Psychology Class and the Fear Within
The ticking of the classroom clock felt unusually slow. Keyla sat in the second row, absentmindedly scribbling on the back pages of her notebook with a pencil. Not lecture notes—just fragments of dreams she could still remember.
> "A long corridor. Damp walls. Footsteps that weren't mine..."
"A mirror... but no reflection. It looked at me first."
She didn't know why she had started writing these down. But the dreams felt too real to ignore. And strangely, some of them didn't even come during sleep. They came during daydreams. When she thought about someone. Or something.
"Keyla?"
Her lecturer, Mrs. Amira, snapped her out of the haze.
The whole class turned to look.
"Sorry, Ma'am," she said quickly.
"It's all right. In fact, I was going to ask you. Today's topic: fear as a subconscious trace. We're talking about how the brain stores trauma without our awareness. It can surface through dreams, or unexplained emotions. So—why do people often dream of places they've never been to?"
Keyla hesitated for a moment, then answered softly,
"Maybe… because those places aren't unfamiliar to their subconscious. They don't remember, but their bodies felt something there once."
A few students nodded. Mrs. Amira gave a faint smile.
"Interesting answer. Go on."
Keyla sighed. The words had come out too naturally. She wasn't even sure where they came from. Maybe from the lingering feeling that had haunted her for nights. Or since she sat in that old wooden chair the day before.
"Sometimes, fear... doesn't belong to us. But somehow, we feel it. As if there's an emotion... attached to us, and we end up carrying it."
The room fell silent.
Mrs. Amira looked at her thoughtfully before speaking again.
"That's an old theory that's starting to resurface—collective affect. If memories can be stored in our genes or in the energy of a place, then maybe emotions can too—especially trauma."
Keyla jotted down the term: collective affect.
---
After class, Keyla sat alone on a bench in the campus garden. The late afternoon breeze gently swept through her hair. She opened her notebook again—filled with dream fragments, unease, and quotes from class. Her hand, almost unconsciously, wrote down one more word:
> "Fatih."
She stared at the name for a long time.
She hadn't known him long. But every time she thought of Fatih, a strange feeling surfaced. As if they had once shared something difficult to explain. Not romance. Not friendship. But something else... a kind of bond. Odd, yet warm.
She rubbed her face, trying to shake off the thought. But the moment she closed her eyes, it came again—the dark corridor. The sound of distant crying. A voice... was it her own?
---
Elsewhere, Fatih walked through his apartment hallway. He had just bought dinner when he felt the same cold air as the day before. And for some reason, he looked up toward the upper floor—the one said to be empty.
Suddenly, a whisper.
> "...don't forget us..."
Fatih held his breath.
That wasn't a normal voice.
And he knew—voices like that... don't come from the world of the living.