CHAPTER 143: GORGEOUS PALE NINJA

Clark POV:

I leaned back, a grin creeping onto my face. Months of planning, sleepless nights, nervous pacing, and second guesses—worth it. Every second of it. I slammed the laptop shut and zipped it back into my bag.

Time to head to registration and meet up with Sara.

But as I stood up, brushing imaginary dust off my jeans, my mind flickered back to that weird guy again—the senior who’d just... appeared out of nowhere.

His voice had rattled something in me, and his eyes—that yellowish ring around his pupil—it wasn’t right.

It lingered in my mind.

Almost glowing.

But I shook it off. Had to. People said university pressure was brutal. The stories online about students collapsing under stress, popping Adderall or worse just to survive exams? Everywhere.

That guy?

Probably high.

Probably a fourth-year junkie spiraling on the edge of graduation failure.

Yeah. That’s all it was. His crazy warning? Just drug-addled nonsense. The kind of stuff Clare would’ve laughed off while chewing potato chips in my bed and yelling at me to stop being a "walking anxiety."

I laughed a little under my breath at the thought.

But still... something itched in my brain. Not fear—not quite—but something close.

Like a whisper I couldn’t quite hear.

As I walked back into the main quad area, the sun hit my face again, blinding for a second. The crowd of students had thickened, everyone rushing to get their ID badges and dorm assignments. Laughter filled the air. People lugged suitcases and waved at friends. Some were already forming little groups—pockets of excitement bubbling everywhere.

But the tension under my skin wouldn’t go away.

Everything looked fine.

Too fine.

That same feeling I’d had at the airport crept back in. The way some people—mostly the ones who looked like they’d been carved from marble—stared at the rest of us. The way their eyes tracked movement just a second too long. The way their smiles never quite reached their eyes.

And those pale ones...

I saw one now, across the crowd. A guy with sunken cheeks and a face so pale he looked powdered. His gaze locked on me—and didn’t look away.

Not even when I turned my head.

Not even when I started walking.

My skin prickled. My steps quickened. Sara. I just needed to find Sara.

There—she waved near the admissions desk, bouncing on her heels.

********

We had to split again.

Apparently, the registration was done separately—girls on the east side of the admissions hall, guys on the west. I followed the signs reluctantly, watching as Sara’s ponytail bounced out of sight. We didn’t even get to say a proper goodbye—just a thumbs-up across the crowd and a mouthed "See you soon."

Inside the boys’ line, the tension came creeping back. The hallway was quieter here. No excited chatter. Just this sterile silence, like a hospital ward after hours. The walls were too white. Not cream. Not off-white. Just... white, like bone.

The staff member handling my end of the desk was a redhead. Not just any redhead—the redhead. The kind that didn’t belong behind a counter. She was too symmetrical, her cheekbones unnaturally perfect, lips the color of bruised roses. Her pale skin didn’t look sickly—it looked sculpted. Glossy. As if light had to ask permission before touching her.

She looked like a face from TV screens or magazine covers. Maybe even off the poster of a cult horror flick. Definitely not a front-desk worker.

As she skimmed the forms of the guy ahead of me, I noticed she didn’t blink. Like, at all. Not even when she smiled.

Finally, it was my turn.

She glanced up, those ice-blue eyes locking onto mine, and for a moment, I felt like I’d been caught doing something illegal—which, to be fair, I had. Her lips curled, and she tilted her head just slightly.

"You smell... delicious," she said.

I blinked. "Uh... what?"

She didn’t answer. Just stretched out one pale, manicured hand toward me, fingers too long and too smooth, like porcelain that never chipped.

I handed over my admission documents. She took them delicately between her fingers and brought them to her nose.

Yes. She smelled them.

Her nostrils flared faintly as she inhaled, lips parting just enough for me to catch the word she whispered—not aloud, just under her breath.

"Delicious."

I froze.

I mean, who does that?

I stared at her, waiting for a punchline. But nothing came. She just smiled that same strange, knowing smile and turned to her computer.

Okay. Maybe it was the cologne. Or the fact that I smelled like airplane sweat and stress. Or... maybe this place was just full of eccentric staff with boundary issues. I chalked it up to the same rule I’d been repeating since the airport: New place. New people. New weird.

Still, the hair on the back of my neck wouldn’t go down.

I stayed leaning over the counter, pretending to look busy with my phone. But really, I was watching her fingers dance across the keyboard, impossibly fast. Like she wasn’t typing, more like... translating.

Finally, she frowned.

"Hm," she said. "There’s a bit of an issue."

Of course there was.

I leaned closer. "What kind of issue?"

"Well, according to the housing system, you’ve been placed in the East Wing... which is the girls’ dormitory."

Fuck.

I felt the blood drain from my face.

Of all the details to overlook during my hack—the dorm assignment was the one I missed? Stupid. Stupid. I could practically hear Clare’s voice in my head, mocking me.

"You changed the name and gender, Clark, but forgot the housing tag? Amateur."

The redhead smiled wider, like she could hear my thoughts unraveling.

"No worries," she said sweetly, still not blinking. "I’ll just have to find an open bed in the male wing. Shouldn’t take too long."

Her fingers moved again, but this time... slower. Deliberate. Almost playful.

While she worked, I looked over my shoulder. The other staff that weren’t on the counter were busy overlooking the new students like flocks of sheeps. They were just... watching the students. Smiling. Unmoving.

The kid two spots down from me dropped his ID card. When he bent to pick it up, I saw his hands shaking. I wasn’t the only one feeling this.

Something was off.

The silence. The unnatural staff. The way they looked at us—like we weren’t just students. Like we were guests. Or... deliveries.

My gaze snapped back to the redhead as she let out a soft hum. "Found one. West Hall, Room 304. You’ll be sharing with another freshman."

"Great," I said quickly. "Thanks."

But she didn’t hand me the keycard. Not yet.

Instead, she leaned forward slightly, and her breath was cold when it brushed my wrist.

"Be careful in the showers," she whispered, voice low and amused. "They... get slippery."

I snatched the keycard the second she slid it across the counter.

She winked.

I backed away slowly.

As soon as I was clear of the admissions hall, I ducked behind a column near the main courtyard. I had to breathe. Deeply. My chest felt tight. My hands shook slightly.

This place. This whole place was not what it looked like online.

Sure, Memoville had the architecture of a dream. Gothic towers, sweeping courtyards, ivy-wrapped columns. But there was something rotting beneath the glamour. Something... wrong.

The people were too perfect. The air smelled too clean. The staff too calm.

And the redhead?

She didn’t blink once.

I texted Sara.

’Got my dorm assignment. West Hall 304. You?’

She replied a minute later.

East Wing 109. My roommate seems nice but talks in third person. Creepy. You okay?’

’Yeah. Just... weird vibes.’

’You too??? I thought I was going crazy.’

’We’ll talk later. Meet after orientation?’

’Deal. Don’t get eaten or anything ’

I stared at the skull emoji for a long moment.

Too late for that.

If I was right, something was already chewing at the edges of my mind.

And maybe—just maybe—it had started the second I stepped off that plane.

********

So here I was—genius hacker, grade-A meddler, and now, officially lost.

I had Google Maps open, but let’s be honest: it was as useful as a fork at a soup bar. Memoville’s layout didn’t make sense. I swear the GPS showed my blue dot turning in circles even when I wasn’t moving. Like the hallways were... shifting. Laughing behind my back.

One flaw in my otherwise brilliant brain is that I suck at directions. Always have. Clare used to guide me even with printed maps. And now, because of my delay at the registration desk (and my unexpected perfume rave review), the guy ahead of me had vanished into the stone maze that was this campus.

Now I stood in the middle of a hallway that forked in two directions. Both identical. No signs. No voices. Just two dimly lit corridors stretching into God-knows-where.

So I decided to wait.

There had been a boy behind me at the desk—another new student. Maybe we could figure it out together. Two heads are better than one, right?

But just as I thought that, something shifted.

A weird coldness crept along the back of my neck. Not like the chill of air conditioning. More like... something exhaled on my skin.

Then—swish. A rush of wind that wasn’t wind.

I spun around, startled, and nearly screamed.

Behind me stood a tall boy. Older—maybe twenty or twenty-one. He wasn’t just tall; he loomed. His skin was pale—like candle wax. Not sickly, just... untouched. Porcelain. Hair jet-black and slicked back neatly. His eyes were the deepest shade of gray I’d ever seen, almost silver under the fluorescent lights.

Another one of the flawless natives, clearly. I swear if Clare were here, she’d have tripped over her own feet just to ask for his number.

But here’s the thing: I didn’t hear him walk up. At all.

One second, I was alone.

The next—he was just there.

He stared down at me with this lazy, knowing smirk. One corner of his mouth curved upward like he already knew the punchline to some cosmic joke and I was the punchline.

"Lost, little lamb?" he asked.

That voice.

It was smooth, rich, but dry—like static on a radio right before it crackles. And completely unfazed by my earlier yelp and jump when he scared the hell out of me.

"Dude," I said, placing a hand on my chest to calm my heart. "You scared the life out of me."

He tilted his head, not apologizing. Just studying me.

Studying me like he was... taking stock.