Mission Forensic
Part 33: Pages, Lamplight, and Winter Breath
The week after practicals felt unreal—like the campus had exhaled, only to inhale again sharper, deeper, knowing what came next.
Theory Exams.
December mornings grew slower and softer. Mist clung to the pathways; pigeons gathered near the canteen roof; the neem trees rattled faint, dry whispers overhead. The world looked quiet.
But inside the students’ heads, it was war.
The Flat — Night Before the First Exam
The table was covered in open books like fallen birds.
Highlighters.
Loose sheets.
Half-solved past papers.
Two mugs of chai going cold at the edges.
Catherine sat cross-legged on the floor, hair tied loosely, the sleeve of her sweater slipping off her shoulder every time she leaned forward. She read with the kind of focus that turned silence into gravity.
Edward sat at the table, elbows resting on open pages, pen tracing ideas in the margins like threads connecting one thought to another. His voice when he finally spoke was faint, low, like it had been warmed first.
“Mechanism of cyanide toxicity?”
She answered without looking up,
“Inhibition of cytochrome c oxidase. Cellular respiration fails. Cell suffocates from the inside.”
He smiled, slow and quiet.
“You’ll destroy them tomorrow.”
She finally glanced up.
“Only gently.”
Their eyes held for a moment—calm, steady, no rush.
Then they went back to their books.
Not studying together.
Studying with each other.
There was a difference.
Campus — Morning of the First Exam
Frost laced the grass.
The sun had not fully committed to rising.
Students clustered in small groups, some revising, some muttering formulas, some staring into nothing as though knowledge might fall from the sky if they looked pathetic enough.
Edward and Catherine walked into campus hand in hand, not talking, matching each other's rhythm. Their comfort didn’t show off—it simply existed.
Shawn was pacing like he was preparing to fight a lion.
“I know nothing. I remember nothing. I will be writing philosophy instead of biochemistry—”
“Which,” Ahana interrupted, closing her notebook gently, “would be your first academic contribution to humanity.”
Shawn stared.
“Are you… comforting me?”
Ahana blinked slowly.
“That was the attempt, yes.”
Shawn looked genuinely moved.
Edward and Catherine exchanged a look — the kind that said this is progress, silently, humor tucked in the corners.
Examination Hall
Chairs spaced like islands.
Question papers placed face-down.
Ceiling fans spinning meaningless circles.
The invigilator said, “Begin.”
Pages turned.
Pens began their soft, relentless whisper.
Edward wrote like someone assembling architecture—clean, neat, straight-lined thoughts.
Catherine wrote like someone telling a story—clarity wrapped in calm rhythm.
Shawn… wrote like a man in love with survival and last-minute miracles.
Ahana wrote like she had already known these answers since January.
No panic.
No theatrics.
Just the hum of minds working.
Between Exams — The Rhythm
They studied in the library courtyard at noon.
They revised in the garden outside their block after dark.
They whispered mnemonics.
They solved diagrams on tissue papers from the café.
They stayed up too late, but never with urgency—only patience.
Catherine sometimes fell asleep mid-sentence with her head against Edward’s shoulder.
He never woke her.
He just read with her breathing against him, steady and warm, the page turning softly under his hand.
Shawn once tried to explain ballistics to Ahana using a pencil and a stapler.
She stared at him for a long moment.
“…That is not how guns work.”
“But did the concept land?”
“Yes,” she admitted.
He glowed like he had discovered fire.
Last Exam — Sunset
When the final paper ended, pens dropped like exhausted wings.
Chairs scraped back.
Students stumbled out with stunned laughter—the kind that sounded like relief and disbelief mingled.
On the lawns, winter sun draped everything in honey-gold light.
Shawn stretched his arms to the sky,
“Freedom tastes like oxygen.”
Ahana smiled—actually smiled—and shook her head.
Catherine looked at Edward, eyes soft, tired in the most beautiful way.
“It’s over,” she whispered.
He reached up, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear, touch gentle, intimate without effort.
“Yes,” he said, voice low.
“It’s ours now. All of it.”
No applause.
No fireworks.
Just two people
standing close
breathing the same air
in the quiet victory of winter.
The semester didn’t end with celebration.
It ended with stillness.
And stillness, for them, was enough.
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