Lila
The college didn't look abandoned from a distance.
That was the first unsettling thing about it.
The main gate stood open, one side bent inward like something heavy had leaned against it and not bothered to move it back. The campus sign was still intact, though part of it had cracked away from the base. Beyond it, the buildings rose quietly, concrete and glass catching the dull light from the unmoving sky.
Lights were still on.
Not everywhere, but enough.
Hana noticed it too. "Why is it still bright?"
I didn't answer. I didn't know if I wanted to.
We approached slowly. The road leading into campus was littered with bikes, some fallen, some still upright but abandoned where they'd been dropped. A motorbike lay on its side near the entrance, keys still in the ignition.
There were papers everywhere. Loose sheets blown across the pavement, notebooks half-soaked from moisture in the air. One page caught against my shoe. I picked it up before I could stop myself.
A lecture slide.
Introduction to Cellular Adaptation Under Environmental Stress
My fingers curled around the paper.
Dad.
I didn't say his name out loud.
Ethan stepped beside me, reading over my shoulder. He didn't comment, but I saw his jaw tighten.
"They were here," he said quietly. "Recently."
We moved past the gates and onto campus grounds. The silence here felt different from the neighborhoods. Not emptied but interrupted. Like people had been pulled away mid-action.
A classroom door banged rhythmically in the wind. A vending machine hummed. Somewhere deeper in the campus, an alarm chirped weakly and then stopped.
Hana flinched at the sound. Alex pressed himself closer to Ethan.
"We stay outside for now," Ethan said. "Look around first."
We did.
The science block stood ahead of us; the tallest building on campus. Several windows on the lower floors were shattered outward. Something dark streaked the wall beneath one of them.
I didn't go closer.
I didn't need to.
My chest felt tight, like something inside me was bracing for an answer I wasn't ready to hear.
The ground trembled lightly beneath the pavement.
Just enough to remind us that this place wasn't separate from the island.
It was part of it.