Lin Mei kept her eyelids squeezed shut until red and violet phantom spots danced in the blackness behind her pupils.
In the complete dark, her other senses sharpened to razor points.
She could smell the damp wool of Conductor 00’s navy serge jacket, heavy with the stench of stagnant river water and burnt motor oil. She could smell the stale ozone humming off the register tubes and the sharp, powdery bite of Proctor Bell’s crimson chalk dust hanging in the air like smoke.
And right between her ears, she could hear the mechanical ticking of Conductor 00’s stopwatch, sweeping toward zero with the steady rhythm of a guillotine blade.
Tick. Tick. Tick.
Every second felt like an hour.
During her forty-four looping nights in Oakhaven Dormitory #7, Lin Mei had learned that time inside an academic anomaly was not a straight line. It was an elastic band stretched over sharp iron pegs. If your mind slipped for a single heartbeat, the proctor’s red chalk took your name off the roster forever.
You woke up in the third-floor punishment cell with your hands tied to the bedframe and an exam booklet waiting on your chest.
