Chapter Four: Secrets Between Lockers
The morning bell had already rung, but the hallway was still alive with noise—shoes scuffing the floor, laughter spilling out of open classroom doors, lockers slamming shut like punctuation marks to conversations.
Alex slipped past it all, head low, her mind still circling around last night. Nimros. That impossible shimmer. Those eyes that weren't human and yet saw straight through her.
Her serpent-mark prickled even now, hidden beneath her collar. She'd pressed her hand to it three times already today, as if the pressure might still the strange rhythm pulsing beneath her skin.
Anna stood at her locker a few steps down, carefully arranging her notebooks like the world would collapse if they weren't in perfect order. Her blonde hair caught the strip of light from the window, almost too bright for someone who carried shadows so quietly.
Alex hesitated. Then walked over.
"Morning," she said.
Anna glanced up, eyes green as cut glass. She gave a small smile—not the big, dazzling kind some people faked, but one of those quiet smiles that felt like it was only ever meant for you. "You look… distracted."
Alex leaned against the locker beside her, trying for casual and failing. "Couldn't sleep."
Anna tilted her head, studying her the way she always did—like she was reading a book Alex didn't know she'd written. "Nightmares again?"
Alex shook her head. "No. This was different." She hesitated, then lowered her voice, so soft the crowd's noise nearly drowned it out. "I saw something last night. By the forest."
That got Anna's attention. She stopped fiddling with her books, closing the locker slowly, the clang echoing like a held breath. "Saw what?"
Alex hesitated. If she said it out loud, it would sound ridiculous. Maybe even insane. But if there was anyone she could trust with this… it was Anna. Always Anna.
"It was a unicorn," she whispered.
Anna blinked. Not a laugh. Not disbelief. Just silence, sharp and heavy, her eyes searching Alex's face.
Finally, Anna asked, "And what did it say?"
Alex's throat tightened. She hadn't expected Anna to believe her so easily. "That I'm late."
The words hung between them, absurd and impossible, and yet the weight of them pressed into Alex's chest all over again.
Anna didn't look away. "Then maybe it means you were meant to find it sooner."
Alex huffed out a breath, shaky and frustrated. "Anna, it wasn't just some dream. It felt… real. Like it was waiting for me. Like it knows something about me I don't."
Anna's hand brushed her arm lightly, almost hesitant but steady enough to anchor her. "Then whatever it is, you don't have to face it alone."
Alex looked at her then—really looked—and something in the pressure inside her chest loosened. They had both carried too much silence, too much weight. But here, in the small space between lockers, it felt lighter.
For a heartbeat, she thought about telling Anna how afraid she was. How part of her wanted to run, and another part wanted to chase that creature into the woods and never look back. But instead she just said, "Thanks."
Anna smiled again, small and soft, like it was enough.
And maybe, for now, it was.
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