The campus felt strange today, as if something in the air had shifted. Everything seemed sharper, brighter, with edges that stood out more than usual. Even the sun seemed harsh, shining too directly, as though trying to expose something hiding in the shadows.
Ginny felt it in the way people looked at her as she walked, quick glances that lingered just a little too long. They seemed to know something she didn't, or at least thought they did.
She kept her head down, pulling her bag close, hoping to shake the feeling off as she hurried to class. Yet the sensation clung to her, wrapping around her like an invisible net.
As she slid into her seat, Ginny tried to focus, ignoring the prickling tension under her skin. Her fingers tapped against her bag as she checked her phone, half hoping—and dreading—that there would be another message from that unknown number.
But there was nothing. The silence was almost worse than the messages, leaving her to wonder what was coming next. Don't be late, Ginny, the last message had said, and the words lingered in her mind, unsettling and cryptic.
"Alright, everyone," the professor's voice cut through her thoughts. "Today we'll start with an in-class exercise. Simple machine learning model from scratch—a linear regression will do."
She blinked, trying to clear her mind.
This should be easy, straightforward, the kind of coding she could do without even thinking. But as she stared at the blank screen, her thoughts spun in circles, each line of code slipping from her mind before she could finish typing it. Her fingers hovered over the keys, frozen, the logic she normally relied on feeling foreign and fragmented.
Time slipped by.
Around her, the steady tap of keyboards filled the room as her classmates worked. Ginny took a deep breath, trying to gather herself, but her mind refused to settle.
Her eyes drifted to her phone again, the empty notification bar somehow more unsettling than if it had been full.
Then, suddenly, class was over.
Ginny's heart sank as she realized she hadn't finished.
Not even close.
The professor moved through the aisles, pausing at her desk, his eyebrows drawing together as he glanced at her half-finished code.
He gave her a look—disappointed but patient.
"Looks like you're a bit distracted today, Miss Fairchild. I'm assigning this as homework for you. Due tomorrow."
Ginny nodded, swallowing hard. Her face felt hot, and she couldn't shake the feeling that everyone else had noticed too.
As she packed up her things, Ginny felt eyes on her again. She hurried out of the room, trying to ignore the whispers that seemed to follow her, weaving into a tension she couldn't shake.
And as she stepped into the hallway, someone collided into her with an excited yelp, a voice spilling over with that strange mixture of confidence and nervous energy.
"Oh, Ginny! Finally!"
"Luce," she muttered, trying to keep her voice steady. "Now's…not the best time."
But Lucy was already leaning in, her eyes bright with an intensity that made Ginny's discomfort grow. She held up a small notebook, flipping through its pages with rapid fingers, her voice bubbling over in excitement.
"Oh, I won't keep you long!" she said, her words tumbling out in a rush. "Just wanted to see if you'd thought about what we talked about. You know, the case?"
Ginny sighed, glancing away. "Luce, I—"
"Great, that's perfect!" Lucy interrupted, her grin widening as she clasped her notebook to her chest. "I knew you'd come around! I figured I'd just stick by you until you have a free moment. It's not like you're rushing off somewhere, right?"
Ginny opened her mouth to argue, but she couldn't deny the strange relief she felt in having someone beside her, even if that someone was Lucy. Her chatter, irritating as it could be, was better than the silence, the heavy, creeping quiet that seemed to follow Ginny everywhere lately.
"Fine," Ginny said, rolling her eyes. "But only for a bit."
"Absolutely!" she beamed, eyes gleaming with excitement. "Oh, I knew you'd come around! I mean, why wouldn't you?"
Lucy grabbed Ginny's arm and led her to a spot by the university track. The steady rhythm of footsteps and soft chatter provided a comforting backdrop, a strange contrast to the intensity radiating from Lucy.
They settled on the grass, Ginny opening her laptop and trying to pick up where she'd left off in class.
Next to her, Lucy laid out an assortment of items—a camera, a notebook, and a stack of photos, carefully organized. She stayed quiet for once, watching Ginny with an intensity that made her feel like a lab specimen.
The silence grew heavy, and finally, Ginny couldn't take it anymore.
"What are you working on?"
Lucy's head snapped up, and her eyes lit up like she'd been waiting for Ginny to ask. She held up a stack of printed photos, fanning them out like cards, each one a high-contrast snapshot of people walking by in loose white clothing, their faces downturned toward their phones.
"See these?" Lucy said, her voice pitched with excitement. She edged closer, her shoulder brushing against Ginny's as she placed the photos in her lap. "I've been documenting this strange pattern I noticed around campus, particularly near the university chapel."
Ginny looked at the photos, flipping through them slowly.
In each shot, there was a person dressed in white—button-ups, plain T-shirts, flowing white skirts. They were looking down, heads bent, as if glued to their phones.
"It's just people on their phones," Ginny said. "What's the big deal?"
Lucy leaned in closer, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial whisper, her lips curving in a small smile.
"That's what I thought too. Just your average group of students, right?" She paused, her eyes flickering with a spark of something unsettling. "But then I noticed something."
Lucy dug into her bag again, her fingers moving quickly, retrieving a tablet and switching it on. She scrolled through her photo gallery with practiced ease until she landed on one particular image, the screen's brightness casting an eerie glow over her face.
Slowly, she zoomed in on a close-up of one of the figures—a young man with a white shirt tucked into slacks, his face angled down, completely absorbed by whatever was on his phone.
Or at least, that's what one would think at first.
As Lucy zoomed in further, Ginny realized something was wrong.
The phone screen was blank. Completely black, no icons, no glow, not even the faintest outline of text or image.
The people in the photos weren't looking at anything—just staring down at an empty, unlit screen.
"What…"
Ginny's stomach twisted as she flipped back through the other images, now noticing the same detail in each one. Blank screens, every single one of them, yet each person was staring down intently, as if there were something to see, something only they could understand.
Lucy glanced over at her, smile widening, though there was no humor in it.
"Strange, right?" Lucy said softly, her voice tinged with something almost reverent. "They're not looking at anything. And yet… there they are, every day, around the chapel, just staring down at those blank screens."
Lucy reached down into her bag again and pulled out another stack of photos, each one carefully placed and organized. She began laying them out in front of them, aligning each image side by side with meticulous precision.
"Look closer," she murmured, barely glancing up from the photos as she arranged them. "There's something else I didn't notice at first, but once I saw it, I couldn't unsee it."
Ginny leaned forward, narrowing her gaze as she tried to understand what Lucy meant.
In each photograph, a different person held their phone in the same way—gripping it with both hands, fingers crossed at the bottom, almost as if they were holding it in a position of prayer.
The detail was easy to miss, something one wouldn't think twice about. But now, with each photo laid out in front of her, the similarities started to feel unsettling, eerie in their precision.
Lucy picked up one of the photos, and pointed with her fingertip.
"Look here," she whispered, her voice so soft it barely broke the silence. "Each of them has this… this tattoo."
It took a moment to register, but there it was—a faint, almost ghostly pattern on each of their hands. Black ink curled in twisting shapes, delicate tendrils snaking around each finger, almost too light to notice.
Lucy reached over, carefully arranging the photos into a circle, layering one on top of another, letting the images blend into a single, haunting composition.
Then, she sat back, her expression one of satisfaction, like she'd just revealed a masterpiece. Slowly, she traced her finger around the perimeter of the photos, gesturing for Ginny to look at the whole picture she'd created.
And then Ginny saw it.
When the hands overlapped, when the tattoos connected in this careful, deliberate arrangement, they formed a shape—a sprawling, ghostly figure, its shape unmistakable. The tendrils stretched out, connecting each hand like the limbs of a creature reaching through the photographs, creating a silhouette.
An octopus.