After seven o'clock, the corridors of the Collegium Meridianum quietened like the breathing of a dormant animal. An elongated, cool twilight came in from behind the ivy-covered windows; on the ground floor, the porter's lodge glowed with the single yellow eye of a lamp, and the keys on the metal hooks buzzed again and again as one of the lecturers left early. It smelled of dust, chalk and parquet wax. - 'Only until nine o'clock,' muttered Mr Grzelak, the doorman, handing Lena a bunch of heavy keys. - After the renovation of the fourth floor, the alarm likes to go off with antics. Don't push where the tapes are hanging. - Sure. Just the notebook,' Lena promised, tightening her fingers on the cold metal. - Dr Niegoda is doing a colloquium tomorrow. Without notes I'm cooked. She was twenty years old, with her aunt's oversized, washed jumpers and a habit of writing everything down: dates, names, sentences thrown in passing. The notebook was her second memory. She had left it, absentmindedly, in the projection room on the second floor while she was helping Michael test the mapping on the old frescoes in the auditorium. She left for five minutes to get a coffee and.... five minutes turned into a whole day. Michal was already waiting by the lift, leaning against the wall with the notice board. He was in an obscenely good mood for the end of classes and had a backpack stuffed with cables. Next to his shoe was a roll of white painter's tape. - 'Shall we go upstairs? - He nodded. - In the auditorium everything is still standing. I want to get the projector back to the studio before someone 'borrows it for a while'. The lift sighed, slammed with resistance, and carried them slowly upwards, creaking in the glass like an old tree in the wind. Lena looked at her reflection in the metal door: dishevelled, with a red scarf, with the shadow of anxiety under her eyes that always appeared before tests. The door slid open. The second floor was almost dark; the lights came on in sections, responding sluggishly to movement. The corridor twisted into a U, half a wall was occupied by display cases of yellowed photographs. Scientist's Day from a decade ago, ribbons, smiles pressed against glass. Further down ran the white 'NOTICE - REMOVAL' tape separating the new wing. - 'I left my notebook in hall 206,' she said, tilting the key in the lock. The lock denied it, tapping dryly. - Or in 208, by the cables. - 'Or in 214,' joked Michael under his breath, but his laughter was lost in the void. The door gave way. The auditorium rustled with darkness. Discarded printouts lay on the lectern; the wall was still sealed with squares of tape. The projector stood in the middle like a silent witness to the earlier commotion. Lena walked between the benches, looking for the familiar back of a notebook. She looked under the chairs, under the overturned cardboard boxes. Nothing. - Maybe you left it at Niegoda's? - prompted Michal, looking through cable after cable until he finally breathed a sigh of relief and tucked the projector into his bag. - 'Did you ring her? - 'I was writing,' replied Lena, taking out her phone. Two unread messages. The first: 'Keys in the gatehouse. Please don't go crazy in the renovated wing. H.N." The second: "And remember the quotes from the lecture, it will be in the assignment." Lena snorted. - Oh, doctor... They went out into the corridor. An automatic fan murmured somewhere overhead. To the left, beyond the tape, a new wing was starting: fresh walls, a reasonable number of sockets, it smelled of paint and metal. Behind the tape, about halfway up the U, a sign hung "Room 214". The door gleamed with new paint. The handle had a plastic cover like a bandage. - 'Or maybe...' - Michael put a hand to his hair, as if trying to smooth the thought. - 'We went in that way yesterday with the light crew. They had passes. Maybe you lost then. - 'Mr Grzelak said not to,' Lena reminded her, but her own voice sounded unconvinced. A familiar discreet shame: the inability to leave things in their place. She moved closer to the tape and looked through the milky glass of the door. It was empty inside. New pews, a black board shining like a sheet of water. The clock above the cathedral read 21:14 and stood. - 'The clock is stuck,' muttered Michael in a half-hearted voice, as if this fact was more important than it was. - Strange. - All the clocks here are going crazy,' Lena stated, turning the key in her hand. - Do you remember English? They never agree with reality. Before they had time to leave, a short, metallic sound came from inside - or so they thought. Not a ringing. More like a soft clang, as if someone had sat down too hard on a chair, touching the radiator with their foot. They both froze, listening. The sound didn't repeat itself, but it sharpened the edges of the silence. - 'Did you hear that? - Michal asked, and Lena nodded. She looked through the glass again. In the further corner, under the blackboard, lay a bright rectangle. A sheet of paper. It could have been hers. It could have been a simple piece of paper from the printer. It could have been anything. - Quick in, quick out - she decided, pulling at a piece of tape. The tape stuck to her fingers, rustling softly. - Before Mr Grzelak noticed. The corridor only responded with an echo. Door 214 did not yet have a target lock installed; someone had inserted a temporary insert with a standard key. Lena tried one by one from the bundle. One didn't fit. The second... The third gave way suddenly, with surprising ease. The handle moved down, the door swung open and let in a grey, indifferent chill. The hall smelled of new plastic and chalk. The fluorescent lamp blinked twice before it flickered on permanently, spreading a pale light. The benches stood in even rows, not a single scratch. A sheet of paper lay under the blackboard, but it was not white; it had a creamy tint and thin, fine lines. They came closer. In the middle of the sheet someone had written today's date, in pencil. Under the date, two lines below, it stood: "Lena Nowak, Michal Bednarski". In pen. With an over-confident, not overly ornate hand. - Is this some kind of joke? - whispered Michał. Reflexively he looked up, as if someone might be hanging from the ceiling watching him. - I didn't leave our names to anyone. Lena had the feeling that her own letters were staring at her like eyes. After all, she would never write so evenly. The voice of reason prompted: an attendance list, just like that. A variation of the need to make sense: someone was practising their handwriting. And yet something about the roundness of the 'L' and the still invisible dot over the 'i' made her skin tighten. She reached out and touched the paper with her fingertips. It was dry, cool. Fresh. - 'Look,' Michael said quietly, pointing to the blackboard. Someone had drawn a diagram there with a line of chalk. It didn't resemble a physics drawing or an escape plan. A few lines converging into a point in the middle, something that might have been a sketch of an alcove or a window, an arrow, narrow handwritten numbers. Underneath, a notation: "21:14 - do not be late". The clock above the cathedral was still stuck at the hour, as if frozen. Lena felt her gullet grow dry, as if she had swallowed a lump of air. She took out her phone and glanced at the time. 20:53 - twenty-one more minutes. The absurdity of the thought clashed with her own logic: what, are we supposed to wait? - This is abnormal,' Michal judged. - Someone was here. Just now or soon. Maybe a repair crew? Maybe... The sound of footsteps came from the corridor. Not fast, not slow either. Just steady. One, two, three, steady. Lena froze, furrowing her brow. The steps seemed to be two. And then there was the clink of keys - a sound quite different from the one before: more chattering, lively, like the laughter of coins. - Mr Grzelak - she breathed, feeling relief mingled with shame. She was already about to move to the door to explain the tape cut when the phone vibrated. A new message on the screen. Number unknown. "Don't come in." Michael looked at her questioningly. - Who? - I don't know," she confessed. - Maybe some kind of joke? The old black board creaked quietly, as if shaken by a draught. A piece of chalk, hitherto lying calmly on the gutter, moved and rolled away, leaving behind a small, light dust. In the same second, the light blinked and then returned, a little more white, a little colder. - See - Lena walked deeper into the room, leaving the door ajar. At the far end, just by the window, was an old metal cupboard, this one recycled, wedged into the corner between the radiator and the wall. The cupboard door was a finger's width apart. Inside, something glinted. - Here it is... She squatted down and slid her fingers into the gap. A roll of carbon paper, tied with red thread, slid out of the material. On the first sheet - her handwriting. It couldn't be her handwriting. And yet it was. Uneven, habitual clips of letters she hadn't thought of. She shuddered. Next to the calico lay a stampless envelope. On the top someone had written: "For those two on the list". - 'It must be a set-up,' Michael insisted, although his voice had lost its certainty. - An integration campaign, a senior prank. You know, 'welcome to the faculty'. - Somehow I'm not laughing,' Lena said, her own words sounding foreign in her ears. She turned the envelope over. It wasn't sealed. She twitched when she heard footsteps in the corridor again. Closer this time. They stopped at the threshold. They pushed lightly on the door... which turned out to be open. The door vibrated and stood. Someone must have been right behind them. Lena, with an envelope in her hand, looked questioningly at Michael. He nodded wordlessly. She walked two steps. She grabbed the handle, pushed the door wider, ready to flood the doorman with a torrent of apologies and explanations. There was no one behind the threshold. The corridor stood empty, illuminated by a light ragged by sensors. Somewhere at the end an alarm diode blinked. A narrow strip of "WARNING - REMOVAL" tape lay on the floor, cut evenly with a knife. Lena felt the skin on the back of her neck grow paper-thin. - 'Let's go,' whispered Michal, suddenly without peppery courage. He took her lightly by the arm. - 'To get the keys, the gatehouse, translate. Nothing stupid. Before they had time to take a step, the clock above the cathedral clicked quietly. For the first time since they'd entered, the second hand moved, dropping one eye. 21:15 - one minute too late. The lamp above their heads hissed and the light went out for a second. In the darkness, right next to their ear, someone spoke their names, anemically, as if from a page: "Lena. Michael." The light returned. The handle on the other side of the door turned slowly, of its own accord, until the metal squeaked a second time. The door began to close, as if someone, unseen, was escorting them back inside.