Chapter 147: Paranoia?

Chapter 147: Paranoia? Clark POV: I tried going back to bed. Keyword: tried. Lucas was clearly nuts. Or maybe just too high-strung for a place like this. Whatever it was, I shouldn’t have let him get in my head. I shouldn’t have even engaged him. Monsters? Right. And maybe next week, I’d be abducted by aliens who wanted to teach me advanced calculus. It was a prank. Had to be. Some messed-up, long-standing tradition where seniors test how gullible the freshmen are. Maybe they had a whole betting pool about who would crack first. Lucas just happened to be the poor bastard who snapped early. And if, by some insane chance, he was telling the truth? Then it was a cult. Big deal. I wasn’t joining it. I rolled over in bed, pulling the blanket over my head like Lucas had done last night. Ironic. But even under the covers, the room felt colder. Like whatever panic he brought in had left a residue behind. My hand instinctively reached for my phone. I hovered over sara’s name. I missed her voice already. Her joy. The way she always managed to talk me out of my spirals. If anyone could snap me back to reality, it was her. But 5:13 a.m. was too early. Even for her. I didn’t want to come off as clingy. I’ll tell her at lunch, I told myself. Maybe laugh about it. "Hey, guess what? My roommate thinks we’re living in a vampire cult." Yeah. Maybe it’d be funny by then. I dropped the phone beside me, closed my eyes, and tried to block out the sound of the wind outside. The faint hum of the old radiator. The flickering fluorescent light in the hallway that kept buzzing through the crack under the door. Tried. But my mind kept looping back to one thing Lucas had said: "You saw it, didn’t you?" Yeah. I had. Even if I didn’t want to admit it. Apparently, despite all my loud thoughts—Lucas’s creepy warning, his strange laughter, and everything else—I still managed to pass out again. My brain must’ve tapped out from sheer exhaustion or just self-preservation. I didn’t even dream. Just darkness. I only came back to reality when my phone buzzed violently against the desk beside my bed. It was Sara calling. I jolted up, groggy, my body stiff like I’d been lying in a casket. Weird thought. I picked up. "Hey," I rasped. "Good morning! You okay?" her voice was light, cheery, and painfully normal. A total contrast to the fog I’d woken up in. She told me she’d finished unpacking yesterday and crashed straight into bed. She didn’t see my text until this morning. Now she was heading to the cafeteria and offered to wait so we could grab breakfast together. I didn’t need to be told twice. After the call, I practically flew off the bed. It was already 7:30. Orientation was at 8:30, and food sounded like a lifeline. Not just because I was starving, but because I needed some normalcy. Something to remind me this was just a college, not some horror show waiting to unfold. Lucas was still gone. His bed was made neatly like he’d never come back. Maybe he didn’t. Maybe he really did leave. His stuff was gone, and the eerie quiet of the room now felt too heavy. Like a vacuum had sucked his fear right into the walls and left a residue. I shook it off. The good news? The room had its own private shower and bathroom. No public restrooms. Thank. God. That would’ve been the worst, especially if bullies were in the picture. The idea of being cornered in a public bathroom? Instant trauma. Fifteen minutes later, I was showered, dressed, and half-drenched in deodorant. I wasn’t about to let Sara’s first official breakfast memory with me involve me smelling like sweaty paranoia. Only problem? I had no idea where the cafeteria was. Sure, there was a campus map on the school app... but I suck at directions. Big time. One of the many failings of my so-called genius brain. Show me a network server or a firewall, and I’ll find twenty back doors in under five minutes. Ask me to follow a GPS path with more than two turns? I’m done. So I stood outside the dorm, scanning. Praying. And thank the stars, it looked like other students were making their way out too. Some in small chatty groups, others with their noses buried in their phones, all heading in one general direction. I followed. Not too close, of course. Didn’t want to look like a weirdo, but I kept a healthy distance. As I walked, I took in more of the campus. Memoville was undeniably beautiful, even under the strange, thick morning mist that still hung low over the grass like a breath the land was holding in. The buildings—gothic and majestic—seemed to rise out of the fog like sleeping giants. Ivy climbed across stone like veins. The trees that lined the cobblestone paths were tall and eerily still, like they were watching. Too still. The breeze that rustled past didn’t touch the branches. As I walked, something shifted behind me. Not a sound. More like a presence. That same cold prickling at the back of my neck. I turned quickly—nothing. Just mist. And the sound of my own breath. "Just nerves," I whispered to myself. "Or maybe I’m catching Lucas’s crazy." But still, I sped up, almost jogging. The cafeteria building finally came into view—massive, all-glass windows glowing warm gold from inside. Through the glass, I spotted Sara standing by the entrance, her arms folded and her hair pulled up in a bun. She looked... radiant. Normal. Safe. She waved when she saw me, and I waved back, the tightness in my chest easing slightly. Human connection. The best medicine for creeping madness. "You took your sweet time," she grinned as I walked up, slightly breathless. "I got lost," I admitted. "Map-challenged." "I figured. I was about to come rescue you." I laughed. For a moment, the weight of last night, Lucas’s strange warning, the pale-eyed senior, the weird vibes—all of it—faded. Just for a moment. Then, as we stepped inside, I noticed something. Every staff member behind the food counters was pale. Not just light-skinned—pale. Almost translucent. Their eyes didn’t meet ours. Their smiles were all... wrong. Tight-lipped. Tired. Or forced. One of them, an older man with white hair and sunken cheeks, just stood behind the fruit tray staring blankly ahead. His apron looked stained with something—red? Berry juice? I told myself it was berry juice. Sara didn’t seem to notice. She was already filling her tray with eggs and toast. I followed suit, trying to act natural, but I couldn’t shake the feeling I was being watched. Observed. Targeted. I turned once, glancing toward a dark corner of the cafeteria where students were sitting quietly. Too quietly. No chatter. No clinking of cutlery. Just silent chewing and intense staring. Their eyes flicked toward me in unison. Then turned away. What the actual hell? I nearly dropped my tray. Sara found a sunny spot by a window and sat. I joined her, trying to pretend like I wasn’t spiraling inside. I needed to tell her. Something was off here. I should start with Lucas. "Hey, did anything weird happen in your dorm last night?" I asked, trying to sound casual. She paused mid-bite, chewing slowly. "Weird? No. Just normal unpacking. Why?" I hesitated. "My roommate... he kinda freaked out. Packed up and left this morning. Said there were monsters." Sara blinked. Then smiled. "Probably just nervous jitters. Or a prank. You boys love your hazing stories." I wanted to believe that. Desperately. But as I glanced outside through the window, the mist still thick over the lawns, I noticed someone standing too still in the fog. That tall senior with the yellow-ringed eyes. Watching the cafeteria. Watching me. As we ate, I tried to shake the feeling of being watched. My eyes kept drifting toward the cafeteria windows, back to where I’d seen that guy—the one with the yellow-ringed eyes. But he was gone now. Just the mist remained. Still unsettled, I turned to Sara. "Hey," I started, keeping my voice low, "have you, uh... met any seniors yet?" She shook her head, mid-bite into her toast. "Nope. Not really. Though some of the girls in my dorm were practically swooning talking about the senior guys here." I raised an eyebrow. "Swooning?" "Yeah," she said, rolling her eyes with a grin. "Apparently, there’s this rumor going around—something about how the senior guys in Memoville are, like, supernaturally handsome." She let out a small laugh and sipped her orange juice. "Honestly, I haven’t seen any of them yet, but from how the girls were describing it... it sounded like a k-drama vampire romance or something." Supernaturally handsome, huh? I felt a chill crawl up my back again, thinking about the guy I saw yesterday. The one who said, "Lost little lamb?" and stared straight through me. Yeah, handsome was one way to describe him—if you’re into the whole walking-corpse-with-high-cheekbones vibe. "Anyway," Sara added, perking up, "there’s going to be a fresher’s bash tonight. At the conference hall. Starts at 8 PM." I blinked. "A party? Already?" She nodded. "It’s for new students. Icebreakers, music, dancing, awkward small talk—the usual. They’re trying to get everyone relaxed before classes kick off." "Are you going?" I asked, already feeling my social battery drain. "Of course," she smiled. "Come on, Clark—it’ll be fun. It’s probably the only time we’ll get to chill before all the real work begins." I gave a weak shrug and poked at my food. "Yeah... maybe." Truthfully, the idea of being in a dark room surrounded by strangers and possibly a few of those weird-eyed seniors wasn’t high on my list of fun things to do. But on the other hand, if something weird was going on, that might be the perfect place to learn more. Especially if Lucas was right.