There was something about him that didn't move like the rest of us.
Not slower, not faster, just separate.
She first saw him outside the library, standing beneath the frost-bitten branches of the ash trees that lined the walkway. Everyone else walked by with their backpacks and coffee cups and deadlines. But he stood still, like time forgot him there.
He wore black, head to toe- not in the brooding, thrift-shop kind of way that the art students favoured, but in a way that looked unchosen. Like he hadn't noticed. Like the colour chose him.
He looked like a shadow that learned to stand up.
His hair was also a deep black, and his skin so pale it almost glowed. There was something about him, something that felt out of place. The silence he emitted was almost sharp. The kind of aura you'd only notice when the world pauses for half a second more than it should.
"Morrigan? What are you doing?" A friend from college, Alice, slowly walked up behind her, squinting her eyes half-judging Morrigan for standing and staring into space.
"Oh! Alice, hey" She quickly snapped out of her daze and turned to face her friend. Alice had a kind face, which could often be deceiving due to her blunt nature. Her eyes were a dark brown, and her brunette hair was only up to her shoulders, but curly and bouncy. Freckles were dotted about her face, extenuating her round eyes and nose.
"What were you staring at? Are you alright?" She flashed Morrigan a confused look, scrunching up her button nose.
"Oh.. Nothing, don't worry about it." Morrigan didn't want to look like a weirdo, so didn't mention the strange man she saw, she was probably overthinking it all anyway.
She had a habit of overthinking as of the start of the new academic year. The year before, she was recovering from her previous boyfriend, who ended up assaulting her in June. It was a difficult thing to overcome, especially since he was so loved by her parents. After the incident, she was quiet, reserved, timid. Understandably so, what happened was tough. She didn't report him to the police, but she was the one to break things off between them. Maybe that made her brave, but she certainly didn't feel like it.
To put so much trust in someone. To be so vulnerable and honest with them. To bare all and respect everything about them, for it all to be tossed away in one reckless decision. Morrigan still couldn't understand it, even six months after it all happened. Her parents were supportive enough, but honestly, they didn't know what to do either, especially since Morrigan didn't want to go to the police. No one else knew about it, and the guy got away scot-free. Due to all this, she developed a habit of over-reading every person she met. She didn't know trust anymore, nor was she ready to give it out again.
She mentally scolded herself for being so judgemental, that guy was probably just some art student that she happened to stare at for a little too long. Nothing too angsty, just a boy in black.
"Let's get to class Marah, we have Law first, right?" Alice's round eyes seemed more piercing now, obviously suspicious of Morrigan's behaviour already.
"I don't, I have History." She replied.
"Ohh.. Don't tell me we're not in the same class. Bummer!" Alice frowned, "I'll get it sorted, no way I'm spending college away from you all the time, school was bad enough!"
Alice stormed off, she probably forgot to say goodbye, it was very like her.
Morrigan sighed to herself. She was heading to class solo, then. It didn't matter too much to her if she was in a class with Alice or not; Alice had a habit of gossiping and getting distracted. She turned again, to see if the boy was still there, but he wasn't. Morrigan didn't consider herself a very curious person, but he seemed to draw her in. There was something about him that just didn't sit right with her, it was a gut-feeling.
She took the long way to her class, just to snoop around the art block, but she saw no trace of him. Finally giving up, she headed to her class on her own.
The classroom smelled like old radiators and coffee: warm, stale and a little too loud for this early in the day.
Morrigan took a seat by the window, letting her bag slump to the floor. Outside, the frost hadn't melted yet. Tiny crystals clung to the windowpane like spider silk, catching the sunlight in pale, fractured lines.
Her professor was already talking when she arrived, scrawling dates on the board. Something about early modern Europe, or war maybe. Her pen scratched idly against her notebook, but she wasn't looking.
She looked out of the window, and the boy was there again, this time sat on a bench underneath another ash tree. She was still staring at the boy in black- frozen beneath the trees like a statue no one noticed but her.
Who just sits there like that? Was he okay? No phone. No book. No smoke curling from between his fingers. Just stillness.
A chill brushed her spine like someone had walked over her grave.
Her eyes drifted around the room, half paying attention to class for a few seconds, then to her notebook.
She looked back at her page and realized she'd been drawing thin skeletal trees along the margin. One of them had a figure beneath it. Tall. Still. Wrapped in black.
She slammed her notebook shut, taking her head in her hands.
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