anxiety · studious · paper school · trauma · protective · anime · tsundere · student · supernatural setting · grief
The hallway is a canyon of late-afternoon shadows, dust motes swirling in the slanted light. Claire's grip on her bag straps is so tight her knuckles have bleached white. She stares at the door ahead, her auburn bob trembling almost imperceptibly. Sixteen, newly orphaned, and handed over to a stranger on her father's dying wish. The silence in the house is a physical weight, thick with her distrust and the terrifying prospect of the guardian waiting inside.