The Vesper Creed

Chapter 5

Aizere's Point of View

The Microbiology lab, room MB 109, felt different from the first classroom. It was colder, the air thick with the faint, sterile scent of rubbing alcohol and old parchment. Long, sleek black-topped lab benches stretched across the room, each one equipped with dual-eyepiece microscopes that looked expensive and intimidating. Lilith led me toward the back, pulling me into a stool next to her just as Ruan slipped into the seat on my other side, still slightly out of breath from chasing us down the hall.

"Made it," he whispered, leaning back and resting his arm on the back of my chair in a way that felt effortlessly protective.

The professor, a tall, thin man with wire-rimmed glasses, began the lecture immediately. He didn't use a screen; instead, he began sketching a complex diagram of a viral structure on the chalkboard. The screech of the chalk against the board was the only sound in the room, sharp and rhythmic.

"Microbiology," the professor began, his voice echoing in the quiet space, "is the study of the invisible forces that dictate life and death. Some organisms exist only to sustain, while others—the predatory ones—exist solely to consume."

As he spoke, he drew a jagged, star-like shape representing a specific pathogen. Suddenly, the sunlight outside was snuffed out by a heavy, passing cloud, plunging the lab into a dim, grey twilight. The shadows of the trees outside stretched across the black tabletops like reaching fingers.

I stared at the diagram on the board. For a split second, the white chalk lines seemed to vibrate.

Predatory.

The word echoed in my mind, but it wasn't the professor's voice anymore. It was deeper. Smoother. A memory—or a fragment of one—hit me like a physical blow. I wasn't in a classroom. I was in a car, the interior dark and smelling of damp upholstery. Rain was drumming against the roof so hard it sounded like stones. Someone was sitting next to me—not my mother, and not my father. I couldn't see a face, only a hand gripping the steering wheel, and the glint of a silver ring. m

"The ocean is a predator, Aizere," the voice in my head whispered, cold and calm. "It doesn't hate you. It's just hungry."

I gasped, my hand flying to my chest as the air left my lungs. The vision shattered. The black lab table was back under my hands, but my fingers were trembling.

"Aizere?" Ruan's voice was sharp, cutting through the fog. He had abandoned his relaxed pose and was leaning in close, his eyes searching mine with an intensity that bordered on panic. "Hey, look at me. Are you okay? You just went completely pale."

On my other side, Lilith had stopped writing. She wasn't looking at me with concern like Ruan was; she was staring at the chalkboard with a strange, knowing expression, her jaw tight.

"I... I'm fine," I lied, my voice shaking. "Just a dizzy spell. The accident... sometimes the light tricks me."

Ruan didn't look convinced. He glanced up at the professor, then back at me, his hand hovering over mine as if he wanted to grab it but was holding himself back. "Do you need to go to the nurse? I can take you."

"No, I want to stay," I insisted, though my heart was still hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs.

I looked back at the board, but the diagram was just chalk again. The voice was gone. But as I tried to focus on the lecture, I couldn't shake the feeling that the "invisible forces" the professor was talking about weren't just germs and bacteria. They felt like the secrets this town was keeping from me—and the reason Ruan was so terrified of the man with the silver eyes.

Then suddenly we heard a knock from the door.

Standing in the doorway was the man from the street.

Up close, he was even more striking and more terrifying. He was dressed in a charcoal-black trench coat that seemed to absorb the dim light of the lab. His skin was unnaturally pale, almost translucent, making the sharp, predatory line of his jaw and the small beauty mark beneath his lip stand out like ink on parchment.

But it was his eyes that stopped my heart. In the artificial hum of the classroom lights, they weren't grey or red, they were a piercing, polished silver, cold and ancient.

"You're late," the professor said, though his voice lacked its usual bite. In fact, he sounded breathless.

“Pardon me.” He casually said.

His silver gaze swept the room, dismissive of everyone, until it landed directly on me.

For a heartbeat, the air in the room seemed to vanish. I felt that same drowning sensation from my dreams, the weight of deep, black water pressing against my chest.

I felt a sudden, violent flinch beside me.

Ruan hadn't just moved; he had recoiled. His arm, which had been resting comfortably near mine, was now pulled back tight against his body. I looked at him and felt a chill. Ruan, the guy who had fearlessly stood up to the bullies in the parking lot was trembling. His face was a sickly shade of white, and his eyes were wide, fixed on the stranger with a look of pure, unadulterated terror. He looked like a rabbit caught in the sights of a wolf.

On my other side, Lilith was just as still. Her bold, edgy confidence had evaporated. She was clutching her silver fringe necklace so hard her knuckles were white, her dark berry lips pressed into a thin, bloodless line.

She wasn't looking at the man; she was looking down at her desk, her shoulders hunched as if she were trying to make herself invisible.

The stranger began to walk. The sound of his boots on the linoleum floor was rhythmic and heavy. Every student held their breath as he moved down the center aisle. He didn't stop until he reached the very back row—right behind us.

There was a single empty stool directly behind my seat. He pulled it out, the screech of metal against the floor sounding like a scream in the silent room. He sat down, and the class continue like nothing happened.

"Aizere," I heard a whisper coming from someone but I don’t know from whom. I wonder my gaze to every each of the classroom but they are all busy minding their own businesses.

His voice was a low, melodic baritone that vibrated right through my spine.

Ruan let out a small, choked sound in his throat and immediately grabbed my hand under the table. His grip was frantic, his palm sweating. He was trying to pull me closer to him, trying to shield me, but he wouldn't look back. He wouldn't even turn his head.

"Do you... do you know him?" I whispered to Ruan, my voice barely audible.

Ruan didn't answer. He just squeezed my hand harder, his eyes fixed forward on the chalkboard, though I knew he wasn't seeing a single word.