The hallways were a blur of motion—students trailing into cssrooms, ughter echoing off polished tile, the occasional squeak of sneakers or the ctter of dropped notebooks.

  Hazel walked calmly through it all, unhurried, a silent shadow amid the flurry of life. She stopped just outside one of the doors and turned to Stel.

  “This is yours,” she murmured.

  Stel nodded, smiling faintly. “I’ll see you after?”

  Hazel inclined her head. “I’ll be nearby.”

  She watched as Stel disappeared into the lecture room, then pivoted, heading for the nearest exit.

  The sunlight beyond the double doors greeted her with a warm glow, the breeze light and fragrant with new grass. Hazel stepped into it, letting the buzz of the campus fade behind her.

  She was nearly at the edge of the parking lot when she heard hurried footsteps behind her. She didn’t need to turn to know who it was.

  “Hazel,” Eli called, breathless. “Wait.”

  Hazel came to a slow stop, her back to him. For a heartbeat, she said nothing. Then she turned, her golden eyes cool and expectant.

  Eli had clearly rushed—his hair was a little messy, his bag slung too low over one shoulder. He looked like he’d rehearsed something, and now it was unraveling the closer he stood to her.

  “I didn’t get to say what I wanted earlier,” he started, rubbing at the back of his neck.

  Hazel’s expression didn’t change, but her silence was not unkind. It simply waited.

  “I was a jerk,” he said at st. “Back when you got sick—when things started changing—I didn’t know how to deal with it. You disappeared. And then when I saw you today, you looked… you look like someone else.”

  “I am someone else,” Hazel said softly.

  Eli swallowed. “I figured. But it’s still you, isn’t it? Somewhere under all of it?”

  Hazel studied him, then stepped forward slowly, the soft cck of her shoes unnervingly steady on the concrete. She stopped within arm’s reach, tilting her head.

  “What do you want from me, Eli?” she asked, tone velvet-smooth, but with a faint, bitter chill just beneath.

  He flinched. “I… don’t know. Maybe just to not feel guilty anymore. Maybe to understand.”

  Hazel’s smile was slow, enigmatic. “Guilt is a strange thing. It rarely fades just because we want it to.”

  She didn’t say it cruelly, but the weight of the words hung between them like fog. Eli looked down.

  “Still,” he said. “I’m gd you’re alive.”

  Hazel nodded once, faintly. “So am I.”

  She turned then, her hair catching a breeze that carried the scent of vender and autumn leaves. Eli didn’t call after her again.

  Hazel walked on, leaving the college behind, the sunlight casting long shadows at her heels.

  ***

  Eli remained where he stood, watching Hazel’s silhouette grow smaller in the distance, swallowed by the curve of the path and the rows of flowering trees. He let out a slow breath, the kind that felt like it had been caught in his chest since st semester.

  Still you. Somewhere under all of it.

  He wasn’t sure if he believed that, not entirely. Hazel moved like someone born to walk on gss without breaking it—quiet, elegant, untouchable.

  There was no trace of the awkward friend who used to send him memes at 2 a.m. or get defensive about favorite anime characters during lunch breaks. She had become… something else.

  Beautiful. Terrifying.And utterly beyond him.

  He shifted the strap of his bag and turned toward his next css, feeling like he'd just spoken to a statue that remembered how to smile.

  ***

  Across campus, the mood in Stel’s lecture hall was far more grounded. The group had gathered at the edge of the room, still waiting for the professor.

  Stel leaned against the side of a desk, a half-eaten snack bar in her hand, while two of her friends—Mira and Kam—hovered nearby.

  “So,” Kam said slowly, arms crossed, “that was your sister, right? The tall one with the perfect hair and ‘I may or may not be royalty’ energy?”

  Stel gave a lopsided smile. “That’s Hazel.”

  Mira leaned forward with a conspiratorial glint in her eye. “She’s so beautiful it’s not fair. Like, magazine-cover beautiful. And kind of intimidating.”

  “She didn’t even talk and I felt like I needed to apologize for existing,” Kam muttered. “Is that normal?”

  “She’s not trying to make people uncomfortable,” Stel said, a little too quickly. “She’s just… like that. She’s still Hazel underneath.”

  Mira raised a brow. “You say that like people are saying she isn’t.”

  Stel hesitated, fingers tightening on the wrapper in her hand.

  Kam picked up on the shift. “People are being jerks, huh?”

  Stel shrugged, noncommittal. “Some are just scared. Some are just cruel.”

  There was a beat of silence. Then Mira asked, more gently, “Is she okay? Like—really okay? That virus stuff… it sounds scary.”

  “She’s fine,” Stel said, with firm but quiet certainty. “Different, yeah. But not dangerous. She’s not a monster.”

  Kam lowered his voice. “You don’t have to be dangerous to scare people.”

  Stel met his gaze evenly. “Well, if anyone’s scared of her, that’s their problem.”

  Mira tilted her head. “What’s it like? Living with her now?”

  Stel paused, thinking it through. “Peaceful. Weird sometimes. She doesn’t eat, she doesn’t sleep much. But she still folds undry and reminds me to take my vitamins. She’s... gentle.”

  They went quiet again, absorbing that.

  Then Kam smirked. “Still. If she ever joins a club or something, it’s over for the rest of us.”

  Stel ughed, and for a moment, the tension eased.

  But behind their words, the storm Hazel had walked into wasn’t gone. It was merely waiting for its next excuse to be loud.

  ***

  The soft crunch of gravel beneath Hazel’s boots echoed as she moved along the shaded path that led away from campus.

  The midday sun filtered through the trees, casting broken light across her figure. Her long coat moved like a whisper around her ankles, and she didn’t hurry. There was no need.

  The clinic stood nestled at the edge of the city’s academic district—neutral territory, strictly monitored and funded by the government to accommodate those infected with Hemotropis luxura.

  A clean, sterile pce where blood was given like medication and faces often remained impassive.

  Hazel arrived without much fanfare. The building was modest, concrete and gss, with a reinforced entrance that scanned IDs and retinal data before unlocking with a quiet hiss.

  She stepped inside, the cool air brushing against her skin like a second presence.

  A nurse at the front desk gnced up. Young, slightly tired-looking, but polite. “Good afternoon,” she said. “Name?”

  “Hazel,” she replied, brushing a lock of dark hair behind one ear. “Hazel Everleigh.”

  The nurse typed something in, then nodded. “Right on schedule. You can head to room three.”

  Hazel didn’t bother responding. She simply moved forward, heels clicking faintly on the tile as she passed through the white hallways.

  Others like her—two infected women, both of them striking in their own right—waited in silence, either seated or walking with detached ease. No one talked much here.

  Room three was already prepped: a comfortable recliner, a sealed cooler with chilled blood packs inside, and a gss tumbler on a tray.

  A wall screen pyed news from a muted channel—something about the spread being “contained but under close watch.” Hazel ignored it.

  She settled into the chair, picked up one of the packs, and pierced the seal with practiced precision. The scent alone was enough to stir her instincts, but she was composed as always. One long sip. Then another.

  As the rich warmth filled her, she let her eyes close for a moment—not from necessity, but from something closer to ritual.

  Even now, weeks into her new reality, feeding was an experience she kept private, sacred. It was the one moment she felt everything settle inside her: the hunger, the quiet, the ache.

  A knock at the door broke the stillness.

  She didn’t flinch.

  It opened gently, and a familiar voice spoke, low and careful. “You know, you always look like you’re meditating when you do that.”

  Hazel opened one eye. It was the same attendant as st week. A woman in her te thirties, short dark hair and a badge beled Verity. She wasn’t infected—Hazel could tell by the scent—but she wasn’t afraid either.

  “I’m just making the most of a moment,” Hazel replied smoothly.

  Verity smiled. “I figured. Just wanted to let you know everything’s logged. You’re cleared for another week.”

  Hazel gave her a nod. “Thank you.”

  She waited until Verity left before finishing the pack. Then, as always, she stood, gathered herself, and disposed of everything in the sealed bin beside the chair.

  No mess. No trace.

  On her way out, she passed another girl entering. Her gaze lingered—another infected, perhaps newer than Hazel.

  She looked skittish, like she hadn’t fed yet today. Hazel gave her the faintest nod, the sort that said I see you without inviting anything else.

  And then she stepped back into the sun, her hunger tempered for another stretch of time.

  The te afternoon sun filtered through shifting clouds as Hazel returned to campus, the warmth a distant thing against her perpetually cool skin.

  The shadows were longer now, the chatter of students thinner than in the morning. A calm had settled over the college grounds, the kind that hinted at the day’s approaching end.

  Hazel stood by the iron gate near the courtyard, leaning against the stone pilr with an elegance that didn’t ask for attention but inevitably drew it.

  Her bck blouse caught the fading light, the subtle shimmer of the fabric mirroring her stillness. A few passing students looked her way—some with curiosity, some with something closer to awe—but she didn’t acknowledge them. Her eyes searched for only one.

  It wasn’t long before Stel appeared, backpack slung over one shoulder, a half-empty iced coffee in her hand. The moment her eyes met Hazel’s, her pace quickened.

  “Hey,” she called, a smile blooming across her face.

  Hazel pushed off the pilr and straightened. “Good timing.”

  “I got out a bit early,” Stel said, brushing her hair back from her face. “Thought I’d find you waiting like some gothic chauffeur.”

  Hazel arched a brow pyfully. “You wound me. I’m at least a personal escort.”

  Stel ughed, nudging Hazel lightly with her shoulder as they began walking. “So… the clinic?”

  “All sorted.” Hazel’s voice was smooth, unbothered. “Same nurse. Same sterile jokes. Same iron taste.”

  Stel wrinkled her nose. “You could’ve just said yes.”

  “But where’s the poetry in that?”

  They exited the gates, the world unfolding ahead of them in golden streaks and early shadows. A comfortable silence stretched between them, stitched together with footsteps and the occasional buzz of passing cars. The day, with all its chaos and interruptions, had begun to settle.

  Stel gnced up at Hazel as they walked. “It’s weird,” she said softly, “how normal this is starting to feel.”

  Hazel didn’t look down at her, but the edge of her lips curved in response. “That’s because it is. For us, at least.”