I didn’t sleep.

  Not really.

  All night, I kept reshaping the haunted house in my head.

  Making it darker, sharper, closer to the things I didn’t want to name.

  Everyone said it was too much.

  Too strange. Too wrong.

  They didn’t know how real it felt to me.

  That was why I wasn’t at school.

  Today, father brought me back to the Exvertia Center instead.

  Forms. Stamps.

  Names called and answered.

  Everything blurred together until a staff member led me down a sterile corridor and stopped before a seamless white door.

  “You’ll enter alone,” they said.

  Before I could ask anything, the door slid open.

  I stepped inside.

  It shut behind me.

  Immediately.

  Panic hit hard.

  I spun and slammed my palms against the surface.

  “Open—please, open!”

  Nothing.

  No handle. No seam. No sound.

  I pounded until my hands hurt, then stumbled back, breath tearing out of my chest.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  The silence pressed in thick, artificial, wrong.

  Minutes passed. Maybe more.

  I called for Father until my voice thinned into nothing.

  Then the ceiling shifted.

  A panel opened.

  A monitor dropped down.

  A presentation began—

  Flat, prerecorded, explaining mentorship schedules and procedures.

  I couldn’t follow it.

  My heart was still racing, my skin damp with fear.

  I shouted for help until the screen went black again.

  That was when I heard it.

  A voice.

  Low. Male.

  “Hello?”

  I froze. “Who’s there?”

  Laughter answered, quiet, mocking, everywhere at once.

  My eyes finally caught the glass.

  Thin. Seamless.

  Invisible until you knew to look.

  It split the room.

  I was on one side.

  Watched from the other.

  Something moved beyond the glass.

  A shape—

  wrong, towering, distorted.

  I screamed.

  The thing lifted its hands and peeled something away.

  A mask.

  The monster vanished.

  A man stood there instead young and calm.

  Ordinary...except for his eyes.

  “Sorry,” he said. “That was… unkind.”

  His voice softened.

  “I tease sometimes. Too much, apparently. Especially with non-Exvertias.”

  He watched me carefully now.

  “I’m your mentor. Connor. Codename.”

  My breath caught.

  I knew that face.

  The one I’d chosen behind the glass.

  Heat rushed to my cheeks. I buried my face in my hands, painfully aware of how loud my heartbeat sounded.

  Connor tilted his head. “You okay?”

  “No!” I snapped. Too fast. Too loud.

  “I’m fine.”

  A crooked smile tugged at his lips. “Your ears are red.”

  I looked away, fingers twisting in my skirt.

  "It’s just nerves," I told myself.

  Just embarrassment.

  But something else stirred quiet, unfamiliar, stubborn.

  “Relax,” Connor said. “I won’t scare you again. Promise.”

  I almost looked up.

  Almost.

  “You’re still red,” he added lightly. “Avoiding my eyes too.”

  “I’m not—!”

  I was.

  A soft chuckle drifted through the glass.

  “Cute.”

  My head snapped up. “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  His eyes gleamed, amused.

  I hated that my chest burned like this. That my pulse wouldn’t slow. That he looked at me like he already knew what I was trying to deny.

  “I regret this,” I blurted. “Choosing you.”

  The words came out sharp, defensive.

  Connor didn’t flinch.

  “You can regret it,” he said easily. “But a contract’s a contract.”

  He leaned closer to the glass.

  “We’ll see each other again. And again.”

  My heart lurched—

  Fear, warning, something worse tangled together.

  “Tch… annoying,” I muttered.

  “You’ll thank me later.”

  “I won’t!”

  But my heartbeat betrayed me really loud, restless.

  It is impossible to ignore.

  Because the truth was already there, clawing its way up.

  I wasn’t afraid of him.

  I was afraid of how easily my heart had started to race the moment he smiled.