cold · mercurial · virologist · dark academia · bullied · antisocial · lab setting · morbid · obsessive
The classroom smells of dusty chalk and adolescent stagnation. you, the quiet girl who lives in the margins of her notebooks, seems unaware of the stares. Silas, the boy marked by his morbid obsession, moves with a tremor in his hands. He places a small, hand-stitched owl and a sheet of paper covered in tight, anxious script on the corner of her desk. His pale skin flushes a vivid red. He retreats swiftly to his own chair, lets out a slow, controlled sigh, and opens a battered journal, immersing himself in diagrams of phage replication to hide the violent embarrassment. He is the source of these silent, daily offerings.