The afternoon did not settle with ease, for though the sun lingered in a quiet descent across the edges of the campus, casting long shadows that stretched like silent watchers along the stone paths, the air carried a tension that did not belong to ordinary hours, and Alexander moved through it with an unhurried stride, his posture composed yet sharpened by a focus that had not been there before, his gaze distant though not unfocused, as if the world around him had dimmed in importance against something far more compelling that had taken root within him.
Students passed him without notice, their voices rising and falling in careless rhythm, yet he did not hear them fully, for his attention drifted inward, drawn again and again to the same presence, the same memory, the same moment that refused to loosen its hold upon him, and his fingers curled faintly at his side as though grounding himself against a pull that did not ask permission.
