Chapter 62 Kristen
The reception area looked like someone had taken every piece of personal expression and quietly erased it. Glass walls. Neutral colors so pale they hovered between warm and sterile. Chairs that looked chosen for efficiency, not comfort. No books. No photos. No art. Just smooth surfaces and angles that made me feel exposed instead of protected.
I shifted again on the seat and tried not to let my gaze wander. Tried to focus on the way Anna tapped off another text message with casual ease. Tried to anchor myself in something rational. But every time I thought I had settled, my eyes drifted back to the door of the professor’s office, then to the glossy hallway, then back again, like the space was subtly breathing and waiting for something I couldn’t name.
The receptionist at the desk typed without looking up. Her eyes were fixed on the screen, her fingers moving steadily. No acknowledgment of us. No blink of curiosity. Just text and the soft thrum of the keyboard. The sound should have been comforting, familiar even, but here it was just too rhythmic, too precise, like she was a machine and the motion had taken over her body long enough that she forgot how to notice the world around her.
Anna sat beside me, her posture relaxed. One leg crossed over the other, coffee in hand, like she was casually waiting for a friend in a lobby. She didn’t seem bothered by any of it. Did not flinch when the air felt too still. Did not scan exits with a subconscious tension in her shoulders. I watched her for a moment, thinking maybe I was just projecting — imagining the strangeness because I was tired or panicked or too deep into my own thoughts.
But then my pulse ticked faster without warning, just beneath perception, a primal tick like a code buried deep under nervous system that refused to be rationalized away. My fingers unconsciously curled inwards. My foot, hidden beneath the chair, tapped — just once, then twice, against the floor.
This was not fear. Not exactly. Fear had a shape. Fear had a rhythm you could point to. This was something sharper. Something that pressed against the back of my throat and made my breath start to feel shallow without any conscious intention.
I shifted again. Crossed my arms. Uncrossed them. Tried to relax my shoulders. Everything that should have seemed calm should have felt normal. But my body was advertising something my logical brain did not want to acknowledge.
What am I doing here?
I asked myself the question like a rebuke. I tried to smear the unease onto nervousness, onto the stress of trying to find answers to questions no one wanted answered. I tried to blame the redacted file, Anna’s insistence, the constant mystery of why no sigil had ever appeared on my skin.
But my brain and my body were arguing.
My body thought something was wrong.
Too still. Too orderly. Too composed. Too controlled.
My attention kept drifting back to the hallway, the slick floor, the angle of light hitting the glass. Too symmetrical. Too clean. Too… devoid of anything personal.
It gave me a bad feeling.
I didn’t give myself permission to feel that. I tried to force logic over instinct, tried to justify it. He’s a new professor, Kristen. He’s not even on your radar beyond being helpful. He may know something tech‑wise. So what if the reception area is sterile. Lots of academic offices are minimalist these days.
But my stomach was stubborn, clenching and unclenching like it was trying to push something out of my system.
And then the receptionist looked up.
Just for a second.
Her eyes didn’t focus on me. They didn’t focus on Anna. They flickered past us toward the hallway, and for the tiniest beat of time I thought the expression on her face was more than polite emptiness.
It was something like concern.
Or recognition.
Then she looked away and continued typing, as if she had never glanced up at all.
My pulse froze for a moment.
I didn’t breathe.
Not right away.
Then a voice snapped me back.
“Kristen,” Anna said, a hint of amusement in her tone, “are you even listening to anything I’m saying or are you staring at that wall like it’s about to kill you?”
I blinked, startled out of the reverie of my own body’s warning systems.
“Sorry,” I said, even though my mouth felt dry and my heart still thudded with that odd pressure behind my ribs. I forced a laugh, but it came out too slow, too hollow.
I glanced at the door to the professor’s office again.
I could not shake that feeling.
Not because I was afraid.
But because something about this place, this moment, felt wrong in a way I could not logically articulate.
If there was one rule I had learned in the last several weeks it was this: listen to the feeling first. Logic could follow, but instinct rarely lied when it had something to say.
A moment later, the receptionist pressed a button on her desk. A soft chime sounded. Then she looked up at us with that same blank expression, and said:
“Professor Stone will see you now.”
No intonation beyond basic courtesy. No warmth. No genuine eye contact. Just monotone efficiency.
Anna smiled and gathered her things.
“I’m ready,” she said.
I stood too. My legs felt strangely tense, like I had been waiting for something without realizing it.
We walked down the hallway, the carpet muffling our steps, until we reached the office door. The nameplate read:
WALTER STONE
Assistant Professor — Computational Dynamics and Systems Integration
The words felt like a mask. Too precise. Too deliberate.
Anna pushed the door open first. I took a half‑step behind her.
The office was immaculate. Every surface was smooth. Every item was in place with geometric precision. No stacks of books. No coffee mug rings. No sticky notes. Nothing personal. Everything symmetrical. As if the room itself was a machine.
And in the center of it all stood a man.
He rose when we entered.
Tall. Calm. His posture measured, like he had rehearsed being upright and at ease in any conceivable situation. He had dark hair, kept short, and a suit that looked custom made. Nothing particularly flashy. Just perfect.
He smiled when Anna introduced us.
“Ms. Lockwood. Ms. Winters. Please, have a seat.”
His voice was warm in tone, but the warmth did not reach his eyes. They were too steady. Too assessing. Too aware.
Anna slid into a chair like she was perfectly comfortable and interested in whatever was going on.
I stayed still. Feet planted. Eyes on him.
His politeness was too smooth. Too practiced. Too … controlled.
My unease didn’t dissipate. It spiked.
I tried to force a rational thought out of it. He is a professor. That’s it. You’re jumping at shadows. You’re tired.
But my body did not buy it.
Something about the way he looked at me made my pulse hitch a little harder — not in a familiar way, not in a Leo‑complicated warm‑indicator way, but in a danger beacon sort of way.
I could feel my eyes flicking to exits without intending to.
Then he spoke.
“Ms. Lockwood,” he said, polite, measured. “You mentioned to Ms. Winters that you have questions about records access and file security.”
Anna was nodding before I even processed it.
“Yes,” Anna said. “We were hoping —”
I could hear myself breath catch before I even thought to interrupt.
And then I said it.
“No.”
The word came out abrupt. Sharp. Not polite. Not measured.
Just instinctive.
Both Anna and the professor froze for a moment.
His head tilted slightly, like he was recalibrating the situation in real time.
I swallowed, heart thudding. “I’m sorry,” I said, voice quick and laced with a defensiveness I couldn’t quite explain. “We shouldn’t be here. I mean — I shouldn’t have brought us here. Thank you for your time. I’ll see myself out.”
I backed toward the door before the meaning of what I had said even had time to settle.
Anna stared after me, stunned.
I didn’t wait for her to catch up. I just walked fast, corridor stretching out like a promise of escape.
Once we were out of the building, my legs suddenly felt like they were shaking for a reason deeper than nervousness.
Anna caught up to me in the lobby, eyes wide and voice trembling with incredulity.
“What the hell was that?” she hissed once we were on the sidewalk.
I slowed in my walk, finally stopping, shoulders rising and falling a little too quickly.
“I don’t know,” I said honestly. “I just — something tells me that guy is bad news.”
She stared at me for a beat, brow furrowed, like she was trying to parse whether I was joking or legitimately rattled.
“It just felt… wrong,” I continued, voice low. “Not scary. Not threatening. Just — wrong in a way I can’t explain.”
Anna opened her mouth, then closed it again, taking in the ambiguous tension in my posture, the way my eyes kept scanning around us as if I was waiting for something to slip out of the shadows.
“The feeling hasn’t faded,” I said quietly. “If anything, it’s stronger.”
Anna exhaled slowly, her gaze shifting from me back to the glass towers of the campus where everything was supposed to be normal.
“We’ll figure out another way,” she said.
But even as she said it, I could feel it in the back of my bones.
Something about that office was not what it seemed.
And my instinct...the part of me I had learned to listen to, was shouting at me not to go back.
Not yet.
Not ever.
And the bad feeling followed me all the way back to the dorm doors, lingering in my mind long after logic had fled the scene.