The rest of the morning passed in slow motion.
Professor Daren's voice sounded from the front of the auditorium, layered with the hum of cooling vents and the faint static of the holographic board. Words like ethics, deviation, social structure drifted around me, but my mind was somewhere else, watching the sunlight ripple through the tinted windows, distorting the view of the ocean like a warped lens.
Shane sat two rows ahead, half-turned toward me, pretending to take notes but clearly sketching something on her tablet. The digital pen twitched, and a faint smile ghosted across her lips. I found myself smiling too, without meaning to.
"Mr. Aaroon," Professor Dalen's voice snapped through the air. "Perhaps you'd like to enlighten us on the three stages of moral dissonance in law enforcement practice?"
I blinked. "Uh... moral conflict, moral disengagement, and."
"and moral injury," Shane whispered from the front row, barely loud enough for me to hear.
"and moral injury," I finished, straightening.
The professor studied me for a moment, one eyebrow raised. "Correct. Please keep your attention here, not on the scenery. You'll have time for daydreaming after graduation."
"Sorry, sir."
The class chuckled. I caught Shane's smirk over her shoulder before she went back to her notes.
After the lecture, the crowd filtered out into the corridor, a wave of chatter and shifting light. Digital boards overhead flashed campus news: "GRADUATION CEREMONY TOMORROW. CONGRATULATIONS CLASS OF 2147!"
Even saying that number felt surreal. I'd lived one life before, I knew that much, but sometimes, dates like that made the gap between worlds feel close.
"Hey," Shane's voice pulled me back. She held out a canned coffee, cold water sliding down its metallic surface. "You look like you could use this."
I took it. "You have a sixth sense for caffeine deprivation."
"I call it compassion."
We leaned against the railing overlooking the lower quad. From here, the ocean stretched beyond the campus edge, vast and gleaming, like it was stitched to the horizon with threads of light.
"Do you ever think about what happens after all this?" she asked suddenly.
I turned to her. "After graduation?"
"Yeah. Like, where we go from here."
I hesitated. "I don't know. Probably join some security branch, or assist in law analytics. Something boring."
"Boring sounds safe," she said softly.
"Safe is overrated."
She laughed quietly. "You sound like someone who don't believe in the idea of being safe."
"Maybe."
There was a pause, filled only by the faint hum of passing drones and the distant sound of waves. I glanced pass the railings down at the water.
Something moved beneath the surface, a shadow swimming just far enough offshore to make me question if I'd imagined it.
"Did you see that?" I asked.
"See what?"
I leaned over the railing, but whatever it was had already vanished. "Thought I saw something big. Probably a cargo sub."
"Probably," she echoed, though her voice carried the same uncertainty.
Later that evening, the sky burned with the color of rust. You can even faintly taste a metallic taste , a storm warning. But there were no clouds, only a pale gradient fading from orange to violet.
I stood on the rooftop of the dorm complex, a can of coffee in hand, watching the city lights beneath me. Thousands of windows shimmered like a constellation trapped inside a glass dome.
"Hey," Kai's voice came from behind me, groggy but amused. "Didn't think you were the kind of guy to brood in rooftops all alone ."
"Just needed air."
He leaned on the railing beside me. "You see the ocean today? It looked… off."
"Yeah."
"Like it's breathing, right?"
I turned to him. "You feel that too?"
"Man, everyone feels it. Even the net forums are talking about weird sonar readings, missing fishing drones, tidal sensors going dark. Government says it's nothing, but…" He shrugged. "When they say it's nothing, it's always something."
I didn't answer. My gaze lingered on the horizon, where a faint, rhythmic shimmer pulsed just beneath the waterline, like veins of light.
"Anyway," Kai said, pushing off the railing. "Graduation tomorrow. You ready to finally pretend we've got our lives figured out?"
"Not even close."
He laughed. "Same. Get some rest, man. Big day."
When he left, I stayed. The hum of the city dimmed as curfew neared. The ocean, however, seemed to grow louder, waves hitting the shore not in rhythm, but like a heartbeat. A deep, hollow echo that traveled through the metal beneath my feet.
I looked up at the sky. The stars were faint tonight, veiled behind pollution and the faint shimmer of satellite nets. But through the haze, I thought I saw something moving, not a ship, not a drone, but a slow ripple of light descending from orbit toward the sea.
A faint vibration trembled through the railing.
The lights of the city flickered once, then stabilized.
I whispered to no one in particular, "What the hell was that?"
The sea didn't answer. It just stared back, endless and waiting.