The lights in her room felt so bright.
Arwa blinked twice, waiting for her vision to adjust. But the colors were off — like everything had been overexposed just a bit too long. Her desk looked bleached. The corners of her bed trembled. Everything seemed different.
She was sitting on the edge of her bed,her hands was flat against her knees.
Breathing.
Listening.
But the silence was wrong.
It wasn't quiet. It was held. Like the air around her was waiting for something.
Someone knocked.
Not the front door.
The bathroom door.
Her heart stuttered.
She lived alone.
Arwa stood, slowly, her legs uncertain beneath her. lowly slowly she walked towards the bathroom and pushed the dorr open.
Empty.
The mirror was fogged, just as someone had stepped out of a hot shower.
She hadn't touched the tap since yesterday.
And there — scrawled faintly into the condensation:
"You shouldn't have turned around."
Her pulse spiked. She backed away.
That room. 308.
She remembered going in.
She remembered the screen.
The breath behind her.
The voice.
But everything else — a blur.
The moment the door closed, it was like her mind had been scrubbed.
And now this—this something was following her.
No.
Wearing her.
She stumbled back to her desk and opened her journal. She had always written things down, made lists, tracked feelings.
But the entries from last night… were not in her handwriting.
They were hers.
But not.
Sharper. Neater. More deliberate.
And the last line, scrawled in dark ink:
"I blinked second. I'm the one they kept."
She slammed the book shut, breath catching.
Her reflection in the dark screen of her laptop stared back.
But something about the expression didn't match what she felt.
It looked…
Pleased.
---
Across campus, her ID pinged.
Arwa Naseem. Logged into Lab 9 at 04:12.
Except she hadn't moved from her room.
And she wasn't alone anymore.