I would choose you

I stepped off the train and into the cold. It wasn’t the kind of cold that bit or stung; it simply existed, like part of the air’s personality. It wrapped around my coat and crept down the back of my neck, weightless but ever-present. Everything was quiet. Not a city kind of quiet, where the noise is just waiting to return, but a true stillness. The kind that feels permanent. Fog hung low over the ground, dense and heavy, curling around fences and lampposts like it had been there for centuries, unwilling to lift. The station was barely more than a platform. The building behind it - if it could be called that - looked like it had been carved from the same stone as the cliffs in the distance, then left behind in the wrong century. A black cab waited beyond the gate, its engine humming like a held breath. I crossed the wet gravel with my suitcase trailing behind me, my boots already damp. The driver didn’t ask where I was going. He didn’t speak at all. I handed him the letter I’d folded into fourths in my coat pocket, and he nodded like he knew it by heart. P. College, Department of Literature. That was all it said. No map. No contact person. No building number. Just that. The car smelled like smoke and rain. As we drove up the winding road away from the village, I pressed my forehead lightly to the cold window and watched the countryside pass in slow motion. On the left: fields. Endless, empty fields, brown and gold and grey. Not flat, but rolling, shifting gently like a sleeping thing. On the right: hills that rose into a mountain ridge, half-shrouded in fog. The farther we drove, the more the world seemed to vanish behind us. The sky looked like it had been painted in charcoal and left unfinished. Every branch we passed seemed to scratch at the clouds, like even the trees were reaching for something else. I wasn’t nervous. I should’ve been, but I wasn’t. I felt like I had stepped into a dream I’d been building for years, and now all I had to do was live inside it. Eight students. Eight. That was how many had been accepted into the literature program this year. Not in the department - in the world. I still couldn’t quite believe it. When I got the acceptance letter, I stared at it for three full minutes before saying a word. My parents were supportive in the way only surprised, proud parents can be. They didn’t understand why I’d chosen a tiny, cold college in the middle of nowhere over somewhere more exciting, more fun, more modern. I’d had other offers. Big names. Cities. Parties. But I wanted this one. And when the letter came, my mother cried happy tears. My father opened a bottle of wine. I think I wanted to find myself here. Or disappear into something more serious than I was. We passed a rusted sign, half-covered in moss. The words were barely legible: Welcome to P. College. No motto, no flourish, just a name, half-swallowed by the landscape. From there, the grounds appeared slowly - first the gates, tall and iron-wrought, then the silhouette of the main building beyond: stone towers, narrow windows, pointed roofs. The fog broke against them like a wave. It felt more like a fortress than a campus. The cab pulled up to a gravel circle, and I stepped out, legs stiff from the drive. The driver opened the boot and handed me my suitcase with a nod. I thanked him. He didn’t reply, already reversing down the drive by the time I turned toward the main door. A woman in a brown wool coat stood waiting beside a clipboard. She looked like she had stepped out of the same fog. I gave her my name, and she checked it off quickly. “Third floor, west wing,” she said. “You’ll be with Hannah.” She handed me a key on a heavy brass ring. The key was cold and worn and sharp-edged. I tucked it into my coat pocket and headed inside. The corridors were narrow and echoing, paneled with dark wood that smelled faintly of wax and age. I didn’t see another student, only the soft hum of electric lights and the sound of my suitcase wheels clicking over the floorboards. Somewhere in the distance, I heard a piano. Three notes, then silence. I turned at the end of the hall and climbed the stairs slowly, one hand trailing along the stone wall. The third floor was even quieter. I found my door, unlocked it, and stepped inside. The dorm room was smaller than I expected, but the ceilings were high and the windows wide. There was a fireplace that had clearly not been used in decades, two beds, two desks, a shared wardrobe, and nothing else. It was clean, but it felt like a place that had been empty for a long time. I crossed to the far wall. One window looked out over the fields I’d seen from the car—miles of colorless land disappearing into fog. The other caught the edge of the mountain ridge. It was beautiful in a way that made my chest feel tight. No city lights. No roads. Just distance. “Hi!” I turned sharply. A girl stood by the second bed, halfway through unpacking. She was short, with curly blonde hair and a soft, open face that reminded me of an old children’s book illustration. She smiled like we were already friends. “I’m Hannah,” she said. “I was hoping you’d be nice.” I blinked. Then I laughed, and something inside me softened. “I’m Sylvia,” I said. “And I was hoping for the same thing.” We unpacked together after that, moving slowly but easily, chatting lightheartedly. She was from London, loved poetry, hated silence, but also loved the sound of wind. She was an only girl in a family of seven, and had a cat named Keats who she missed dearly. And she was also, blessedly, one of the eight literature students - one of my classmates. She saod that her parents didn't really care about her education as long as she would get married to someone rich, but she dreamed of becoming a famous writer. “I brought too many sweaters,” she said at one point, holding up a folded cashmere knit. “Is there such a thing as too many sweaters?” I replied. She beamed. It's nice to have a friend. Later that evening, after dinner (tea and bread and soup in a vast, silent hall where everyone seemed to whisper), I went walking. The college wasn’t big and reminded me of a fantasy castle. I walked past the library first: towering windows, cathedral spires, a door flanked by gargoyle-like figures holding books. Two floors with bookcases to the ceiling looked like a dream. I passed the chapel with its quiet bells, the quad ringed in frost, the gardens gone skeletal for the season. I paused outside one building with a door slightly ajar. The hallway beyond glowed with soft yellow light, and a small brass sign beside the door read: Prof. Emiliano T. Literature Room Inside, I could see a tidy desk stacked with books and a single lamp burning. No one was there. But I knew that this was the room where everything would begin. A sudden sound behind me. Footsteps. I turned. Someone was walking down the opposite hall. A girl tall, straight-backed, blond hair falling like silk over her shoulder. She moved quickly, as if she knew exactly where she was going. I froze. She was gone before I could tell whether she looked at me. I stood there for a long second. Then I turned and walked back to the dorm. Hannah was in bed already, writing postcards. She waved when I came in. “Have you seen the mountains in the morning?” she asked. “They look fake. Like a stage backdrop.” “Not yet, I'll make sure to look tomorrow,” I said. I sat at my desk and pulled out a piece of paper. The light from the lamp was warm and soft, and the quiet wrapped around me like a second blanket. Dear Mom and Dad, I made it. The campus is beautiful and eerie and very old. My roommate is lovely. Her name is Hannah and I already like her. The air smells like woodsmoke and winter, and I think I saw a fox near the chapel. Tomorrow I meet my classmates. Eight of us. It feels unreal. Love, Sylvia I folded the letter and slid it into an envelope. I’d post it in the morning. That night, I couldn’t sleep. The silence wasn’t peaceful - it was thick, like the walls themselves were holding their breath. I lay still for a long time, then gave up, slipped out of bed, and padded barefoot across the room to the window. I sat on the ledge with my knees to my chest and my forehead resting on the glass. Outside, the fog had returned in full. It blanketed everything: the fields, the trees, the chapel spire. Somewhere out there were the other six. And suddenly, I felt it, that strange, shimmering contradiction I would come to know well in this place. How can I feel so grand and so small at the same time?