Life began to feel predictable.
Not the kind of predictability that brings comfort.
Not the gentle repetition that lets people relax into routine.
It was a different kind altogether—
the kind where you could already tell, long before the moment arrived,
that nothing was going to happen next.
Morning classes.
Lunch.
Discussions.
Going home.
The sequence almost never changed.
Days stacked neatly on top of one another,
each indistinguishable from the last,
until time itself seemed less like a flow
and more like a line that had been pressed flat.
Smooth.
Straight.
Without ripples.
I sat in the back row of the classroom.
It wasn't a calculated decision.
There was no intention behind it.
The seat had simply been empty.
And just as importantly,
it was a seat no one ever tried to claim.
From there, the room appeared slightly distant,
as if I were watching it through a thin pane of glass.
Outside the window, tree shadows drifted lazily across the ground.
When the wind passed through the branches, leaves brushed against one another, producing faint, fragmented sounds.
The rhythm was slow.
Slow enough to make someone want to sigh.
And yet—
slow enough that even sighing felt excessive.
The teacher stood at the front, back turned, writing across the blackboard.
Each stroke of chalk scraped against the surface,
the sound dry and persistent,
as though it were being amplified simply because there was nothing else to listen to.
I understood what was being taught.
There was no need to focus.
No need to keep my attention tightly anchored.
I didn't even need to listen in the usual sense.
The information reached me anyway,
settling into place without resistance.
"Lucy, what do you think about this one?"
The question came from nearby.
The voice was lowered, careful not to draw attention.
There was hesitation in the tone.
And beneath it, an expectation that wasn't particularly well hidden.
I shifted my gaze to the problem on the page.
Only briefly.
"The third case doesn't hold," I said.
"The initial assumption was ignored."
I didn't lift my head.
The answer left my mouth without effort,
as naturally as a reflex.
There was a short pause.
The person asking seemed momentarily caught off guard,
as if the response had arrived too quickly to process.
Then they nodded,
turned back to their notes,
and hurriedly wrote the conclusion down.
I felt it then.
A few gazes landed on me.
Not openly.
Just long enough to verify something.
Recognition.
Confirmation.
Then, almost immediately, they withdrew.
Class ended.
The bell rang, sharp and sudden,
and the classroom reacted like a container whose seal had been released.
Sound rushed in.
Voices overlapped.
Chairs scraped loudly against the floor.
Zippers were pulled open and shut,
again and again.
I stood up.
When I stepped into the hallway,
the flow of people adjusted around me.
No one consciously made space.
No one paused or stepped aside in any obvious way.
And yet, a narrow path opened—
subtle, precise,
as though everyone instinctively knew where not to stand.
I moved through it without slowing.
I was used to this.
This distance—
it was steadier than open hostility.
Less exhausting than forced politeness.
And far more efficient.
At noon, I sat alone at my usual spot by the cafeteria window.
It was a seat I always took.
The lighting there was best.
And there was no one behind me.
Sunlight spilled across the table,
reflecting off the stainless steel utensils,
bright enough to sting the eyes if I looked too long.
The smells of food blended together into a single, indistinct presence.
Nothing stood out.
Nothing called for attention.
Nearby, conversations overlapped.
They talked about exams.
Which classes were likely to grade harshly.
Which teachers were unfair, or quietly biased.
They talked about part-time jobs.
Hourly pay.
Shifts.
Whether the time spent was worth the money earned.
They talked about clubs.
Activities.
Social circles.
They talked about being tired—
and about the strange resignation that came with realizing there didn't seem to be another option.
Their worries were concrete.
Measurable.
Bounded.
They had weight,
but they also had limits.
I listened.
And yet, I didn't join in.
Not because I couldn't follow the conversation.
Not because I lacked understanding.
But because I didn't know
where I was supposed to enter it.
My concerns didn't exist on the same scale.
They didn't align with the same coordinates.
And if I voiced them,
the atmosphere would shift.
Not dramatically.
Just enough to make everyone uncomfortable.
So I stayed silent.
I focused on eating.
On lifting my utensils.
On chewing slowly.
I treated every bite as a small, discrete task—
something to be completed,
one after another.
In the afternoon, I returned to Starfall Town.
As the vehicle crossed the boundary,
the surrounding noise dropped almost instantly,
as though it had been filtered through an unseen membrane.
The air felt cleaner.
Sharper.
Everything here followed clear rules.
Clear lines.
I had just finished changing clothes
when I sensed movement outside.
It wasn't an alarm.
There was no piercing sound,
no signal that demanded immediate attention.
It was something subtler—
the kind of disturbance that only appears
when an established rhythm is disrupted.
Footsteps in the corridor quickened.
Conversations broke off halfway through sentences.
Someone repeated the same words under their breath, again and again.
I stepped out of my room and walked toward the end of the hallway.
I didn't approach too closely.
I stopped at the corner,
far enough to remain unnoticed.
Lights were on in the direction of the conference area.
Too bright.
Too sudden.
They stood out against the usual calm,
as if activated in anticipation of something that hadn't yet fully arrived.
Then—
the door opened.
Not with a controlled push.
But with force,
nearly slamming against its frame.
A man rushed into the conference room.
I recognized him immediately.
Danny.
Designation R203.
An observer from the intelligence course.
His clothes were slightly disordered,
as though he hadn't taken the time to straighten them.
His breathing was uneven,
his shoulders pitched forward just a fraction.
He didn't knock.
He didn't request entry.
That alone was unusual.
In fact, it bordered on a violation.
The conference room wasn't completely soundproof,
but it muted most details.
From where I stood,
I could only catch fragments.
"…confirmed."
His voice was fast,
compressed,
as if he were racing against interruption.
"The target has appeared."
That line carried through more clearly.
"Not a hypothesis."
For a brief instant,
the air itself seemed to tighten.
Lucian didn't answer right away.
A few seconds passed.
They weren't long.
But they were deliberate.
Long enough to make it clear
that the silence itself carried weight.
Then he spoke.
His voice was low,
controlled,
and unmistakably clear.
No hesitation.
No uncertainty.
"Are you certain?"
"Yes."
No elaboration followed.
No justification.
Only confirmation.
Silence settled again.
And in that moment,
I saw it.
Lucian's expression.
It wasn't a smile.
It wasn't excitement.
It wasn't even emotion, in the usual sense.
It was—
the look a hunter wears
upon confirming that the prey is real.
Not imagined.
Not inferred.
Real.
Calm.
Focused.
And beneath it,
a pleasure so tightly restrained
it could only exist because of discipline.
Not because action was imminent.
But because—
the world had finally responded to his waiting.
In that instant, I understood.
Something had begun to move.
Not outside.
Not in the surrounding environment.
But within him.
A part that had long been prepared,
long been held back.
From that day onward,
Lucian's demeanor changed in ways that were subtle,
yet impossible to ignore.
He didn't grow impatient.
He didn't display visible agitation.
Nothing outwardly dramatic occurred.
And yet—
the pauses in his speech shortened.
His gaze occasionally drifted toward directions that didn't exist.
His fingers lingered longer on the surface of the table.
As though, once more on the battlefield,
he had caught a familiar scent.
The scent that belongs
only to a hunter.