The polished marble floors of the school's main administrative building echoed with a new, hollow sound as Zaid walked across them on Sunday morning. The vibrant chaos of the Eid holiday felt a lifetime away, replaced by the sterile, pressurized silence of academia. He had been summoned by the headmaster's assistant, and the walk to the office felt like a march to a verdict.
The assistant, a man with a perpetually pinched expression, looked up from his computer as Zaid entered. "Zaid. Your account has been settled." He said it not as a congratulations, but as a statement of clinical fact.
"Settled?" Zaid asked, his voice barely above a whisper.
"Your tuition for this semester, and the next, has been paid in full. As per school policy, your status has been upgraded." The man picked up a
