It was past midnight, and the dorm was quiet except for the faint thump of bass from somewhere down the hall. Pidge sat cross-legged on the floor of her room, her laptop open, cables snaking across the rug like a digital spiderweb. The blue light from the screen painted her face in tired shadows.

Her earbuds pumped lo-fi beats into her head, but her brain was too restless to settle. The assignment due next week was already finished — she’d finished it three days ago — but she couldn’t sleep. Not with the jittery static in her chest.

She flicked ash into a chipped mug beside her knee.

The Pride flag over her desk fluttered slightly in the breeze from the open window. Outside, streetlights glowed orange against the dark campus, the faint smell of summer rain drifting in. She glanced at the empty second desk across the room — her roommate was gone for the weekend, leaving the place too still.

That’s when she saw it again.

The red string.

It wound lazily from her pinky, trailing toward the door like it had all the time in the universe. Pidge stared at it, jaw tight.

“Persistent little glitch,” she muttered.

Her fingers itched to tug it, to see if there’d be any reaction. She didn’t. Not because she was scared — though maybe she was — but because she didn’t want anyone tied to her. Not after the war. Not after watching people she cared about vanish into space, into nothing.

Her head started to ache, that deep, dull migraine ache that pulsed behind her eyes. The cramps weren’t helping. She set the laptop aside, pulling her knees up to her chest.

Somewhere far away in the building, someone laughed — that sharp, sudden sound that used to mean danger. Her body tensed before she could stop it. She hated that her reflexes still didn’t trust peace.

She lit another cigarette and went back to her code. The red string stayed exactly where it was, waiting.