The Westbridge University library during finals week was a monument to collective anxiety. The air hummed with the low-grade panic of three thousand students cramming a semester's worth of learning into seven sleepless days. Between the towering shelves of the economics section, Adrian Vale moved with a quiet, methodical rhythm that had become his new meditation.
Thump. Principles of Microeconomics. Thump. Global Financial Systems. Thump. Ethics in Modern Capitalism.
He shelved the books with precise, almost reverent motions. Each thud against the wooden shelf felt like a small act of order against the chaos that had been his life. The job was mindless, repetitive, and physically exhausting after a four-hour shift. He loved it. Here, he wasn't the disgraced heir, the whistleblower, or the boyfriend of the girl who'd become a campus legend. He was Student Worker #742, and his only responsibility was to return knowledge to its proper place.
"Vale."
