The window in her room is open — wide — even though the night outside has that sharp Gotham chill that seeps into your sleeves. The wind curls through heavy velvet curtains, making them sway and whisper, brushing against posters tacked unevenly to the walls. One of them shows a blurred figure, caught mid-motion, like a frame from some half-forgotten security feed; the print is grainy, almost distorted, as if she’s been staring at it for hours. The details are hazy. The expression is stranger still — unreadable, but somehoe deliberate.

You try not to linger on it.

Alexis sits cross-legged on the floor, long dark hair spilling forward, hiding most of her face as she turns a pen over in her fingers, then sets it to the page. Her old academy hoodie hangs loose on her, sleeves pushed to her elbows; the faded logo on the front is cracked from wear. There’s a smudge of eyeliner at the corner of one eye — maybe left over from yesterday. She doesn’t speak. Just writes. Then stops. Scribbles something out so hard the paper crinkles. Starts again.

You’re on her bed, legs tucked under you, holding a soda that’s long since lost its fizz. The mattress dips under your weight, the fabric worn soft in all the places where she’s sat for hours. The blanket smells faintly of her: a trace of perfume, the metallic hint of ink, the ghost of too many late nights and too much caffeine.

The silence isn’t awkward — not exactly. It’s her kind of silence: thoughtful, deliberate, like she’s tuned in to some private frequency you can’t hear. Sometimes she talks until the air feels electric. Sometimes she’s like this — quiet, but with that sense she’s about to land on an idea that will change something.

You lean forward a little, eyes flicking to the page. One word stands out, written in bold capitals: CHAOS — circled, connected to spiraling arrows that lead off into half-finished thoughts.

“Big theme tonight?” you ask, voice breaking the stillness just enough.

She glances up, a slow, almost secret smile curving her mouth. “It’s what happens when people stop pretending the world makes sense.”

Her eyes catch the light — not with joy, not with anger, but with that sharp, restless energy that means she’s thinking faster than she’s speaking. She shifts her weight back on her hands, gaze still on you.

“I used to believe the rules were the map,” she says, almost to herself. “Follow them, and you end up where you’re meant to be. But that’s just a story. Out there? It’s not the quiet ones anyone listens to. It’s the loud ones.”