(AN: Hello everyone how is your wonderful Saturday going? I'm back working out of state again and it decided to snow today and my dogs hate it lol. I am back I hope you enjoy. )
Age 13
The alarm went off before sunrise.
I didn't need it. My mind had been awake long before the sound. The first morning of a new semester always felt less like beginning something and more like testing a system I'd already built.
The hallway outside was alive again. Doors opened and closed, shoes scuffed, someone shouted down the corridor about schedules. I moved through it quietly, coffee in hand, backpack balanced by habit.
Outside, the air stung with cold. January light lay thin over the courtyard, the kind of light that makes everything look smaller and cleaner than it is. The grass was still damp from a light frost, footprints shining briefly before fading. I walked across campus while most people were still finding their bearings, counting my steps between buildings just to mark distance. It was an easy calibration. Same world, new variables.
Math Lecture – Multivariable Calculus
Dr. Li was already writing on the board when I arrived. Efficient. Her handwriting was tight and even, symbols nested like machinery. She didn't wait for the room to settle.
"Every dimension has rules," she said, chalk tapping. "Your job is to remember none of them are optional."
That line stayed with me.
I took a seat in the second row. A moment later, Paige slid into the chair beside me, hair pulled back, expression half-awake but focused. She didn't say anything at first, just gave a small nod that meant back to work.
The lecture moved fast. Partial derivatives, gradients, Jacobians. Nothing new, but the structure of her logic was satisfying. Paige filled a page and a half of notes. I only pretended to. The best part of having perfect recall is that I don't need notes. Sometimes I take them just to look normal.
Dr. Li's pace was exacting, the kind that made even capable students glance nervously at one another. She never slowed down.
When class ended, Paige stretched, the paper in her notebook still warm from her hand.
"She's better than Harper," she said.
"Cleaner handwriting," I answered.
She smiled. That was enough.
Between Classes
The air outside had warmed to something almost kind. Students spilled from buildings in loose rivers. New backpacks, new plans, the first-day optimism that comes before reality catches up. The smell of coffee and wet concrete followed me down the path.
At the Student Union, a musician with more enthusiasm than talent was playing guitar near the steps. A couple of students dropped coins into his open case. Others hurried past pretending not to hear. Paige and I stopped for a moment, watching.
"Think he practices?" she asked.
"Statistically unlikely."
She laughed, bumping my shoulder lightly before heading toward her next class. "See you at Data Structures."
I lingered long enough to buy another coffee, burnt, thin, but hot, then crossed the quad toward the computer science building. The bells from the Tower rang ten times, each echoing against the glass and brick until it sounded like a heartbeat stretched across campus.
Computer Science – Data Structures
Afternoon class. New building, humming with older machines. Rows of beige monitors, fans clicking under the desks.
Professor Kim introduced himself without looking up from the attendance sheet. His voice was dry, measured, mechanical.
"By May you'll build a compiler that doesn't crash. That's the goal. No one does it perfectly."
I liked him immediately. He valued precision over charm. My kind of order.
Halfway through, while he diagrammed a binary tree, a student two rows up muttered something about recursion loops under his breath. The comment was sharp, correct, and louder than he intended. Kim stopped, turned, raised an eyebrow.
"Then fix it, Mr.?"
"Strange," the student said. "Eugene Strange."
The name fit the voice.
I watched him for a moment. Messy hair, glasses slipping down, shirt half untucked. He grinned like he wasn't sure whether he'd just embarrassed himself or made a point. Kim gestured toward the board.
"Go ahead, Mr. Strange."
Eugene hesitated, then walked up, grabbed the marker, and corrected the logic in three clean steps. Kim nodded once.
"Good. Everyone else, copy that one."
When class ended, I passed him in the aisle. He gave a short nod.
"Nice notes," he said, glancing at the neat columns in my notebook.
"Thanks."
"That handwriting looks printed. You a robot or something?"
"Sometimes," I said.
He laughed once, genuine but awkward, and drifted off toward the hallway, humming some tune that didn't match his steps.
Lunch and Noise
The dining hall was louder than I remembered. Trays clattered, ice machines hummed, and every table overflowed with stories from break. Road trips, hangovers, questionable new relationships.
Paige spotted me near the end of the line and waved her fork like a signal flag. I joined her, and she slid a cup of tea across the table without asking.
"Welcome back to chaos," she said.
"It's predictable chaos."
"Still counts." She poked at her salad, then grinned. "So who's the new kid in your class, the one who talked his way onto the board?"
"Eugene Strange."
She laughed. "Perfect name for a coder. Think he's competition?"
"Unlikely," I said. "But he's curious."
"Curious is dangerous."
"Only if you forget why you started."
She looked at me like she wanted to unpack that sentence, then let it go. We ate mostly in silence after that. Comfortable silence, broken only by the sound of ice clinking in cups and the occasional shout from another table. It felt ordinary, and ordinary felt good.
Evening
Back in my room, the sun slid down the far side of the dormitory roof, turning the windows gold for a moment before they went gray again. The heater hummed to life, carrying the dry smell of dust that never quite leaves.
I laid out the new assignments. Calculus problem set due Friday, small coding exercise due Monday. Straight lines on paper again. The world rebuilt itself in lists and dates.
Outside, the campus buzzed louder now. Voices, doors, the sound of the world restarting. Somewhere down the hall a stereo played too loudly for ten seconds before someone yelled to turn it down. It reminded me that I wasn't alone, even when it sounded like I was.
I did my routine. Push-ups, stretches, slow breathing. Then sat back at the desk. Paige had already left a short note under my door.
Tomorrow, library, 4 p.m.
No signature needed. The handwriting was quick, slightly uneven, ink smudged at the edge like she'd written it while walking.
I pinned it beside my schedule and studied it for a moment. New semester. New professors. Same quiet rules.
Still, something about the day lingered. A different kind of energy in the air, the subtle hum before something begins to shift. Maybe it was the way Dr. Li's equations caught light on the board, or the precision in Professor Kim's tone when he said no one does it perfectly. Or maybe it was just the first time since the fire that Austin had felt almost normal again.
I opened my notebook, the same one that had traveled from Medford to MIT seminars in my imagination and now lived on this small desk.
Two words from last semester stared back at me from the margin.
Noise to Pattern.
I traced the arrow once with my pen, then added another line beneath it.
Pattern to Change.
Maybe that was the semester's real syllabus.
The heater clicked off. Silence pooled for a few seconds before footsteps passed outside. Someone laughing, someone else complaining about textbooks, a door shutting with finality. I liked that sound. It meant the world was working again.
I leaned back, letting the chair creak. The lamp threw a narrow circle of light across the desk, catching the black curve of the pi keychain Paige had given me. It gleamed like punctuation.
I closed the notebook and stared at the ceiling for a long moment, letting my mind slow enough to register the heartbeat in my wrists. The same rhythm as always. Steady, mechanical, perfect.
Tomorrow at four, the library. Another routine starting. Another equation forming.
For now, that was enough.
(Thanks for reading, feel free to write a comment, leave a review, and Power Stones are always appreciated. )