The mid-afternoon sun slanted across the Northwood Crest campus, bathing the red-brick buildings and manicured grounds in a lazy, golden light. The debate club session had just ended, and a murmur of lively conversations and laughter spilled from the double doors of Hamilton Conference Hall. Students, released from academic rigidity, formed small groups on the esplanade, dissecting arguments, planning their afternoons, or simply enjoying the warm air. Amid the crowd, they stood out, gathering notes with a calm that contrasted with the chaotic energy around them. Their reputation preceded them: brilliant, articulate, one of the few minds on campus perceived as a legitimate intellectual challenge.

That's when they saw her. Or rather, they noticed the strange stillness in the midst of the movement. Set apart from the main flow of students, near a concrete planter whose edge served as a makeshift rail for skateboarders, was a hunched figure. Estelle Sagan Hayes. Her unofficial uniform—faded jeans, a black hoodie that seemed to absorb the sunlight, and a pair of Converse covered in indecipherable doodles—made her unmistakable. Her canvas backpack, stuffed to the brim, hung precariously from one shoulder, and her skateboard lay at her feet. But she wasn't going anywhere. She was frozen in a state of such total absorption that she seemed to have erected an invisible wall around herself.

Her Canon camera was pressed to her face, her right eye to the viewfinder, her left squeezed shut. She was kneeling in an awkward position, almost prostrate over a crack in the pavement, with an intensity one would reserve for documenting a historical event or capturing the soul of a complex portrait. Curiosity got the better of them. They took a few steps closer, following her line of sight, expecting to find some exotic insect or a particularly interesting play of light. But no. The object of her photographic devotion was a small yellow flower, a stubborn dandelion that had managed to push its way through the asphalt, a "weed" that the campus maintenance crew would pull without a second thought. To Estelle, however, it appeared to be the Sistine Chapel. The soft, precise click of the shutter sounded several times, a sound almost inaudible beneath the general murmur, but to her, it was the only noise in the universe.

At that moment, as if sensing a disturbance in the force of her concentration, she looked up. Her brown eyes, unfocused for an instant, met theirs. And Estelle's universe shattered. Recognition was instantaneous, followed by a wave of pure panic that shot through her body like an electric shock. Her brain, capable of processing quantum physics equations, suffered a catastrophic short-circuit. The delicate balance she maintained on her skateboard vanished. Her foot stumbled on a wheel, her arms flailed in a useless, comical attempt to regain stability, and she collapsed sideways with the grace of a newborn fawn on ice. The impact was a dull, painful thud, a collision of bone and fabric against the hard pavement. Her skateboard shot out, spinning to a halt several feet away.

A momentary silence was followed by what she feared most: laughter. First, a stifled giggle, then another, and soon a chorus of murmurs and taunts spread among the nearby groups of students. "Nice trip!""Did you see Hayes?""What a freak." Each word was a needle piercing her already battered self-esteem. But the physical pain of her scraped elbow and hip was nothing compared to the searing humiliation creeping up her neck. A violent, almost purple blush stained her cheeks and ears. Her first reaction wasn't to rub her wounds, but to protect her treasure. With a desperate move, she curled over the camera, shielding the LCD screen with her body as if it held state secrets, as if it were an extension of her naked soul that she couldn't let anyone see.

From the ground, she looked up, and her terrified eyes searched for theirs through the sea of legs and smirking faces. There was panic in them, a silent, desperate plea. She wanted the earth to swallow her whole, but above all, she wanted to know what they saw. Pity? Amusement? Disgust? Her paranoid, anxious mind was already whispering the worst-case scenarios.

"I... uh... was..." she began, her voice a choked stammer as she tried to get to her feet, still clutching the camera against her chest. The clumsiness of her movements only provoked more snickers. "It's for the paper. The... the angle. The light... it was... it was a study in texture, a-and urban resilience..." The words tumbled out, a technical, convoluted explanation that only made her seem stranger, more pathetic to the eyes of the crowd.

And then, the atmosphere shifted. A shadow fell over her. The alpha predator of the social ecosystem had smelled blood in the water.

"Well, well, Stell. Making friends with the pavement again?" Arvadis Verdandi's voice was a mix of silk and venom, falsely playful, but with a cutting edge that only Estelle could feel in its full force. Arvadis pushed through the crowd with the confidence of someone who owned the place, her athletic figure and arrogant smirk the walking antithesis of Estelle. She stopped right in front of her, looking down at the girl curled up on the ground.

"What you got there, freak? Artistic photos of your ant friends?" Arvadis said, and the crowd laughed, now with her, not at Estelle. It was a subtle but crucial difference. Arvadis held out her hand. "Here, let me see that masterpiece. Maybe it's worthy of the cover of 'Freaks Weekly'."

"No," Estelle whispered, the word barely audible, but laced with a mix of terror and defiance. She clutched the camera tighter against her sternum. It was the only coherent word her panicked brain could formulate. "Leave me alone, Arvadis."

Arvadis's smile vanished, replaced by a mask of irritation. The refusal, however weak, was an affront to her authority. Her "game" was over.

"What did you say?" she hissed, her voice dropping an octave, becoming dangerous. She crouched slightly, invading Estelle's space even more. "I said, show it to me."

"No."

The movement was swift, brutal, and devoid of any theatrics. The toe of Arvadis's sneaker, an expensive, gleaming Nike, slammed into Estelle's ribs. The blow wasn't designed for show; it was designed to hurt. A dry, muffled thump resonated, and all the air rushed out of Estelle's lungs in a sharp, wheezing gasp. Pain bloomed in her side, sharp and radiating. She doubled over, an animal instinct to protect herself from the next blow.

"I asked you a question, Plank Hayes," Arvadis said, her voice now cold and devoid of any trace of humor. She kicked her again, this time in the thigh, hard enough to leave a deep, dark bruise. "When I talk to you, you answer me. And when I ask for something, you give it to me. Or did the fall make you forget our rules?"

Estelle didn't answer. She couldn't. Her world had shrunk to three things: the stabbing pain in her side, the unbearable pressure of the camera against her chest, and their face, watching from the periphery, their expression now unreadable to her mind, which was swamped with pain and panic.