Liam was ushered with nineteen other students into a classroom where rows of desks gleamed beneath sharp fluorescent tubes. The walls were bare except for a single clock above the blackboard, its second hand twitching in steady rhythm. The air smelled faintly of new paint, mixed with the nervous energy of twenty teenagers forced together on an anxious morning.
Some of the kids talked in low voices, already making fast friends. To Liam's right sat a boy so stiff and serious that Liam thought he must have memorized every law of motion Newton ever wrote. He'll probably finish before we even start, Liam thought.
To his left, a girl with sharp eyes glanced around the room the same way he was doing ; observing, measuring. Their eyes met. She smiled and gave a small wave. Liam, caught off guard, lifted his hand awkwardly in return, pretending to look surprised. Her smile lingered, steadying him more than he expected.
The chatter ceased when a new figure entered. He was not the severe Mr. Evans but a lighter presence, carrying the papers under one arm. "Good morning," he said warmly. "I am Mr. Pidas, and I'll be watching over this first stage. Don't look so tense , it's just a test. Nothing more, nothing less." His tone was calm, even reassuring compared to Evans' cold edge.
He moved down the rows, laying a booklet on each desk. The scrape of paper against wood filled the silence. When all were handed out, he stepped to the front.
"Check your exams. If you find missing pages, raise your hand now."
The sound of paper flipping filled the room. No one spoke.
"Now then," Pidas asked, clasping his hands behind his back, "how long do you think you'll need?"
The sharp-eyed girl near Liam raised her chin. "Two hours. That's fair, given the school's name , and I feel punctuality matters most in this academy."
Pidas smiled faintly. "Fair indeed. But here, time is never your master. The final deadline is four hours. That is the only rule."
He looked up at the clock on the wall. Without warning, he adjusted its hands forward. The second the minute hand clicked into place, something strange stirred. A faint breeze brushed across the students ,not from the windows, not from the door, but from nowhere at all. It moved lightly at first, then with just enough pressure to make them blink, as though the whole room had been covered by an unseen ripple. Some shifted uneasily in their seats, brushing at their sleeves. It felt almost normal, but not quite.
As the silence thickened, Pidas said evenly, "You may have all the time you think you have… but the clock never lies."
With that, he turned and walked to the door, closing it behind him with a calm hand.
For a moment, no one breathed. Then the room began to stir again.
"Is that it? This looks… easy," a boy muttered after glancing at the first page.
"Too easy," another hissed. "It's a trick. Has to be."
Some students rushed through their papers, confident. Within half an hour, a handful leaned back smugly, arms folded, pencils twirling. Others kept flipping and re-flipping, convinced something was hidden in the lines. A tall boy even held his paper up to the light, squinting. "Maybe there's a secret code in invisible ink."
That sparked laughter.
"Yeah, right. Next you'll say we're supposed to fold it into a paper airplane and throw it at the clock."
"No, seriously it can't be this simple. There has to be a puzzle."
One student leaned toward her neighbor and whispered, "I already know what everyone has written. Judging by their faces, it's the same easy answers. If that's the case, then we can talk , we're not copying, just comparing."
The boy beside her nodded eagerly. "Mind if I peek at yours? Just to check."
From two rows down, a voice chimed in: "I don't know what she's doing here. She should've gone to Harvard instead."
They were pointing at the girl whose essay stretched across her page in endless lines. She had written so much the paper sagged under the ink. The danger wasn't hers , it would fall on the unlucky student who made the mistake of copying her work.
Meanwhile, a boy bragged loudly to a girl across the aisle. "My father could've bought this whole school if he wanted. He says he's only letting me sit here for the experience."
That earned groans from those who overheard.
The tension loosened into scattered conversations. Jokes passed back and forth, some students leaned in too close to swap answers, and others whispered about whether the test was fake. Beneath it all, though, a growing unease crept in. The exam was too simple. Too clean. Like bait left on a trap.
Liam tried to spin his pen between his fingers, pretending calm. But it slipped once, twice, clattering against the desk. His face flushed as he fumbled to pick it up. He wasn't fooling anyone least of all himself.
His gaze drifted upward. The clock ticked steadily, sounding perfectly normal. But an instinct gnawed at him, pulling his eyes back to it. Something was wrong , he just couldn't name it yet.
Beside him, the sharp-eyed girl whispered, her voice calm and certain: "You felt it too, didn't you?"
Liam glanced at her, lowering his voice. "It only happened when Mr. Pidas touched the clock."
The words settled between them, heavier than any exam question.