The Envelope

...The Envelope...

The hallway was too bright.

Second lecture of the day, but it felt like the walls were closing in. Between the scrape of metal chairs, bursts of laughter, and the uneven rhythm of footsteps, Evelyn moved through the corridor like a thread slipping loose from fabric.

Her locker was against the far wall — old, dented, still smelling faintly of paint and someone else’s perfume from last semester. She reached for the dial, her fingers slower than usual. Not nervous. Not quite. Just… off. Like her instincts were trying to catch up to something her mind hadn’t noticed yet.

Click.

The door creaked open.

Books. Notebook. Calculator.

And then: the envelope.

It lay across her things with the perfect arrogance of something meant to be discovered. Jet black. Unmarked. Heavier than it looked. She didn’t touch it immediately.

There was something obscene about how still it was. Like a mouth waiting to be opened.

Her fingers hovered. She glanced over her shoulder. Just noise — people yelling names down the hall, Diana waving at someone across the stairwell. Life moved on.

She picked it up.

It was warm. Not room-temperature. Warm. As if someone had held it a long time before slipping it between the pages of her life.

She flipped it once, twice. No handwriting. No crease marks.

Evelyn tore it open carefully.

Inside was a matte black card. The paper was textured like skin — dry, fine, whispering between her fingers. She turned it toward the light.

Embossed in deep, blood-red lettering:

YOU’VE BEEN SEEN.

No name. No punctuation. No threat. No clue.

But her stomach tightened all the same. That kind of tightness that felt like falling — not down, but in. She read it again, her lips parting slightly.

There was no way to laugh this off. It didn’t feel like a prank. It felt like precision. Like someone had watched her long enough to time this perfectly — after her second day, before her walls had fully formed.

She blinked. For a second, she thought she heard something — a click. Not from the hallway. Closer.

She whipped her head around.

Nothing but the usual crowd. Diana was now halfway down the hall, chatting. The air was heavy with the scent of deodorant, floor polish, and hot plastic from some overworked vending machine.

Her heart knocked once. Hard.

She shoved the card back into the envelope, the envelope into her bag, and slammed the locker.

“Hey,” Diana’s voice chimed beside her suddenly. Evelyn flinched. “Jesus, relax. You looked like you were reading your own obituary.”

Evelyn took a second to respond. “Someone left something. Probably just some welcome ritual I missed.”

Diana peered at her. “Was it glitter-bombed?”

“No.”

“Threatening?”

Evelyn hesitated. “No. Just… weird.”

Diana grinned. “You’ll get used to weird things. This whole building feels like it’s built over some cursed tunnel system. You know half the lights on the third floor flicker in Morse code?”

She laughed, but Evelyn didn’t.

They started walking toward their class, shoulder to shoulder, and yet Evelyn felt entirely alone in her skin. The envelope pulsed against her thigh from inside the bag. She hadn’t even noticed how tightly she was clutching the strap until her fingers ached.

Something had changed.

The hallway was still buzzing. People were still laughing. But for the first time, it felt like there was a second layer underneath it all — a quieter rhythm, slower, darker.

And in that rhythm, someone was watching.

Not playfully. Not politely.

Like she was a puzzle. Or prey.

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