened her mouth to say something, but the only thing that came out was her heavy breathing. She pushed the body in, closed the drawer. Her eyes moved to the other side.
Same steel drawers.
She froze. The air was still—cold. Nothing had changed since the moment she entered.
"Straight out of a graveyard."
Julian's words echoed inside her head. She didn't think a passing, throwaway line could become true.
Sara stepped back, her heart pounding. She quickly turned back and exited the room. Only then did she notice which door she had entered.
The number plate gleamed faintly under the light:
108.
Sara stared at it for a moment, then walked forward toward the room she was supposed to enter.
She watched the darkness stretched forward, but it wasn't trying to hide anything. Neomar was already past that stage.
…
"Aha," Mia smacked the pen against her notebook. "I can't understand shit. Can't we try something else?"
"You said you wanted to work on something you're weakest at," he replied calmly.
"Yeah, yeah," she slumped her forehead on the desk. "But can't you explain it in simpler words?"
"This is simple."
"Newton's first law: Objects don't move unless you touch 'em." She started muttering, her head still on the desk. "Second law: Force equals mass times acceleration. And the third... What was it again? If you throw a punch at someone, they'll throw one back?"
She lifted her eyes at him. "Who the hell came up with these crazy ideas?"
"Newton."
"Yeah, great. If someone throws an apple at me, then I will understand all of this."
"You can understand it even without that."
"Yeah, easy for you to say," she raised her head slowly. "I don't know if I can write anything besides my name and roll number."
She watched him for a moment, then asked, "Why did you run off early yesterday?"
"I had something to do."
"Like what? Was someone waiting for you at home?" She moved her face closer to his.
"Do you want to learn about my home or physics?"
She thought for a moment and answered, "Physics. But... only if you make it simpler and easier to understand."
She pointed to the first question again:
A student lifts a box from the floor to a shelf 1 meter high.
The box has a mass of 5 kilograms.
The lift takes 2 seconds.
Explain how work, energy, and power are involved in this process.
"What the hell am I supposed to do with this?"
"Work is force times distance. Power is work divided by time. Energy is the ability to do work."
"Stop." She raised her hand. "Did you forget what I said? Easy words. Explain it like I am five. No, that's too much. Explain it like I'm thirteen."
He watched her for a moment, then looked around the library and spotted a girl a few tables away chewing something.
"Have you ever played with a gum?" he asked.
Mia blinked. "Obviously? Who hasn't?"
"Imagine you stretch the gum between your fingers. The more you stretch it, the harder it gets, right?"
"Yeah?"
"That's energy. The gum isn't doing anything yet, but it's holding something inside it. It's ready."
"Okay..." Mia leaned in.
"Now imagine you let it snap back. That energy gets released. It moves fast and hits whatever it's attached to. That's work. The gum did something."
"So energy is the stretch. Work is the snap?"
"Yes."
"And power?" Mia tilted her head.
"How fast the snap happens. Stretch slow, let go slow, low power. Stretch fast, let go hard, high power."
Her eyes widened, as if she'd discovered treasure. "Ohhh... so that stupid box question?"
"You lifting the box is stretching. Your muscles store energy. When you move it to the shelf, you're snapping the energy out as work. If you do it fast, that's high power."
"I get it now." Mia stared down at the question again.
"Gum gum physics." She twirled her pen and started writing.
He didn't interrupt her.
"Force is the stickiness, right?" She wiggled her fingers, grabbing air as if holding invisible goo.
"I'm pulling a thing up, the gum stretches… and gravity pulls it back."
"Mass times gravity. Five kilos, gravity ten."
5 × 10 = 50.
"So the gum's pulling with fifty… sticky-newtons."
She cracked a tired grin.
"And work…" she whispered, dragging the pen down her notebook. "Work is how much gum stretches before it snaps."
She moved her hands upward. "One meter stretch. So 50 sticky… joules. That's the work."
"Energy next."
Her pencil hovered, then she pressed it down.
"If gum stretched one meter up is the same gum energy stuck in it… the box has fifty joules saved in it now."
She drew the box sitting on a crooked shelf. "It's like a stored stretch."
He exhaled lightly and watched her solve the question. Then his eyes drifted to a diary resting inside her bag. Without thinking much, he reached toward it.
She tapped his hand before he could reach it. "Don't touch it."
He withdrew his hand.
"And last, power…" She squinted.
"That's the speed of the tug. How fast I pull the gum before it breaks."
"Two seconds."
50 ÷ 2 = 25.
"So power is… twenty-five watts." She lifted her arms.
"Twenty-five sticky-watt-pulls per second."
She stared at the answer for a beat, breathing heavily like she'd run a race.
She looked at him. "This is correct, right?"
"It is."
She slouched lower in her chair. "Okay, I'm officially a genius. Somebody call NASA."
"I mean no offense to Newton..." She smiled at him. "But gum physics works way better than apple physics."
"I'll be leaving, then."
"What, already?"
"I have somewhere to go."
"I can tag along if you want?" She raised her eyebrows. "What do you say?"
"You should study." He stood up from his seat. "Also, it's nothing you need to worry about."
"If you say so..." Mia said as she watched him go.
"But who said I'm worried... about you?"