Zayaan didn't return to his dorm after the trial.
He walked—fast, unfocused—past the glass corridors of Velridge like the walls themselves might grab him if he slowed. The place was designed to feel open, but right now it felt like a trap with too many exits that led nowhere.
The air outside bit at his skin. He didn't care.
He needed noise. Distance. Anything to drown out the rising static in his head.
He stopped near the south bridge—the only place on campus the cameras didn't quite reach. That little dead spot, where the system lagged just long enough to make you feel alone.
And alone was what he wanted.
At least that's what he used to think.
---
Three months ago.
Velridge Admission Office.
Evaluation Chamber 2.
"Zayaan El-Yazid."
He hadn't flinched when they called his name. He walked into the cold-lit chamber like someone who'd already had every ounce of fear carved out of him.
They gave him the same test they gave everyone else.
Memory recall. Emotional threshold. Logical inversion patterns.
He passed them all.
Too well.
That's when they brought out the other file. The one marked Classified–Incident Epsilon/14.
He saw it flash on the monitor beside him.
His throat tightened.
"You were the last person with your brother when he—"
Zayaan cut them off. "You don't talk about him."
The evaluator leaned forward. "We don't need to. The system remembers."
---
Back in the present, Zayaan leaned against the bridge railing.
He closed his eyes. Hadi's scream still echoed from the memory room footage. But it wasn't the scream that haunted him.
It was how familiar it sounded.
His brother, Aariz, had made that same sound.
The night he locked himself in their childhood bathroom.
The night he said something was inside the mirror.
The night they found him—
No.
Zayaan's fists curled.
Not now. Don't break now.
The ID around his neck vibrated.
He pulled it up.
Reminder: Room S-9. Delta Four Re-Entry. 12:30. Unattended.
He nearly crushed the card in his hand.
Why him again?
Why always Delta?
He turned, ready to throw the ID into the ravine below—
When he heard a breath.
Not his.
He spun.
A figure stood in the shadows of the far corridor. Hood up. Still.
Watching.
Zayaan didn't move.
Neither did the figure.
A beat passed.
Then it lifted a hand—just slightly—and pointed.
Not at him.
At the wall.
He followed the gesture.
There, barely visible in the daylight: a faint mark. Like a burn or a scar on the concrete.
A circle. Broken down the middle. Like an eye—closing.
The same symbol that flashed beneath Rayyan's tile.
The figure was gone when he turned back.
Of course it was.
---
Zayaan arrived at Room S-9 seconds before the clock hit 12:30.
The scanner didn't beep. The door just... opened.
Darkness inside. Not pitch black. Just low, pulsing red light like a heartbeat.
He stepped in.
The door shut.
A screen lit up. No footage. Just text.
Do you remember what you told him, Zayaan?
Do you still think it wasn't real?
He stepped back.
"No. No, you don't get to twist this—"
Another screen blinked on. A video.
Aariz.
Talking. Crying. Laughing?
Zayaan's own voice layered over it. From a different time.
"It's just in your head, bro. You have to fight it. Don't let the shadows win."
The screen flickered.
A shadow moved behind Aariz in the footage.
"Zayaan, it's not shadows. It's awake now. And it's learning."
Then static.
Then black.
Then his own reflection in the blank screen—
But the eyes were wrong.
They blinked too slow.
Too deep.
Too late to run.