Verse 13

Morning rolled in like it always did, rising from the west…or is it the East.

The sun was annoying.

Not that it was doing anything wrong. It was just being itself, as it always had. Rising and falling. Igniting skin. Demanding attention. Disrupting sleep.

It reminded me of how my mother used to wake me up—throwing curtains wide open, always too loud.

The stupid birds were chirping so happily like carefree idiots

I turned over in bed with a groan.

I hadn’t set an alarm. A foolish mistake.

My eyes refused to fully open. My limbs ached from both exhaustion and a really, really unfortunate sleeping position.
The music had stopped at some point during the night. My phone was almost dead, lying somewhere tangled in the sheets.

For a moment, I just lay there. Letting it hit me.
The feeling I thought would be gone by morning was still there.
Heavier, even.

Regret.

I sat up slowly, rubbing my face with both hands. My mouth was dry, my eyes felt gritty, and the monologue from last night lay crumpled near my pillow like a silent witness.

I checked my phone. 15% battery.

No messages. Not that I expected any.
No missed calls either.
Just one notification from that random school app reminding us about orientation classes starting today. Hooray.

I checked the time.
It was already 8:10 AM. 

Shit! I was late for class.

I brushed my teeth and got dressed without thinking too hard—just jeans, a hoodie, and my old sneakers. Threw a few notebooks into my bag.

Malik was already gone.

Surprising since he got in so late in the night. His cologne still reeked in the room, a mixture of cough medicine and toothpaste.

Last night kept playing in my head—except, there was no last night for me. Not really. Just the version I imagined: music echoing across the halls, laughter bouncing off walls, Elena sitting somewhere near the stage, smiling at something that had nothing to do with me.

But enough of that stupidity. I have classes to get to.

I don’t know what I thought would happen. Maybe she'd message me. Maybe I’d wake up feeling justified, like I made the right choice staying in.
But the truth was… I felt empty. Not crushed or broken or anything dramatic. Just... disappointed. In myself, mostly.

Okay, time for class, seriously now.

I stepped out but did not have earphones on today. I put my phone in my bag and charged it using my power bank. The corridors of Block Jay— the boys’ hostel we’d been thrown into—was already buzzing. I slipped through the stairway past the usual crowd of smokers before they could exhale a cloud of minty doom.

The compound outside was already alive. Some guy was running with toast in his mouth like an anime character. Girls leaned out the windows of the adjacent hostel—Block Stella—still in bonnets, brushing their teeth and yelling at each other like the world wasn’t wide awake yet.

Oh, yes. Life in University was …chaotic.

I walked toward the main campus, following the stream of students. The path curved gently under the road—tunneled and damp, like walking through the belly of some ancient snake.

Graffiti covered the tunnel walls—some of it art, some of it declarations of love, and some just curse words spelled wrong.

I didn’t think about it much. Just walked.

I got to the entrance gate to the Main campus, a guard stared at me intensely like I stole his girlfriend or something.

“Where’s your ID card?” he asked.

“Um, I am fresher I don’t have an Id card yet. But I have the school portal here that shows my identification.”

In the university handbook, it clearly stated that first-years could use the school portal as a means of identification until they got their ID card processed. Clearly someone missed the memo, because this freaking guard was giving me a hard time.

“No ID, no entry,” he said.

“But-but…”

My ID is in the portal you moron. Ugh, I don’t have the time for this.

There were three gates into the main campus. I figured I’d just try another one.

Right as I was walking away, I saw a girl flash the exact same portal screen to the guard—and he let her through.

I stared. He stared back, giving me the side-eye like I was the villain in his tragic backstory.

What the hell did I do to this guy?

Anyway, the guards at the other gate were reasonable. Friendly, even. They let me through like normal humans.

It was Course Selection Week—the academic version of speed-dating.

We were all required to pick three departments within the Faculty of Arts. For each, we had to select two courses, plus one common unit that everyone in the faculty did.

Thankfully, I had read the handbook.
Because if there’s one thing I believe in, it’s being self-sufficient.
Relying on people is a fast way to be disappointed.

The power of friendship only exists in anime.

I chose the Literature & Expression department first, mostly because it sounded vague and kind of poetic.
They had a course called Creative Forms.

I tried signing up for the Creative Writing course, but apparently, there was already a waitlist.
I never realized so many people wanted to do creative writing.
Weird.

As for the other two departments, I still wasn’t sure.

There were a few promising choices like Philosophy, Psychology and Sociology. These were what you would call Humanities Sciences.

Apparently, they all counted as “Arts.”
Then there were others like Mathematics and Political Science—and yeah, I’d rather chew glass than sit through either of those.

I checked my watch.

8:43 AM.
Perfect.
I was definitely late.

Now where the hell was this Education Building?