The cafeteria was loud. Too loud.
Seraphina stood in line with her tray in hand, her oversized hoodie hanging low over her face. Her sunglasses stayed on, despite the flickering ceiling lights and the irritated look the lady behind the counter gave her.
"Can't see what you're pointing at with those on, sweetheart," the woman muttered.
Sera blinked slowly behind the lenses. "Then just give me whatever's hot."
The woman shrugged and scooped a ladleful of powdered eggs onto her plate, followed by two strips of something that might've been bacon and half a burnt pancake. It smelled greasy. It should have smelled like comfort. But to her, it smelled wrong.
Too flat. Too artificial. Too… dead.
She moved stiffly down the line, added a cup of black coffee for the look of it, and turned toward the nearest empty table. Her limbs didn't move quite right—too smooth, too fluid. Like her joints were better oiled than they should be.
A side effect, maybe.
She dropped her tray and slid into the booth. A group of girls across the aisle were chatting, laughing, one of them gesturing wildly with a bright-pink acrylic nail.
"…so then he tells me I'm being irrational," the girl was saying, voice pitching. "Like, sorry I'm asking you to maybe not flirt with my lab partner? Is that irrational?"
"No," her friend said, dragging out the word. "That's just basic respect."
Sera blinked. The sounds were too sharp, as if everything had been dialed up to ten. Every breath, every giggle, every scrape of plastic trays against tabletops—it was a symphony of static buzzing beneath her skin.
Then she heard it: "Hey, are you going to Psych this morning?"
"God, yeah. Abnormal. First day."
Sera's head jerked up.
She fumbled for her phone and opened the schedule again. The class was highlighted—Abnormal Psychology, 9:00 AM, McDonnell Hall, Room 204.
Shit.
She had twenty minutes.
She stared down at her plate. The eggs jiggled slightly. The bacon shimmered with grease. She picked up a fork and took a bite, chewing slowly.
It felt like chewing wax.
Tasteless. Textureless. Empty.
Her stomach turned, not with nausea, but something more primal. Her jaw ached, not from chewing, but from restraint. She could feel it rising again—that thing inside her, curling like smoke in her chest, whispering like warm oil sliding across bone.
Feed.
She swallowed hard, forced down another bite. Then another. By the time the tray was empty, her stomach wasn't full. It never would be. But at least she could pretend.
Pretend she was still human.
Pretend she could be normal.
Back in her dorm, she threw on a fresh shirt, combed her silver-dyed hair back under a black knit toque, and pulled her sunglasses low over her face. The lenses hid the worst of it—the unnatural black irises, the quiet glow that sometimes flickered beneath them when her hunger spiked.
She grabbed her leather-bound notebook, the one already half-full of memories she didn't want to lose again, and slipped it into her backpack before heading out.
The walk to McDonnell Hall was short. The building was old, its steps cracked and worn, the door hinges loud enough to make every entrance feel like a performance.
She slid into Room 204 five minutes early. The room smelled of chalk dust and winter coats. Two ceiling fans spun in opposite directions, doing nothing to stir the air. Students were scattered across the rows of tiered seating—hoodies, earbuds, iced coffees clutched like lifelines.
Sera chose a seat near the back, by the wall, with no one too close. She pulled out her notebook, flipped to a fresh page, and wrote with slow precision:
Day 1. Symptoms: intensified smell, noise sensitivity, no taste. Black irises. Hunger worsening. Social interactions manageable. Camouflage: functional.
She was still finishing the note when someone slid into the seat two rows in front of her. The scent hit her first.
Cedarwood. Soap. Skin.
Clean. Warm. Male. Strong.
Her head snapped up.
She didn't recognize him—broad shoulders, tight braid down his back, a scuffed leather jacket he probably wore year-round—but that didn't matter. What mattered was how her pulse jumped. Not from attraction.
From awareness.
The scent was too close. Too real.
She froze, fingers clenching her pen tight enough to crack it. Her body went still, every muscle tensing under her clothes.
Her eyes closed.
She counted backwards from ten.
The smell didn't fade. It saturated the air like wet earth and rain. Her throat tightened. Her stomach coiled in protest.
Don't move.
Don't shift.
Don't let it show.
A rustle of movement signaled the professor's arrival.
Dr. Helstrom walked in like a man halfway through a lecture, coat still unbuttoned, scarf flung over one shoulder. He didn't pause to introduce himself. Didn't glance at the roster. Just started talking as he unpacked his notes.
"When you study abnormal psychology," he said, his voice echoing around the amphitheater, "you're really studying the mind under siege."
The words pierced through her like needles.
"The human brain isn't static. It reacts, adapts, changes under pressure. Sometimes in beautiful ways. Sometimes in monstrous ones."
Her eyes snapped open.
Monstrous.
Her stomach churned.
"Take Capgras syndrome," he continued. "Patients begin to believe that someone close to them—often a spouse or parent—has been replaced by an identical impostor. The face is right, the voice, the clothes… but something in the feel is wrong."
Sera's breath hitched.
"The brain can be twisted by trauma," Helstrom said, "so severely that reality itself becomes alien. And in some cases, this dislocation leads to hunger. Not just for food, but for sensation. Control. Even pain."
The ink of her pen trembled.
She hadn't written a single word since entering the class. Her notebook lay open, blank, the soft grooves from her grip pressed into the page.
She couldn't focus.
Not on Helstrom. Not on the topic.
Not on anything but the fire curling in her belly and the acidic twist of her muscles trying to hold it down.
Everything smelled like temptation.
Everything felt like a threat.
Her vision blurred.
She ducked her head, writing fast just to anchor herself to the reality that she was currently living in:
Triggers: close proximity, natural scent, dominance pheromones. Response: internal panic. No external slip. Mask intact. Maintain distance. Breathe. Don't bite.
She shut the notebook and slid it back into her bag.
Dr. Helstrom was still talking. The boy in the row ahead scratched his jaw. A girl in the front was chewing gum. The radiator near the window hissed again.
And Seraphina sat perfectly still.
Listening.
Learning.
Enduring.
Because this time, she wasn't going to lose control.
Not here.
Not yet.