Ava: Sporelight

By morning the cafeteria pretended nothing had happened. The foam was gone. Tables stood in straight rows. The floors shone in long, clean lanes under the lights. New signs waited where old ones had been: REPORT HAZARDS. KEEP MASKS ON IN SHARED SPACES. The tone was firmer, as if the building had raised its voice without meaning to.

Order returned quickly. Quiet did not.

Stories walked ahead of Aeris down the corridor. A dare. A planted test. A kitchen worker’s mistake. A visiting inspector with a bad label. In one version a line leader pulled three students to safety. In another, Instructor Idris vaulted tables. Every version kept the same detail: a girl stepped into the shimmer and pulled someone out.

Aeris kept her face ordinary. Hair braided tight. Sleeves long. If she held her breath even for a second, she could still feel the idea of golden light under her skin. She let it pass.

Sera matched her stride. That was Sera’s talent—effort that looked like ease.
“They’re saying the cloud moved around you,” she murmured.

“Air moves around bodies,” Aeris said. “We did the dye-tank unit.”

Sera gave her a look that meant, I asked for you, not the lesson.
“You were brave.”

Aeris looked down, searching for words. “I didn’t think,” she said quietly. “It just… happened so fast. My body moved before I really knew what I was doing.”

The announcement screen at the hall doors scrolled through its careful lines: INVESTIGATION IN PROGRESS. IF YOU SAW SOMETHING, TELL YOUR PROCTOR. INFIRMARY HOURS EXTENDED.

Idris took the mic at assembly. He looked the same as always—wind-burnished, steady.
“Yesterday was frightening,” he said. “You kept your masks on. You followed staff. That helped.” He let that sit. “We’re reviewing how a vial made it past checks. If you heard anything, say it. If you feel unwell, come to the infirmary. Reporting is not trouble. It’s care.”

No bark. No drill voice. Just the plain weight of an adult who knew how rooms like this moved.

On the way out, Rowan stepped into Aeris’s path without touching her. Not unkind. Exact.
“You left your row,” Rowan said. “Three people hesitated when you did.”

“I didn’t plan it,” Aeris said. “He was choking and—” She tapped two fingers against her ribs. “My body moved first. It felt like the floor tilted.”

Rowan studied her, as if she’d just seen a piece that didn’t fit the pattern she trusted.
“Then call it while you move,” she said. “People copy the first motion they trust. Make sure you mean to be first.”

Sera slid closer. “You stepped in. That’s what mattered.”

I didn’t say it wasn’t," Rowan said. Her voice stayed level, but there was a tension in it. "Look, I know you’ve probably heard the same stories about Ava that everyone else has. Her name comes up in many protocol reviews. People talk about how she did things no one else would try, how she bent the rules because she could get away with it. I get why people look up to her. But those stories—they’re more myth than map. We’re not her. We’re not built for the same risks. Just—call it if you move. Don’t make people guess what you’re doing. It keeps the rest of us safer.

The name cut deeper than Aeris expected. For a second, something sharp twisted under her ribs—sadness, yes, but something like annoyance, too. Rowan talked about Ava like she belonged to the world, like all her stories lived in briefings and protocol reviews, as if Aeris herself hadn’t known the real person: the quiet humming while chopping herbs, the fierce love that lived in a gentle touch. Missing her parents ached in a place she couldn’t show. And now, with Rowan watching, she bit back a prickly urge to say, you didn’t know her—not the way I did. She blinked hard, holding the sting inside until it faded to something she could carry.

Rowan’s composure slipped for a heartbeat. “Hey,” she said, quieter. “I didn’t mean it as a dare. I just… don’t want anyone getting hurt trying to prove a legend true.”

Aeris swallowed, found her voice, and kept it level. “I understand.”

Rowan glanced once more at Aeris’s sleeves, surprised by the reaction she’d caused, then stepped aside with a nod and moved on, already looking for where the room might fail.

Sera watched her go. “She files reports in her dreams.”

“Someone has to balance the ledgers,” Aeris said. The words sounded almost fond.

The infirmary smelled like lemon cleaner and tea leaves. Jenna had dimmed the glass so the light went soft instead of cold. She waited for Aeris to sit before she reached for the slate.

“Tell me how it felt,” she said. Not what everyone said. Not what you think it means. Just the door that was easiest to open.

“A hum,” Aeris said. “Low. Not pain. Pressure, like before a storm. Then the cloud shifted. I think it did. I don’t want to be dramatic.”

“Heat? Dizziness? Metal taste?”

“No. After, my hands shook.” Aeris pushed a sleeve back. In the lamp’s yellow, faint lines showed under her skin—not a glow, more like ink that hadn’t fully faded. “It’s less now. Almost gone.”

Jenna looked, steady and close, then stepped back.
“How long did it last?”

“Half a minute, maybe. More when I stood under the vent.”

Jenna turned the slate and slid it over: four neat boxes labeled Time, Sensation, Duration, Context.
“Log every instance. Not because I doubt you,” she said, “because tired minds tidy stories and we need the corners.”

Aeris nodded. Holding onto the routine, she tried to focus on Jenna’s next instruction. “Do I tell Sera?”

“Not yet.” Jenna’s tone gentled without thinning. “We don’t feed rumors. If there’s nothing here, we let it be nothing. If there’s something, we give it the smallest room it needs and no more.”

“I keep thinking about my mother.” The words left Aeris before she could stop them. “People talk about her like she was just another story, but she wasn’t. She stood out everywhere. Her skin was this pale, silvery blue—almost grey—threaded with veins the color of amber. You couldn’t miss it, especially when the light caught her arms or her neck. And her eyes—they glowed, always, like someone bottled sunrise and tucked it behind her lashes. Even when she was tired, you could see those colors, right under the surface. And when she held me, no matter what anyone whispered, I felt safe.”

Aeris flexed her wrist, trying to name what she’d felt.
“It’s strange—today reminded me of all of that, but it’s not the same. It’s less than she had, but it makes me remember how much of her never fit in stories.” Her voice thinned. “I miss her, Jenna. I miss my father too. Some nights I hope there will finally be news, but it’s been four years. I feel farther away from them every day.”

Jenna’s eyes warmed, sadness written gently across her face. She squeezed Aeris’s shoulder.
“I know. And I know it doesn’t help to say you aren’t alone, but you aren’t. The search teams haven’t stopped—if anything changes, you’ll know first. Until then… it’s all right to miss them. It’s proof you loved them right.”

“You knew your mother as a person,” she said. “Most people only know the legend. What you saw then was real. What you feel now is real. We’ll keep both truths small until they ask for more room.” She hovered a hand above Aeris’s wrist and let it rest on her shoulder instead. “If it happens again and someone needs help, you count to four. Then make the choice that keeps the next five choices open. And listen to your body. If it says stop, you stop.”

“What if Rowan writes me into a ledger for stepping out of line?”

“Then the ledger will show you followed procedure,” Jenna said. A hint of dry humor came and went. “If Rowan wants the armband that badly, she can try it on.”

She poured tea. It smelled like warmth with no name. Aeris wrapped her fingers around the cup and wrote: low hum; thirty to forty seconds; near vent baffle; no pain; hands shook after. She almost added felt watched by the air, then left it. She could say it later if it stayed true.

By midweek a new sensor hung over the serving line. Brown, boxy, humming with effort. It chirped when trays passed, mapping nothing in particular. Someone stuck a smiley on its face; someone else peeled the sticker halfway off. The workers behind the counter made a point of using names.

The stories multiplied. Audit test. South-yard tunnels. Glitter and fear. The only piece that stayed the same was the girl and the shimmer.

Aeris learned how to be present without inviting. She moved with purpose so questions had to trot to keep up. She laughed when it fit and offered nothing extra. The hum came and went. When it visited, she logged it. Under the lab vents, six seconds, no pain. No glow when she checked. The tremor forgot her for whole stretches.

In Bio Two, the assignment was ordinary on purpose: benign analog fungi, five plates, light set to warm and cool. Label, watch, write. The lamp clicked steadily in the quiet room. Aeris liked the peace that work like this made.

When the light switched to cool, a thin prickle brushed her forearms. She checked that no one watched and breathed a slow line across the plates. Nothing dramatic happened. On two dishes the filaments curled a fraction toward her breath, then stopped, as if surprised they’d moved at all. She clicked back to warm and wrote: cool preference; possible airflow artifact. The words were honest and gave her time.

A week after the incident, a visitor stood at announcements in a neat, dark suit. He introduced himself as the investigations liaison for the district. Pleasant voice. Smile that measured the room and gave nothing away.

“We’ll be reviewing supply lines,” he said. “Thank you for keeping protocols boring.” A ripple of relieved laughter moved through staff and died gently. “If you notice gaps in storage or changes in foot traffic near the south tunnels, tell your proctor. That’s not about trouble. That’s about care.”

The hum flickered at the word supply and faded. Sera leaned close. “He looks like he folds paper into perfect squares and throws the bad ones away.”

The hallway had nearly emptied, only the echo of laughter and footsteps left behind. The liaison—a thin man in a dark suit that never quite blended in—stepped into their path with a nod that was easy to pretend you didn’t notice. But he stopped them anyway, and his words were gentle, practiced.

“Rowan Vale. Aeris,” he said, using no surname for Aeris—just the careful formality the academy gave to students who’d left part of their past elsewhere. “You two were closest to the dispersal point. That took presence of mind. We may ask you for a few statements later. Nothing formal, just your recollection.”

“Of course,” Rowan said.
“Of course,” Aeris echoed, and listened to her own voice from the inside, trying to hear if it sounded like hers.

He moved on. Rowan watched him go without changing her expression. That was how she looked when she was thinking very hard.

“Don’t walk alone if you can help it,” Rowan said, then added, with a sharpness she didn’t bother to hide, “Even if you like quiet.”

“I don’t hate company.”

“You act like you do,” Rowan shot back, impatience rising. “You hide from it. You hide from a lot of things.”

A beat passed. Rowan’s expression was somewhere between annoyance and something harder to name—a challenge or maybe a plea. “You always end the conversation. You never give anyone a real answer.” She hesitated, as if realizing she’d shown too much. When she spoke again, her voice was lower but no less intense. “And I meant what I said earlier. Ava could stand where the rest of us break. She took risks no one else could, and sometimes it worked. But don’t pretend you’re her. We can admire her, sure, but we aren’t made the same. Call it if you move. Let people meet you halfway, for once.”

“Okay,” Aeris said. The word sat warm in her mouth.

A heavy sadness settled in her chest as Rowan said the name. Ava. For a breath, Aeris was a child again—her mother’s voice humming while she cooked, her father’s arms warm and safe around her shoulders. It was the kind of missing that didn’t ache sharply but crept in quietly, hollow and persistent, reminding her how far away her parents felt. She blinked hard, willing herself not to fall apart in front of Rowan. She pressed her thumb into her palm, clinging to the present until the sadness ebbed.

Rowan’s gaze narrowed, just for a breath, as if she’d caught the flicker of something unsaid. “You good?” she asked, tone casual but watchful.

Aeris nodded quickly, drawing in air to steady herself. “Yeah. Just tired.”

Rowan didn’t press. She only gave the smallest nod, then looked away down the hall as if granting Aeris the cover she needed.

They parted at the stairwell. On her way back to class, the new sensor chirped twice, then fell quiet. Aeris kept her pace even, sleeves down, breath steady. The story outside the door had learned her name. It didn’t have to learn her timing.

That night the heater counted the room back to calm. Frost drew little equations in the corners of the window. Aeris lifted her wrist in the dim and saw only skin. No light. No hum. She could find the note if she wanted; she chose not to call it. She opened the log and wrote: no new incidents.

A message blinked once: Sleep. Don’t rehearse the day. It knows its lines. The signature didn’t need writing.

Aeris set the slate face-down, like Jenna did, and lay back. Sleep wouldn’t come easy tonight. She missed her parents more than she could ever say, and the ache of it pressed in as she watched the ceiling fade to darkness. Her mind ran back through the day—Rowan’s words, the way people stared, how every little difference in her seemed brighter now that the rumors were loose. The quiet in her room felt thin, too easily broken by the wind tapping at the window or footsteps in the hall.

Aeris stared at her hands in the half-light, wishing her mother or father could come in, just for a moment, to remind her she wasn’t alone. She wondered if somewhere out there, they were thinking of her, too. The thought brought a rush of sadness, but underneath it—something new. Curiosity. Restlessness. A sense that she couldn’t hide in routine much longer.

She pressed her hand to her chest and whispered to herself, “Tomorrow I’ll try. I’ll find out more. I won’t run from what’s changing.”

The thought steadied her, just a little. She let it stay, breathing in the hope that maybe, just maybe, answers were waiting—if she was brave enough to look. When sleep finally found her, it was light and uneasy, filled with half-dreams of voices in the dark and a faint golden glow that wouldn’t leave her alone.