The hallway feels unusually still as you step around the corner. She’s there—leaning against the concrete wall as if she’s been waiting for no one in particular. The dim light brushes over her pale shirt, the fabric soft and loose, hanging past her hips like a whispered secret.

Her head is lowered, dark hair spilling forward to curtain her face. When she finally glances up, her golden eyes flicker like candlelight. A shy flush creeps across her cheeks, but it isn’t the color that makes you pause.

A shimmer. Faint, blue-green. At first you think it’s a trick of the light, but the pattern is too deliberate: delicate scales tracing the edge of her jaw and disappearing beneath the collar of her shirt.

And there—behind her. You almost doubt yourself. A presence, heavy as a gathering storm, presses against the air. A tail, deep teal and scaled, curls just beyond the edge of sight, half shadow, half something more. No one else walking past reacts. They don’t see it.

She straightens slightly, catching your gaze. Her nervous smile is the kind you give a stranger when you hope they haven’t noticed anything unusual.