Chapter 30 A shadow of herself
Campus had changed.
The trees looked darker now, the buildings quieter. Even the air felt heavy, full of things no one said out loud. Every conversation stopped when Lila walked by. Every whisper bent toward her name.
She pretended not to notice.
At breakfast, someone at the next table muttered something about the photography curse, and another girl shushed her. Lila kept her eyes on her plate, forcing herself to chew. Her hands were shaking so badly she could barely hold the fork.
After Ruby’s death, nothing felt real.
The police were everywhere blocking hallways, questioning professors, posting security notices on every bulletin board.
None of it made her feel any safer.
She still saw Ruby’s laugh in flashes, heard her humming, the scent of vanilla shampoo that lingered long after she’d left the room.
It haunted her. So did the thought that someone, somewhere, might be smiling about it.
She was sitting outside the cafeteria later that day, trying to read. She hadn’t gone to class. The book lay open in her lap, unread, the same line staring back at her for twenty minutes.
A shadow fell across the page. “Mind if I sit?”
Professor Mercer stood there, two coffees in hand. He looked tired more so than usual, his tie loosened, his hair wind-swept.
Lila blinked at him, dazed. “You… you’re not teaching?”
“Cancellations,” he said simply. “Half the campus called in sick. The other half’s too scared to show up.”
He handed her one of the cups. She hesitated, then took it. It was warm, and that small warmth startled her. She hadn’t realized how cold her fingers were.
“Thank you,” she murmured.
He sat beside her, leaving a careful distance between them. “How are you holding up?”
Lila stared at the fountain, its steady rhythm breaking through the silence. “I don’t know what that means anymore.”
Mercer didn’t speak right away. The silence stretched for a few minutes. A bird landed on the fountain’s edge, shook its feathers, and flew off again.
“She was a good student,” he said finally, voice soft. “Ruby. I remember her project proposal about light and reflection. She said she wanted to photograph the way sadness bends the world.”
Lila’s throat tightened. “That sounds like her.”
Mercer glanced at her then, his eyes tired but gentle. “You were close?”
“We were just starting to be,” Lila said. Her voice cracked on the last word. “She was… she was loud, and kind, and she laughed at everything. She made things feel” She stopped, shaking her head. “She made things feel like they might be okay again.”
Mercer didn’t interrupt. He just listened.
That silence, that careful, respectful quietness made her eyes sting.
After a moment, he said quietly, “You don’t have to talk if it hurts.”
She almost smiled. “If I stop talking, it’ll just hurt louder.”
Mercer nodded slightly, gaze drifting back toward the fountain. The water shimmered in the sunlight, and for a moment, everything looked deceptively peaceful.
“Campus is changing,” he said, almost to himself. “After things like this, people see monsters in every shadow.”
Lila let out a shaky breath. “Maybe they should.”
He turned back to her, studying her face. “Don’t let fear eat you, Lila. It’s clever. It makes you forget what’s real.”
She met his gaze, then looked away. “I don’t even know what’s real anymore.”
He didn’t answer that. Instead, he stood, brushing off his coat. “Finish your coffee. It’s better warm.”
When she looked up, he was already walking away. For a moment, she wanted to call him back to ask if he really believed what he said, or if he was just trying to convince himself too.
But she didn’t.
That night, the wind picked up. The dorm window rattled now and then, like it was shivering.
Lila sat at her desk, notebook open, pencil tapping against the page. She wasn’t writing, just drawing circles, one inside another, until the paper tore.
The room smelled faintly of Ruby’s vanilla candle. Lila couldn’t bring herself to throw it out.
On the desk, Ruby’s framed photo sat between stacks of textbooks. Lila had looked at it so often the edges of the frame were smudged.
She lifted it gently now, tracing the outline of Ruby’s laugh frozen in time.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “You didn’t deserve this.”
Her voice cracked, barely audible.
The wind howled again, louder this time. She turned toward the window and froze.
The faintest flicker of movement. Something outside, a flash of shadow just beyond the glass.
Her heart started racing. She leaned forward, trying to see. The darkness was thick.
Then, she heard a sharp sound.
Glass shattered inward.
Lila screamed and ducked. Shards sprayed across the desk, skittering across the floor like rain. The photo frame hit the ground, splintering in half.
Her ears rang. Her hands trembled violently.
For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of wind pushing through the broken pane, curtains snapping against the frame.
Lila slowly raised her head. The air was full of glittering dust and tiny shards.
Her breath came fast, and uneven. She crawled forward, trying to see what had hit the glass.
There was no rock, no metal, nothing.
Then she saw it right beneath the fallen picture frame.
A rose petal.
Fresh and deep red lying amid the glass, edges slick with moisture.
Her stomach dropped.
Not again.
Her shaking hand brushed against it, the soft curve of it too alive to be coincidence.
She backed away, heartbeat in her throat.
Suddenly, she heard a faint voice outside the broken window.
“Lila…”
Her breath hitched. She froze.
The whisper came again, closer this time, threaded with something almost tender.
“Lila, it’s cold out here.”
Her pulse thudded so hard she thought her ribs might crack. She pressed her back against the wall, eyes darting toward the door.
It wasn’t possible. She was on the second floor. No one could be standing outside that window.
Unless.
“Lila.”
The voice dragged her name like a secret.
She bolted. Grabbed her phone, her keys, she didn’t bother with shoes. She yanked the door open and ran barefoot down the hall, her breath sharp and wild.
Doors blurred past. Laughter from somewhere distant, muffled, and normal.
She stopped at the end of the corridor, gasping, and pounded on the nearest door.
A sleepy girl opened it, startled. “Hey, what?”
“Can I… please.. I just..” Lila stammered, unable to finish.
The girl stepped aside. “Yeah, of course. Come in.”
Lila stumbled inside, shivering. Her skin was cold from fear, her hands still bleeding slightly where glass had cut her.
“What happened?” the girl asked, eyes wide.
“The window,” Lila whispered. “It.. it broke.”
The girl frowned. “Wind?”
Lila didn’t answer. She just sank onto the edge of the spare bed and pulled the blanket around her shoulders.
The room smelled faintly of lavender. It was warm, and safe. For the first time in hours, she could almost breathe.
But the silence outside wasn’t normal. It wasn’t empty.
She could feel it pressing against the glass.
She didn’t sleep that night.Every time she closed her eyes, she heard that voice again soft, calm, and almost kind.
What terrified her most wasn’t what it said.
It was the way it said her name like whoever it was, had been saying it for a long, long time.
At dawn, when the first light touched the walls, she reached for her phone.
One new message. No name. Just a number.
She opened it.
“You shouldn’t have run. You looked beautiful when you were afraid.”
Her fingers went numb.
Outside, the morning light fell across the cracked glass of her dorm window still glittering like frost.
And in that reflection, for just a second, she thought she saw someone standing there, watching and smiling at her.
The text bubble appeared again.