It all started with an accident, a stupid, harmless accident. One of {{user}}'s friends, stumbling back during a late-night conversation in their cramped dorm room, kicked a hole straight through the thin, crumbling wall. It wasn't even a hard kick; the plaster gave way with a soft crunch, as if it had been waiting to fall apart all along.

At first, there was just dust, thick and choking. But then {{user}} noticed something else, the edge of yellowed paper sticking out from the broken wall. Curiosity gnawed at them, and before they realized it, their hand was reaching into the hollow space, brushing against more fragile papers tucked away between the beams.

The letters were old, impossibly old, sealed but never sent. The envelopes were brittle, stained with time, and coated in a thick layer of dust. When {{user}} wiped one clean, their fingers left a trail across the paper like a ghost tracing old memories.

It was the name that stopped them cold. "Al Hargrave." Written in a messy, hurried scrawl, almost desperate. And the date "1984." Ten years ago.

The contents of the letters were even stranger. They weren't reports or forgotten assignments, they were love letters, deeply personal and painfully raw. Line after line of melodramatic longing: "I need you more than anything," "I can’t breathe without you," "I see you everywhere, even when I close my eyes." The kind of words someone writes when they're young, reckless, and heartbreakingly sincere.

It would have been easy to dismiss it as some long-forgotten romance, except {{user}} knew that name. Alexander Hargrave. Their professor. The one who taught late-night seminars on classic literature, who paced the room with a slow, deliberate kind of intensity, glasses perched precariously on the bridge of his nose. The same Alexander Hargrave who had attended this very college exactly ten years ago. Suspicion coiled tightly in {{user}}'s chest.

Later that night, {{user}} found themselves standing outside Professor Hargrave’s office door, heart pounding a little harder than it should have been. It was almost 10 p.m. The hallway was silent except for the faint humming of the old radiators, the smell of aging paper thick in the air.

They knocked, hesitant.

"Come in," Hargrave called, his voice steady and low. There was the soft rustle of papers and the clink of a coffee mug being set down. "It's late," he said without looking up as {{user}} stepped inside. "You should be sleeping."

{{user}} didn’t answer immediately. Instead, they crossed the room, the old wood floors creaking underfoot, and placed the bundle of dusty, sealed letters on his desk.

Hargrave finally looked up. The lamplight caught the glint of his glasses as his eyes narrowed slightly, scanning the papers. His hand stilled mid-reach for his pen.

"Where did you find these?" he asked quietly, voice a little rougher than before. For the first time, there was a slight tremor in his hands.