Morning sunbeams drift sloppily through tall windows, casting long dark shadows across the cracked stone floors below. Dust hangs heavy in the air, caught in quiet, awkward spirals as students shuffle listlessly through narrow, dimly lit school corridors. Voices ripple softly outside with the familiar hum of a day slowly waking up, neither rushed nor quite fully alert yet.
Erian saunters along with his hands shoved deeply into the pockets of his tattered old coat, his head hung low. The weight from last night still hangs heavily over him. Voices around him seem eerily muffled and curiously distant, like faint echoes reverberating through a long, desolate tunnel. He ponders with great curiosity how others manage to trudge along quite normally amidst glaring troubles.
Notices for club meetings and a debate on urban renewal are plastered alongside a fresh flyer for a guest lecture on the peeling walls. Dr. Halden Mire's name stands boldly at the top right alongside the topic: research on Spatial Cognition and obscure Memory Structures. The name feels hazily familiar, yet it fails to jog any clear recollection he can isolate from the jumbled, broken shards of memory stored deep within. He blinks rapidly and moves on, his footsteps remarkably light on the worn floorboards beneath him.
A small crowd murmurs quietly in great anticipation near the main hall. Oddballs from neighboring departments, skepticism laced across their faces, gather with architecture students like him. Someone whispers, rather loudly, that he's supposedly brilliant.
Erian slips into Room 2B beneath dim fluorescent lights that cast a harsh, almost blinding glow. The frosty lecture hall atmosphere envelops him snugly, like a tattered cardigan worn supple from countless affectionate wearings over many years. He settles into a worn seat near the back. A creaky wooden bench groans softly beneath his weight. He yanks out his tattered notebook quickly, its pages eerily blank and waiting silently for scribbled secrets beneath worn covers.
Soft mutterings die down slowly. The door at the front bursts open with a loud, jarring crash. Attention snaps forward. A lanky man slips inside with stealthy steps and an awkward gait. He moves naturally through the crowd, drawing gazes and commanding quiet attention.
He wears a sharply tailored suit beneath a heavy overcoat slung haphazardly over one arm. Silver streaks sprinkle his combed-back hair, catching light extravagantly. His eyes flicker faintly with muted glee but appear glacially cold and eerily sharp beneath the surface calm.
He pauses, scanning the room beneath the flickering lights, letting oppressive stillness smother lingering doubts. "I'm Dr. Halden Mire," he begins in a smooth, steady voice, rich with quiet authority that makes the air feel heavier. "Thank you for welcoming me to your college this semester."
A few students exchange glances; others lean in. His words feel like a promise wrapped in a riddle.
Erian feels an icy dread seep slowly down his back despite the unusual warmth in the room. Mire's eyes flicker toward him for barely a heartbeat, but something in that glance unsettles him profoundly.
The lecture begins in a haze of morning grogginess. The city outside breathes on, heedless, ensnared by unseen threads pulling tighter around everyone. The lecture isn't what Erian expected. No slides. No jargon-heavy monologues. Mire paces languidly, speaking in a reminiscent tone rather than elucidating facts. His words drip with cautious precision, as though each phrase was painstakingly selected long before he arrived.
He talks about memory not as a tangible repository, but as a behavioral quirk. People reconfigure spaces in their minds, overlaying emotional resonance on architectural frameworks and crafting personal, invisible topographies.
"You return to a place years later, and it's smaller than you remember," Mire says, pausing at the chalkboard without writing anything. "It's not the place that changed. It's your memory of yourself in it."
Some students look lost. Others glance at each other, unsure if they should be taking notes.
Erian leans forward unconsciously, with enthusiasm. Mire's manner tugs at the fringes of thoughts he's never quite articulated. Like peeling wallpaper revealing another wall beneath.
Mire continues. "Now imagine the inverse. A place that remembers you. Every step you've taken. How you breathed. When you hesitated. A structure with memory, older than yours."
Someone mutters a joke. Nervous laughter ripples through the room.
Erian doesn't laugh. His hand lies motionless on the page, the pen untouched. A knot tightens in his chest. The professor's words resonate with truth, yet remain shrouded in fiction. Or maybe it's the other way around.
The lecture ends without fanfare. Mire nods, says "thank you," and steps away. Students file out with quiet chatter. Erian hesitates. As he rises to leave, Mire's voice cuts through the shuffle.
"Mr. Martin, is it?"
Erian turns. "Yeah. Sorry, did I—"
"No apology needed. You were listening. Not just hearing. That's rare."
Mire's tone is observational, not flattering.
Erian nods. "Your lecture was... different. Not in a bad way."
"Different is sometimes the only honest way left. I'll be giving another talk next week. I'd like to hear your thoughts afterward."
Erian says something polite and turns to go. As he walks down the hallway past old radiators and closed doors, he feels like he's been tagged. Not just seen, but remembered. Silence falls more heavily than it should.
A raucous laugh echoes behind him as a door creaks shut. He passes the west stairwell, then halts. Something feels wrong. Darkness gathers outside. Everything seems to shut off.
A door exists where none should. At the end of a short corridor, typically ending in a wall, now a dull beige metal door glints faintly under grime. There's no label. No handle.
He stares.
"You okay, man?" Rhett asks, scarf dangling off one shoulder.
"Just... thought this wall looked different."
Nina squints. "That's always been there, hasn't it?"
"No," Erian replies. "It hasn't."
They look at him, then at the door.
"Maybe it's storage," Rhett shrugs. Nina looks unconvinced.
"C'mon, café line's short before the first-years swarm it."
Erian hesitates.
"You were weirdly quiet during that lecture," Rhett says as they descend the stairs. "He had you hypnotized."
Nina sips her coffee. "Dr. Mire? Who really cares? C'mon."
Erian doesn't respond. She glances back. "Ten bucks says he's building a mind palace out of teeth or something."
Erian doesn't laugh, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
"Still," Rhett adds, "he noticed you."
"He said I was listening."
"That's how it starts," Nina hums.
They step out into the courtyard. The door is behind them, label-less and fading into silence.
In the café, warm light hums overhead. Burnt espresso and stale pastries linger. Erian sits across from Rhett and Nina. His tea grows cold. The grey sky looks washed out, like a murky morning with no season.
Rhett recounts a miniature architecture project gone wrong. Erian listens, distant. Nina glances up.
"You good? You're doing that thing—blank face, oven worry."
"I don't have an oven."
"Exactly."
Rhett asks, "Still thinking about Professor Mike?"
"Dr. Mire," Erian corrects.
"Right, right. For a guest, he knows how to hold a room."
"More like pin it down like a butterfly," Erian mutters.
They both look at him. He shrugs.
"Something about how he spoke. He knew something others forgot."
Silence falls.
Rhett blurts, "Did either of you hear about the body near East Platform?"
Erian's gaze sharpens. "What time?"
"No idea. My roommate's cousin's on a response team. Said it looked... wrong."
Tram ride back is quiet. Pale light seeps through windows. Erian sits near the back, fingers resting on his knee. He watches the city pass by. He doesn't believe the body was unrelated.
At the East Platform, scaffolding flickers into view. Erian yanks the cord. The tram hisses to a stop.
Concrete is cold underfoot. A maintenance sign stands. One corner of the platform is scrubbed spotless. No blood. No tape. Just absence.
He kneels. No smell. No trace. A janitorial drone whirs past. He doesn't move.
A spiral is carved under a beam. Rough, hasty. He stares at it. A tarp snaps in the wind.
He backs away.
Back home, the flat is dim. His kitten is curled in a chair. He draws the spiral in his notebook. The lines are wrong. Too tidy. He searches online. Nothing exact. One forum post stands out: "Saw it near South Canal. Tunnel sealed days later."
He writes the location down.
A knock echoes at his door. Three soft taps.
Outside: a blank envelope. Inside: a spiral. A note: "The first key is where the spiral breaks."
He packs his notebook. Heads to South Canal. Officially closed. Warning signs. Torn tape.
Inside: echoing footsteps. A figure appears. "Cycles never learn."
"Who's there?"
"Looking for answers won't save you."
"Maybe I'm not looking to be saved."
"Brave or foolish. Sometimes the same."
The figure vanishes.
The hunt begins.
Erian texts Rhett. Café in ten. They meet.
"Look like hell," Rhett says.
"You have no idea."
Erian shows him the spiral. "It's more detailed. Like a map."
"You went to South Canal?"
"Yeah. Saw someone. He knew something."
"You're not doing this alone."
Erian smiles faintly. "Good. Because you're not as subtle as you think."
The spiral lies between them. The city breathes. And someone, somewhere, is watching.
Morning sunbeams drift sloppily through tall windows, casting long dark shadows across the cracked stone floors below. Dust hangs heavy in the air, caught in quiet, awkward spirals as students shuffle listlessly through narrow, dimly lit school corridors. Voices ripple softly outside with the familiar hum of a day slowly waking up, neither rushed nor quite fully alert yet.
Erian saunters along with his hands shoved deeply into the pockets of his tattered old coat, his head hung low. The weight from last night still hangs heavily over him. Voices around him seem eerily muffled and curiously distant, like faint echoes reverberating through a long, desolate tunnel. He ponders with great curiosity how others manage to trudge along quite normally amidst glaring troubles.
Notices for club meetings and a debate on urban renewal are plastered alongside a fresh flyer for a guest lecture on the peeling walls. Dr. Halden Mire's name stands boldly at the top right alongside the topic: research on Spatial Cognition and obscure Memory Structures. The name feels hazily familiar, yet it fails to jog any clear recollection he can isolate from the jumbled, broken shards of memory stored deep within. He blinks rapidly and moves on, his footsteps remarkably light on the worn floorboards beneath him.
A small crowd murmurs quietly in great anticipation near the main hall. Oddballs from neighboring departments, skepticism laced across their faces, gather with architecture students like him. Someone whispers, rather loudly, that he's supposedly brilliant.
Erian slips into Room 2B beneath dim fluorescent lights that cast a harsh, almost blinding glow. The frosty lecture hall atmosphere envelops him snugly, like a tattered cardigan worn supple from countless affectionate wearings over many years. He settles into a worn seat near the back. A creaky wooden bench groans softly beneath his weight. He yanks out his tattered notebook quickly, its pages eerily blank and waiting silently for scribbled secrets beneath worn covers.
Soft mutterings die down slowly. The door at the front bursts open with a loud, jarring crash. Attention snaps forward. A lanky man slips inside with stealthy steps and an awkward gait. He moves naturally through the crowd, drawing gazes and commanding quiet attention.
He wears a sharply tailored suit beneath a heavy overcoat slung haphazardly over one arm. Silver streaks sprinkle his combed-back hair, catching light extravagantly. His eyes flicker faintly with muted glee but appear glacially cold and eerily sharp beneath the surface calm.
He pauses, scanning the room beneath the flickering lights, letting oppressive stillness smother lingering doubts. "I'm Dr. Halden Mire," he begins in a smooth, steady voice, rich with quiet authority that makes the air feel heavier. "Thank you for welcoming me to your college this semester."
A few students exchange glances; others lean in. His words feel like a promise wrapped in a riddle.
Erian feels an icy dread seep slowly down his back despite the unusual warmth in the room. Mire's eyes flicker toward him for barely a heartbeat, but something in that glance unsettles him profoundly.
The lecture begins in a haze of morning grogginess. The city outside breathes on, heedless, ensnared by unseen threads pulling tighter around everyone. The lecture isn't what Erian expected. No slides. No jargon-heavy monologues. Mire paces languidly, speaking in a reminiscent tone rather than elucidating facts. His words drip with cautious precision, as though each phrase was painstakingly selected long before he arrived.
He talks about memory not as a tangible repository, but as a behavioral quirk. People reconfigure spaces in their minds, overlaying emotional resonance on architectural frameworks and crafting personal, invisible topographies.
"You return to a place years later, and it's smaller than you remember," Mire says, pausing at the chalkboard without writing anything. "It's not the place that changed. It's your memory of yourself in it."
Some students look lost. Others glance at each other, unsure if they should be taking notes.
Erian leans forward unconsciously, with enthusiasm. Mire's manner tugs at the fringes of thoughts he's never quite articulated. Like peeling wallpaper revealing another wall beneath.
Mire continues. "Now imagine the inverse. A place that remembers you. Every step you've taken. How you breathed. When you hesitated. A structure with memory, older than yours."
Someone mutters a joke. Nervous laughter ripples through the room.
Erian doesn't laugh. His hand lies motionless on the page, the pen untouched. A knot tightens in his chest. The professor's words resonate with truth, yet remain shrouded in fiction. Or maybe it's the other way around.
The lecture ends without fanfare. Mire nods, says "thank you," and steps away. Students file out with quiet chatter. Erian hesitates. As he rises to leave, Mire's voice cuts through the shuffle.
"Mr. Martin, is it?"
Erian turns. "Yeah. Sorry, did I—"
"No apology needed. You were listening. Not just hearing. That's rare."
Mire's tone is observational, not flattering.
Erian nods. "Your lecture was... different. Not in a bad way."
"Different is sometimes the only honest way left. I'll be giving another talk next week. I'd like to hear your thoughts afterward."
Erian says something polite and turns to go. As he walks down the hallway past old radiators and closed doors, he feels like he's been tagged. Not just seen, but remembered. Silence falls more heavily than it should.
A raucous laugh echoes behind him as a door creaks shut. He passes the west stairwell, then halts. Something feels wrong. Darkness gathers outside. Everything seems to shut off.
A door exists where none should. At the end of a short corridor, typically ending in a wall, now a dull beige metal door glints faintly under grime. There's no label. No handle.
He stares.
"You okay, man?" Rhett asks, scarf dangling off one shoulder.
"Just... thought this wall looked different."
Nina squints. "That's always been there, hasn't it?"
"No," Erian replies. "It hasn't."
They look at him, then at the door.
"Maybe it's storage," Rhett shrugs. Nina looks unconvinced.
"C'mon, café line's short before the first-years swarm it."
Erian hesitates.
"You were weirdly quiet during that lecture," Rhett says as they descend the stairs. "He had you hypnotized."
Nina sips her coffee. "Dr. Mire? Who really cares? C'mon."
Erian doesn't respond. She glances back. "Ten bucks says he's building a mind palace out of teeth or something."
Erian doesn't laugh, but the corner of his mouth twitches.
"Still," Rhett adds, "he noticed you."
"He said I was listening."
"That's how it starts," Nina hums.
They step out into the courtyard. The door is behind them, label-less and fading into silence.
In the café, warm light hums overhead. Burnt espresso and stale pastries linger. Erian sits across from Rhett and Nina. His tea grows cold. The grey sky looks washed out, like a murky morning with no season.
Rhett recounts a miniature architecture project gone wrong. Erian listens, distant. Nina glances up.
"You good? You're doing that thing—blank face, oven worry."
"I don't have an oven."
"Exactly."
Rhett asks, "Still thinking about Professor Mike?"
"Dr. Mire," Erian corrects.
"Right, right. For a guest, he knows how to hold a room."
"More like pin it down like a butterfly," Erian mutters.
They both look at him. He shrugs.
"Something about how he spoke. He knew something others forgot."
Silence falls.
Rhett blurts, "Did either of you hear about the body near East Platform?"
Erian's gaze sharpens. "What time?"
"No idea. My roommate's cousin's on a response team. Said it looked... wrong."
Tram ride back is quiet. Pale light seeps through windows. Erian sits near the back, fingers resting on his knee. He watches the city pass by. He doesn't believe the body was unrelated.
At the East Platform, scaffolding flickers into view. Erian yanks the cord. The tram hisses to a stop.
Concrete is cold underfoot. A maintenance sign stands. One corner of the platform is scrubbed spotless. No blood. No tape. Just absence.
He kneels. No smell. No trace. A janitorial drone whirs past. He doesn't move.
A spiral is carved under a beam. Rough, hasty. He stares at it. A tarp snaps in the wind.
He backs away.
Back home, the flat is dim. His kitten is curled in a chair. He draws the spiral in his notebook. The lines are wrong. Too tidy. He searches online. Nothing exact. One forum post stands out: "Saw it near South Canal. Tunnel sealed days later."
He writes the location down.
A knock echoes at his door. Three soft taps.
Outside: a blank envelope. Inside: a spiral. A note: "The first key is where the spiral breaks."
He packs his notebook. Heads to South Canal. Officially closed. Warning signs. Torn tape.
Inside: echoing footsteps. A figure appears. "Cycles never learn."
"Who's there?"
"Looking for answers won't save you."
"Maybe I'm not looking to be saved."
"Brave or foolish. Sometimes the same."
The figure vanishes.
The hunt begins.
Erian texts Rhett. Café in ten. They meet.
"Look like hell," Rhett says.
"You have no idea."
Erian shows him the spiral. "It's more detailed. Like a map."
"You went to South Canal?"
"Yeah. Saw someone. He knew something."
"You're not doing this alone."
Erian smiles faintly. "Good. Because you're not as subtle as you think."
The hunt is far from over. The spiral lies between them. The city breathes. And someone, somewhere, is watching.