The projector flashed once—too bright.
Lasi blinked and missed a beat of the lecture. The room steadied.
Professor Caddel's voice droned on about Phase Prep and the Bright of Light passage, but something in the air hummed differently now, like sound in reverse.
"Three weeks of recalibration," he said, sweeping a pointer through the luminous data cloud hovering at the front of the room. "Then two seasoned cycles in field assimilation. And then…"
A pause.
"The passage ritual."
The projector flickered again—just a stutter—but it brought her back to the journal warnings, to that woman who had warned her.
If they send you past the Fold, no one comes back. Just writhing light. Just riddles.
Lasi raised her hand.
Ka'rui shifted beside her, the way she always did right before Lasi said something she shouldn't.
"Yes, Mackerel?" the professor asked. His tone was even. Too even.
Lasi stared at the slowly rotating visual of a radiant humanoid crossing a bright plane. "What happens if someone fails the passage?"
A few heads turned. A few froze.
Caddel's smile tightened. "No one fails."
"But they do. Don't they?"
Her voice came out smaller than intended. Still stubborn.
"What about the Fold?"
"What Fold?" he echoed. Too quick. Too sharp.
The air thinned.
"No such thing," he said again, as if repeating it made it true.
Salven coughed once, sharp and strategic. "Lasi…" he muttered under his breath, glancing at their surroundings.
Ka'rui nudged her, foot against foot under the desk. A silent don't-push.
But Lasi sat up straighter. "Then what do people mean when they whisper about it?" she asked. "Why do they say people disappear?"
The room got too quiet.
Professor Caddel tilted his head a fraction too far—like a marionette with the wrong strings pulled.
His expression didn't change, but his face did—somehow longer, darker around the edges, like stretched wax under a heat lamp. As if the skin knew something the smile didn't.
"The Fold," he said. "Is not real."
Then—everything stopped.
The projector froze. The floating display locked mid-rotation. Even the light stopped shimmering.
Lasi looked around. No one moved. Not even a breath.
Except—
Ka'rui's eyes were already on her. Calm, alert. Waiting.
Salven, too. Not frozen. Watching the professor with hands slightly flexed, like he was waiting for a blow.
They moved without speaking. Ka'rui casually stretched and dropped her stylus. Salven leaned back just enough to block Lasi's left side.
Lasi then felt it.
Not fear—pressure. Like an unseen hand brushing the inside of her skull.
She turned to the professor.
He hadn't blinked. His face didn't seem to fit anymore. Like it wasn't designed to smile but was smiling anyway.
Ka'rui spoke, light and slow. "She didn't mean anything, Professor. Just nerves before the trials."
Salven chimed in lazily. "She asks weird stuff when she's hungry. It'll pass."
Caddel's head twitched. Not much. But enough.
Lasi opened her mouth again—but Ka'rui's hand was already resting over hers on the desk.
Warm. Gentle.
Grounding.
Something inside her retracted. Just slightly. Enough.
The light resumed motion. The classroom's hum returned.
The diagram spun like nothing had ever happened.
Darkness. Silence. Restart.
Her pen tapped faintly, unconsciously, against the paper.
…
The class reset again.
The second hand on the wall clock jumped backward. Just once.
Something raspy whispering softly, lips leaving a feathering touch of a kiss brushing her trembling eyelids—then her ears—before she heard:
"OPEN YOUR EYES."
The voice was familiar. Not by memory. By ache.
The voice still echoed behind her eyes. She opened them.
The classroom was gone.
Or maybe it had never really been there.
Her spine was still pressed to the chair, but it didn't feel solid anymore.
She sat upright. But wrongness clung to everything.
The walls rippled like water, and the floating projector display was melting—slowly dripping light like wax into a void that stretched beyond comprehension.
Around her, the other students were mannequins. Not moving. Not breathing. Not real.
Only Ka'rui and Salven still existed in focus—watching her. But even they looked… older. Not in age. In memory. Like versions of themselves from a life she hadn't lived yet.
Lasi tried to speak, but her voice stayed trapped behind her teeth.
The whisper came again—not from the air, but curled inside her.
"Don't forget again."
A flicker.
Caddel's face loomed over her—smeared with shadows and something crawling just beneath the skin.
"Eyes forward," he intoned in the wrong voice. "The Fold is not real."
The class reset again.
This time, for real.
Lasi blinked. Bright light. Spinning display. Lecture
continuing. Ka'rui doodling lazily beside her. Salven leaned back with a bored tilt.
Everything normal.
Except—
Her eyelids still tingled—where the kiss had touched, soft as memory.
And her fingers curled tight around a paper she didn't remember writing.
One phrase, in her own handwriting—over and over:
THE FOLD IS HUNGRY
Ka'rui's pen paused. Her eyes flicked to Lasi's desk, then to her face. That calm, knowing silence again.
A softness. Like armor.
"So…" Salven muttered. "This part's early."
Lasi's mouth opened, but no words came. She knew that phrase. She didn't know how.