The classroom was too bright for someone who hadn't rested.
Alan blinked repeatedly, trying to focus on the blackboard. The professor's voice filled the space with a steady, monotone cadence, like the sway of something endlessly repeating. Familiar words. Simple concepts. Or at least, they should have been.
He picked up his pencil.
He didn't write.
He held it between his fingers for several seconds, waiting for his mind to do what it always did: organize, understand, move forward. But the sentences slipped over each other, tangled, as if someone had changed the language without warning.
Alan frowned.
Focus.
He repeated the last sentence he thought he'd heard. Or thought he had. When he tried to connect it with the one before, he couldn't find the beginning. Nor the end.
The sound of a chair scraping startled him. Not loud. Not sudden. Yet his heart reacted as if it had been.
He rested his forearm on the desk and breathed deeply.
You didn't sleep badly. You slept little. That's different.
The classroom air felt thick. Warm. Alan loosened his collar slightly, seeking relief, but all he achieved was noticing just how exhausted his body was. Not heavy fatigue, but a strange, silent weariness, as if every muscle operated a second behind.
The professor wrote something on the board.
Alan looked down to copy it.
When he lifted his gaze again, the word was gone.
He blinked. Slowly this time.
No more than a couple of seconds had passed, he was sure. No one moved. No one seemed to notice anything unusual. The professor was still speaking, chalk tracing white lines over dark.
Alan swallowed.
A brief, uncomfortable tingle ran through his chest. Not pain. Not anxiety. A familiar feeling with no memory to cling to.
As if something tried to emerge… and got stuck halfway.
He leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes for just a moment.
One.
Two.
The classroom murmur transformed, for an imperceptible instant, into something else.
Not voices.
Not words.
A deep, rhythmic sound.
Like water hitting wood.
Alan snapped his eyes open.
The classroom was still there.
Too white. Too solid. Too real.
He exhaled slowly and shook his head, almost annoyed with himself.
Sleep deprivation, he thought. The brain fills in what isn't there. It's normal.
He gripped the pencil harder this time and began to write whatever came first, even if it didn't make sense.
The important thing was staying awake.
The important thing was not letting his mind wander.
Because if it did… he wasn't sure how far it could take him.
Dayit was the first to notice.
Not because Alan did anything overtly strange. Not immediately. Not in the obvious way that demands a question. It was more… a subtle absence. A second too long before answering. A gaze that arrived late to the conversation.
"Alan."
No response.
"Alan," she repeated, a bit louder this time.
Alan blinked and lifted his head, as if torn from a deep thought.
"What?"
Dayit studied him for a heartbeat longer. No smile. No joke. That alone was unusual.
"The professor asked you something."
Alan turned toward the front. The teacher raised an eyebrow, waiting. Not annoyed. Just… expectant.
"I…" Alan hesitated. The logical answer was there. He knew it. But when he tried to grasp it, it dissolved. "Sorry, could you repeat that?"
Soft laughter slid through the classroom. Nothing cruel. Nothing out of place.
The professor repeated the question.
Alan answered.
This time correctly.
Too correctly.
With mechanical precision that contrasted sharply with the seconds of confusion before. Dayit noticed. She didn't say anything, but the faint crease of her brow was almost imperceptible.
Class continued.
When the bell rang, Alan was the last to rise. He packed his things slowly, as if each movement needed thought before execution.
Dayit waited.
"Did you sleep?" she asked finally, walking beside him down the hall.
"Yes," Alan replied without hesitation.
Too quickly.
"Really?"
Alan adjusted the strap of his bag over his shoulder.
"Of course. Just… poorly."
Dayit glanced at him sideways. She didn't press. Not yet.
"You zoned out like three times," she said, trying to sound casual. "I thought you were daydreaming or something."
Alan let out a brief laugh.
"I wish."
He wished it were only that.
They descended the stairs together. The building buzzed with conversations, hurried steps, laughter. Normal life. Tangible reality.
And yet…
Alan stopped abruptly.
Dayit took two steps further before noticing.
"What's wrong?"
Alan stared at the window at the end of the hall. Outside, the sky was clear. Blue. Too blue.
For a fraction of a second, he swore he saw something moving in the distance.
Not a bird.
Something bigger.
He blinked.
Nothing.
"Nothing," he finally said. "I thought I forgot something."
Dayit didn't look convinced.
"Alan…"
"I'm fine."
Dayit exhaled.
"If you say that one more time today, I'll start not believing you."
Alan smiled. This time, it was real.
"Then I won't say it again."
They continued walking.
But Dayit, still unsure why, couldn't stop watching him.
After classes, they headed to the library to study.
The library was silent.
Not absolute silence, but alive: pages turning, chairs brushing against the floor, the distant hum of the air conditioner. Alan sat at a long table, several books open, promising medical, logical, verifiable answers.
Dayit sat beside him, focused on her laptop.
Alan rested one elbow on the table. Then the other.
Fatigue didn't hit him like a blow. It came like a slow tide.
Just five minutes, he thought.
Just close my eyes for a second.
The world grew heavy.
And then, water.
No fall. No impact. Just the immediate sensation of being submerged.
Alan opened his eyes, and the sea greeted him.
Blue enveloped everything, deep and serene. Sunlight filtered from the surface in trembling columns, painting the water with golden reflections. He felt neither cold nor fear. His body moved naturally, as if it had always known how.
He swam.
Beneath him, the seabed stretched wide: living reefs, corals that seemed to breathe, impossibly colored fish weaving through shadow and light. The sound below was different; no noise, just a soft, constant vibration, almost maternal.
A mesh bag hung from his hand.
It was already half full.
Alan dove slightly deeper, spotting the first oysters nestled in rocks. He approached, carefully pried one open, and inside rested a tiny pearl. He dropped it into the bag without lingering.
He continued.
Another oyster.
And another.
Some held pearls. Others did not.
He gathered them all.
The difference didn't matter.
His movements were methodical, patient, learned. His hands knew what to do before his mind even considered it. Open. Inspect. Store. Move on.
The bag began to grow heavy.
Around him, the sea remained beautiful. Vast. Indifferent. A world that demanded no explanations, no decisions—just presence.
Alan swam between coral formations rising like ancient cities. A school of silver fish passed by, reflecting light like shards of mirror. For a moment, he felt absurdly that the ocean was watching… not with eyes, but with memory.
He kept searching.
He didn't know what for.
He only knew it wasn't enough.
Alan opened his eyes sharply, one hand to his chest, gasping as if he had been underwater too long. His heart hammered, irregular, and for a second he swore he tasted salt in his throat.
He coughed. Several times.
The world returned abruptly: the wooden table in front of him, open books, the library's white light, distant voices not belonging to the sea.
He breathed.
Again.
And again.
You're fine, he told himself.
You just slept.
He wiped his face. His skin was warm, damp. Sweat… or a lingering memory of water.
"Alan…"
Dayit's voice came from far away.
He blinked and turned toward her. She leaned toward him, brow furrowed, lips parted, clearly concerned.
"You fell asleep," she said softly. "But… you were breathing strangely. Like…"
"Like I was drowning," he finished, unthinking.
Dayit paused.
"Yes," she admitted. "Exactly like that."
Alan swallowed and straightened in his chair, avoiding her gaze for a moment. The memory of the sea lingered. Clinging to his skin, his lungs, the rhythm of his body.
It was a dream, he insisted to himself.
An invented scene. Nothing more.
He forced himself to look at the open books before him: texts on neurology, sleep cycles, how the brain constructs images when exhausted.
Science.
Logic.
Normal explanations for extraordinary-seeming things.
"I need to sleep better," he murmured. "That's all. The brain does strange things when you don't rest."
Dayit studied him a few more seconds, as if wanting to say something… and deciding not to.
"Let's go," she said at last. "Get some air. You look like someone who hasn't slept in days."
Alan nodded.
As he stood, a strange sensation ran through him: a nameless nostalgia. Not for a person. Not for a face.
For the sea.
And that, more than anything, unsettled him.