Vinny's eyes snapped open, locking onto the girl standing over him. For a moment, neither moved—her hand still hovering mid-air, his gaze sharp despite the sleep still clinging to him. The classroom chatter faded into a muffled hum, as if the universe had narrowed to just the two of them.
Then, chaos erupted.
"Yo, Sleeping Beauty's finally awake!" Panda's booming voice shattered the tension, followed by a chorus of snickers. The girl—tall, with a dancer's posture and a choppy black bob—flinched but didn't back down. Her dark eyes flickered with something unreadable. Annoyance? Curiosity?
Vinny sat up slowly, rubbing his neck. "You lost?" he muttered, voice rough from sleep.
The girl arched a brow. "No. But you might be."
A beat of silence. Then the class erupted again.
She didn't introduce herself. Just dropped a crumpled note on his desk—*"Library. After school."*—and walked away, her combat boots clicking against the linoleum. No explanation. No smile.
Derrick, who'd been watching like it was his favorite soap opera, whistled. "Damn, Vinny. Since when do you get secret admirers?"
Vinny ignored him, turning the note over. No signature. Just a tiny doodle in the corner: a leafless tree.
His stomach dropped.
*How the hell does she know about that?*
Across the room, Deborah pretended not to stare. But Sheila noticed.
"She's in my chem class," Sheila said casually, twirling a strand of honey-blonde hair. "Lena. Transferred last month. Rumor says she got expelled from her last school for setting a teacher's wig on fire."
Deborah's pencil snapped. "That's… probably not true."
Sheila smirked. "You gonna let some pyro chick steal your man?"
"He's not my—" Deborah cut herself off, cheeks flushing.
Sheila's grin widened. *Gotcha.*
Vinny almost didn't go to the library. But curiosity—and the nagging feeling this was about more than a weird tree—dragged him to the library's back corner, where Lena waited, flipping through a book titled *Symbols of the Afterlife*.
"You're late," she said without looking up.
"You didn't give a time."
She snapped the book shut. "I know what you saw in that tree."
Vinny stiffened. "It's a dead plant. Congrats on your observational skills."
Lena leaned in, her voice dropping. "You felt it, didn't you? The pull. Like it was *waiting* for something."
A chill crawled up his spine. Because yeah—he *had* felt that. But he'd blamed it on sleep deprivation.
Lena slid the book toward him. A page was marked: *Yggdrasil (n.): The World Tree, bridging realms of the living and dead.*
"Bullshit," Vinny said automatically.
Lena's smile was razor-thin. "Then why'd you come?"
By dinner, the whole school knew Vinny had a "secret library date."
Panda, mouth full of mashed potatoes, announced, "Bro's got *two* girls fighting over him now. Shy Playboy's leveling up!"
Deborah, three tables away, stabbed her fork into her salad like it owed her money.
Vinny considered drowning himself in the cafeteria's mystery meat gravy.
That night, Vinny dreamed of the tree—but this time, *it spoke*.
*"You're the connector,"* it whispered, branches creaking. *"The bridge they need."*
He woke gasping, his sheets tangled, his heart hammering. On his wrist, three faint scratches glowed silver for a second before fading.
Outside his window, the real tree swayed in the wind.
And for the first time in years, Vinny wondered if maybe—*just maybe*—he'd been wrong about fate.