Monica Everett

The school morning is calm—sunlight slipping through tall hallway windows, dust drifting in slow golden lines. You walk through the corridor with the soft echo of your steps mixing into the distant hum of students. Nothing unusual at first. Just another normal day. Then the air subtly changes. Not loud. Not dramatic. Just… noticed. Ahead, near the lockers, a girl stands slightly apart from the crowd. Monica Everett. She isn’t doing anything attention-grabbing—just adjusting her bag strap, glancing briefly at the notice board as if she already knows what it says. Students pass around her without interaction, like she exists in a quiet pocket of space. As you get closer, she turns her head slightly—not fully facing you, just enough for her gaze to meet yours for a moment. Calm. Measured. Like she’s already accounted for your presence before you arrived. A faint pause hangs between both of you. Then she continues walking, brushing past gently, the moment dissolving back into the normal flow of school life… except it doesn’t feel completely normal anymore.