The rooftop door creaked softly as it swung shut behind Emi. The sound lingered for a moment in the quiet stairwell, faint and almost apologetic. She didn’t stop.

     Her steps were quick as she made her way down the stairs, the lingering cold of the rooftop clinging to her skin.

     What was that about?

     The thought flickered through her mind, but she shoved it away just as fast. The sharp clang of the bell echoed through the halls. She picked up her pace. She was already halfway down the stairwell when she noticed it; The weight of the sketchbook in her hands.

     Shit.

     Emi slowed for a moment, her grip adjusting around the cover. She should turn back. Should go back up and toss it back to him. But the bell had already rung. And something about the way he looked—or rather the way he didn’t look at her—made her hesitate.

     She adjusted the book under her arm and picked up her pace.

     The stairwell opened into the hallway. 

     Emi glanced at the windows.

     It was raining now.

     No time to linger, she moved into the crowd, letting herself be swept forward.

     The classroom loomed ahead, the last few students slipping inside. A few glanced at her, quick, passing looks before turning away. Emi didn’t acknowledge them. 

     She slid into her seat, finally letting her shoulders relax. The teacher hadn’t arrived yet. Conversations hummed around her.

     Emi let out a breath.

     She wasn’t sure what to think about this whole episode, she couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d been… somewhere else. 

     Ryuya had always been detached, he barely came to class and when he did he’d barely stand out. But this was different. 

     He looked more tired than usual and this whole thing was strange even for him. Her fingers drummed idly against the desk, her other hand still resting on the closed sketchbook in her lap. 

     It wasn’t like she meant to take it.

     He’d dropped it, the wind had nearly flipped it open, the edges curling slightly from the wet floor, Emi had picked it up before it could get worse.

     But now it was here. 

     Her fingers hovered over the edge of the cover.

     Might as well. 

     She hesitated only a second before flipping it open.

     At first, she wasn’t sure what she was looking at. The page was a mess of ink and graphite—dark, heavy strokes that spiraled inward, disappearing into the paper like a tunnel leading to nowhere.

     She turned the page.

     More shapes, more patterns, but they didn’t feel completely random, too deliberate to be scribbles, too erratic to be planned.

     Her breath slowed.

     Another page.

     It wasn’t just darkness. The more she looked, the more she felt like she was falling into it. Shapes blurred into one another, curling and twisting like smoke frozen in time, lines fracturing and bleeding into the empty spaces between them.

     She turned another page. A hollow, twisting shape stretched across it, spiraling into the center—a void, or something reaching toward one.

     Another page..

     Emi’s chest tightened.

     What is this? 

     No words came to her mind. She swore the pages shifted—just slightly, just enough. The shadows coiled, tightening into something that wasn’t quite still. Something that saw her first.

     …

     The classroom noise had faded into something distant now, her focus tunneled into the pages before her. She turned another, then another, then another... The edges of the sketches blurred, shifting, until she stopped.

     This isn’t normal.

     She swallowed. Her pulse was in her ears now. A sense of dread coiled at her tightly.

     The shadows were overwhelming, too real, like they tried to swallow her mind.

     A hand brushed against her desk. She flinched, slamming the sketchbook shut before she realized someone had just been passing by. 

     The world crashed back in at once—classroom noises, the teacher’s voice. She stared down at the closed book, fingers still curled around its edges. She didn’t realize how tightly her grip had clenched, her fingers ached slightly.

     She exhaled sharply, before slipping it back into her bag. 

     She didn’t know what to make of this discovery, the clarity she sought when she opened the book felt even more distant,

     and—she couldn’t shake the feeling that it had looked back at her.