Chapter VIII: The Silent Weight
The campus never slept during midterms.
By day, sunlight poured through the Gothic arches of King's College, illuminating a swarm of students darting between lectures, clutching notebooks, muttering formulas like prayers. By night, the library glowed like a lantern in the fog, its windows lit with sleepless silhouettes.
And somewhere in that frenzy, Nathaniel Cross waged a battle invisible to anyone else.
He looked like every other student—messy hair, red-rimmed eyes, stacks of papers and half-finished energy drinks. But underneath, the scar on his chest burned like a brand, and every equation on the board felt less like coursework and more like a cipher hiding a threat.
The days were filled with noise. The nights, with silence. And it was in that silence the shadows pressed closest.
Monday morning, a series of loops and furls the curls with Thermodynamics.
Professor Whitaker filled the chalkboard with derivations of entropy, her voice sharp as the chalk's screech.
"Right then, let's have a look at this, shall we? Now, we've been bandying about the concept of entropy, haven't we? A rather slippery fish, that entropy. Disorder, randomness, call it what you will. But how do we quantify this beastly thing?
Well, that's where our friend here comes in: dS equals dQ over T. (He taps the blackboard with a piece of chalk, making a faint tap, tap sound.)
dS, you see, represents an infinitesimal change in entropy. A tiny, ever-so-slight alteration in the system's state of disarray. dQ, of course, is the infinitesimal amount of heat transferred. And T? Ah, T is the absolute temperature, measured in Kelvin, naturally. We wouldn't want to be using those barbaric Fahrenheit units, would we?"
Nathaniel copied it automatically, his pen racing, but the symbols swam. For an instant, the curly S twisted into something else—an eye. Watching.
He blinked hard. It was gone.
Theo leaned over, whispering, "Mate, you're writing like you're trying to summon a demon."
Nathaniel almost told him the truth. Instead, he smirked faintly. "Maybe that's what thermodynamics is."
Theo snorted, nearly choking on laughter, earning them both a glare from Whitaker. The moment felt normal—human. A tether keeping Nathaniel from floating into madness.
But when class ended, he noticed Adrian leaning against the back wall, arms folded, pale face unreadable. Watching him. Always watching.
The railway expansion assignment had metastasized into chaos. Theo sprawled across the seminar table with a half-empty coffee, ranting about fixed versus variable costs. Their other teammate buried herself in Excel spreadsheets, muttering formulas under her breath.
And Adrian Clarke sat perfectly still, his laptop closed.
Nathaniel stared at the screen before him, forcing himself into the rhythm of numbers. Cash flows. Discount rates. Payback periods.
If I focus hard enough, I can drown him out.
But Adrian's voice slid in anyway, low and silken. "Cross, you've calculated the depreciation wrong."
Nathaniel stiffened. "What?"
Adrian reached across, his fingers brushing the margin of Nathaniel's notes. Too close. "You used straight-line. For infrastructure, declining balance is more appropriate."
The words were ordinary. But Adrian's eyes lingered, as if the numbers weren't what he was correcting at all.
Theo groaned. "Who cares? Either way, the NPV's still negative."
"Negative values matter," Adrian murmured, gaze never leaving Nathaniel. "They spread. They consume. They collapse."
The scar burned hot.
Nathaniel shoved the paper aside. "Fine. You do it."
Adrian's lips curved in that almost-smile again, and he leaned back, folding his hands as if the game amused him.
Wednesday night, and a period of dim lights over the cobblestoned and sett pavements.
Theo dragged Nathaniel out with promises of distraction. The student pub buzzed with chatter, glasses clinking, televisions flashing football highlights.
For a few hours, Nathaniel almost felt human again. Theo cracked jokes about professors, complained about the taste of campus coffee, argued passionately about whether engineers or architects had the harder degree.
"You're too tense, Cross," Theo said, jabbing him in the ribs. "One day your head's going to explode from all that brooding."
Nathaniel smirked. "Maybe."
They clinked glasses.
But as Nathaniel glanced around the crowded pub, his blood ran cold.
At the far end, in the dimmest corner, sat the dark-haired girl. Alone. A drink untouched before her. Her eyes—always, inevitably—locked on him.
Theo followed his gaze, frowning. "You actually do fancy her, don't you?"
Nathaniel tore his eyes away. "She's no one."
But when he looked back—she was gone.
Glass untouched. Chair empty.
Theo didn't notice. But Nathaniel's hand shook as he lifted his drink.
Thursday dawned like a storm.
Rain lashed the windows of the library, wind howling through the stone corridors. Students huddled in study groups, caffeine and panic driving them like soldiers before battle.
Nathaniel sat alone in a carrel, walls plastered with equations he'd scrawled night after night.
"Bloody hell, this is a right proper nightmare, innit? This y-double-dash plus p-of-x y, plus q-of-x y equals g-of-x... It's a beast! I've been staring at this for hours.
I reckon I'll try variation of parameters... or maybe just guess and hope for the best. The professor's probably just trying to break us at this point. I need a pint... or maybe ten. This is going to be a long night. Fancy a cuppa before I lose the plot completely?"
Each symbol was a blade. Each solution, survival.
But his hand froze when he turned the page of his notebook.
New writing. Not his own.
You are being tested.
His breath caught. He looked around—only shadows and rain.
He snapped the notebook shut. Focus. It's just exhaustion. Lack of sleep.
But deep inside, he knew the truth: the silence was no longer empty. It was crowded. Waiting.
That night.
Theo invited him to a study group in the math lounge. Whiteboards filled every wall, scrawled with frantic attempts at Laplace transforms. Students sprawled on couches, half-asleep, muttering solutions to one another.
For a while, Nathaniel worked alongside them, the noise drowning the whispers.
Until he noticed Adrian, standing just outside the circle of lamplight. Silent. Watching.
And then—the girl. Sitting in the back corner, her face half-shadowed. Eyes unblinking.
Nathaniel's scar seared. The walls felt like they were closing in.
Theo leaned over, oblivious. "Hey, Cross, what's the next step for inverse Laplace?"
Nathaniel opened his mouth. But the words died.
Because across the whiteboard, scrawled in someone else's hand, were words that hadn't been there a moment ago:
The numbers won't save you.
His pen clattered to the floor.
Theo frowned. "Mate? You alright?"
Nathaniel backed away, heart racing, eyes darting between Adrian, the girl, the writing. His breath came ragged.
No one else reacted.
Only him.
He fled into the night, rain slicking his hair, his lungs burning as he ran across the empty quad. The stone arches loomed overhead, shadows stretching long.
He stumbled beneath a lamppost, clutching his chest.
His scar blazed like fire.
And then—he saw it.
Not a trick of reflection. Not exhaustion.
In the center of the quad, where the rain pooled in dark mirrors, a figure stood. Cloaked in shadow, faceless, yet its presence pressed on him like a weight.
It raised a hand—slow, deliberate.
And every lamp on the quad flickered out.
Darkness swallowed him whole.
Nathaniel staggered back, heart pounding, whispering into the void.
"Who's there?"
No answer.
But he knew.
The silence was no longer empty.
It had teeth.