As the sound of light footstep echoes, a hand clapped Rhay on the shoulder, and the fragile world they had built between them shattered.
"There you two are! Don't you know the rest of us are waiting for you?" The senior leader's voice was a cheerful, jarring disruption. Her smile, wide and full of a lighthearted impatience, was a stark contrast to the charged silence Vye and Rhay had just inhabited.
Vye pulled her hand from his, the phantom warmth of his touch a tingling ghost against her skin. She averted her gaze, forcing herself to nod and return the senior leader's smile. It felt like a mask sliding back into place, a seamless return to the quiet, composed girl everyone knew. She followed the leader, her feet moving on their own as her mind reeled, a dizzying storm of frantic, spiraling thoughts.
Who was that?
She had no logical answer. She had never met him. But when he spoke, she didn't hear the voice of a boy her age. She heard the careful, measured cadence of a soul that had lived through too many quiet mornings, a soul that had seen things it couldn't unsee. She tried to tell herself it was just her mind playing tricks, projecting a fictional persona onto a stranger. But the feeling was insistent, a strange, undeniable hum deep in her gut. She felt it in the way he stood, the ancient, knowing look in his eyes, and the sheer weight of his presence—a presence that felt impossibly vast and deep.
And she had felt the lie. That was the most terrifying part. A fierce, undeniable certainty had surged through her, an instinct that screamed, He's not telling the truth about who he is. It was a feeling she had learned to trust implicitly, a quiet sixth sense that always pointed to the loose threads in the world. But it had never been this strong, this profound. It was as if she had not just read the lie, but felt the echo of his true self standing beside him.
And that's why she had broken her own silence. Why, for the first time in memory, she had felt compelled to confront a stranger. She was a creature of quiet corners and observation, a girl who preferred the unwritten rules of social etiquette to the brashness of confrontation. Yet, in that moment, the lie was a dissonant chord in a symphony she had spent her life learning. It was a crack in the universe, a violation of a truth she held sacred: that a person's words should, at the very least, align with the ghost of who they were.
His words didn't just misalign; they were a deliberate, calculated betrayal of the soul she felt humming beneath his skin. The aftershock of that profound emotional betrayal left her in a daze, and the details of the next activity became a blur of motion and distant sounds. All she could hear was the echo of his voice, a whisper that still sent a shiver through her. He hadn't just exposed his truth; he had turned the tables and seen the lie she told. He had seen the fabricated truth she used to protect her most sacred self. And then, with his thumb brushing her hand, he had shattered it all by telling her the very reason she wrote. Because your soul demands it.
The other students were laughing as they set up a large, intricate puzzle on a table. June, the bubbly boy, was already excitedly shouting ideas, his voice a bright, familiar noise. But Vye was an ocean away. She looked at her hands, still tingling from his touch. It was impossible. She hadn't told anyone. Not a single soul. She wrote in secret, a necessary release she guarded with the fierce possessiveness of a mother with her first child. No one could know the garden where her secrets grew, the private space where she built herself with words.
So how could he know? The question rattled in her mind like a desperate hummingbird trapped in a glass room, demanding to be set free.
*****
The group finished the puzzle with time to spare. The senior leader's voice rang out with congratulations, then turned playful. "You're all too good at this! We'll move lunch up, but you've earned a break. Lunch is in twenty minutes, so take your time before you head to the dining hall."
The moment of shared success, however, felt distant and hollow to Vye. Her mind was a whirlwind of frantic thoughts, and the joy of the other students was a dissonant noise she couldn't filter out.
She stood frozen in place, watching them disperse, until a voice cut through the noise, a whisper that still sent a shiver through her.
"Hey, let's go."
Vye turned, her movements slow and deliberate. Rhay stood just a few feet away, his gaze gentle and concerned, but with the same knowing glint she had seen before.
"Let's get ready for the lunch break," he said, his voice low enough that only she could hear it. "Or were you not hungry yet? If you miss it, you won't have any meal until dinner is served."
His words weren't a challenge or an obvious attempt to capture her attention. They were an act of kindness, a simple, non-intrusive gesture that proved he was still watching her, still aware of her. Vye's mind screamed at her to refuse, to walk away, to return to the safety of her silence. But the ache in her heart, the frantic hummingbird in her mind, demanded to know. It demanded answers from the soul who had seen her so clearly.
She took a step toward him, her hand instinctively reaching out, her fingers just a whisper from his. The motion was an unthinking impulse, a muscle memory from a life she couldn't recall. Just as quickly, she pulled it back, a small jolt of bewilderment passing through her. She didn't know this person. Why would she do that?
Rhay, however, didn't seem to notice. He smiled, a flicker of genuine relief in his eyes. He didn't speak another word, simply walked beside her, their footsteps falling in a quiet rhythm as they headed toward the dining hall. The only sounds were the soft echo of their steps and the frantic pounding of Vye's heart, leading her deeper into a mystery she knew she couldn't solve alone.