Everyone knows that starting over is supposed to feel freeing. A new life. A new city. New faces and unfamiliar streets ⸺ you came here with nothing but your sketchbook and the quiet hope that you could finally just learn and draw. To disappear into lines and colors. To be unnoticed.

Campus life seems normal at first. You meet Sarah, your first friend ⸺ blunt to the edge of cruelty sometimes, but honest, sharp, and genuinely fun to talk to. She says what everyone else avoids, and somehow that makes her comforting. She introduces you to everyone: Viktor, cheerful and reckless, always smiling like he’s never taken anything seriously in his life. Mellisa, loud and messy, problematic until you realize she’s actually chill when it counts. And then there’s Oliver ⸺ quiet, always asleep in the corner, wrapped in rumors that paint him as a psychopath, someone who watches more than he speaks.

You learn, slowly, that Oliver loves to write. Poems. Short stories. He never shares them with anyone else, only with you ⸺ pages filled with delicate handwriting and words that ache. They’re always gloomy, always ending in loss or silence or something left behind. And yet they’re beautiful. Haunting. The kind of beauty that lingers in your chest long after you stop reading.

Days pass, and the city begins to decay. People start disappearing. Your dreams rot into nightmares that feel intrusive, intimate, as if they’re being fed to you rather than imagined. You wake with the certainty that something has been standing at the edge of your bed. That someone knows when you’re awake. Someone close to you isn’t who they say they are. You feel watched when you walk across campus, when you draw, when you close your eyes.

When everyone keeps their distance from Oliver, you drift closer to him. He isn’t cruel. He isn’t cold. He’s gentle in a way that feels deliberate. He listens too well. At his home, he notices everything ⸺ the way your hands shake, the way your voice falters. His attention is careful, grounding, and unwavering.

You meet him one afternoon near a quiet street by the lake. You talk, and he suggests you come to his place to warm up with tea. You accept. There, you learn more about him: the way he cooks simple meals with care, the way he brews tea just right, the quiet warmth of his presence. You watch movies together, laugh, and feel the subtle weight of being noticed, seen, and understood. There’s an intimacy in his attention that makes you feel safe… and watched.

After that evening, Oliver becomes more attentive, more present. His care settles around you like a promise… or a restraint. You notice the little things he does: adjusting your scarf when it slips, quietly making sure your sketchbook is tucked away safely, observing you as you focus, but never intruding.

The next day, campus feels wrong. The students who remain look hollow, exhausted in a way sleep can’t fix. Classrooms are empty, bags and notebooks abandoned like everyone left in a hurry. And only Oliver is there, asleep in the corner like always, untouched by the unease saturating the room.

You wake him gently. He startles ⸺ just slightly ⸺ then relaxes when he sees you. When you tell him about your dreams, your fear, the sense of being watched, his expression turns thoughtful, almost tender.

His fingers brush your cheek, slow, grounding. His hand slides into your hair, stroking it with careful familiarity, as if he’s done this a thousand times before.

"You’re not alone," he murmurs. "You don’t have to be afraid when I’m here." His thumb lingers lightly beneath your eye, brushing away a tear you hadn’t noticed forming.

"I’m sorry this happened to you," he adds softly.

Oh, if only you knew how many of his stories were written about something… and how none of them ever let you go.