The second year corridor outside the exam classrooms looked different when nobody had anywhere else to be.
Students stood in uneven lines along the wall beneath the classroom numbers, tablets tucked against their chests, transparent water bottles hanging from their fingers, pencil cases bulging with mechanical pencils and highlighters that would spend the next two and a half hours untouched.
A boy near the window kept flipping the same revision card over every three seconds without looking at either side of it.
Two girls shared a set of handwritten notes, one tracing dates with her fingernail while the other mouthed names under her breath. Somebody dropped a stylus. Three people looked down at it before the owner even bent to pick it up.
Adam shifted his grip on his tablet and looked at the classroom door again.
The assembly was over. Everyone had heard the numbers.
One hundred and five students.
One hundred and two returning next year.
The teacher who had announced it had delivered the information with the same voice people used to explain bus schedules or cafeteria hours. Three students would be gone. The statement had been dropped into the auditorium and left there.
Now everyone in the corridor was carrying it around differently.
Some checked their notes.
Some stared at their tablets.
Some pretended to scroll through messages.
Everybody was doing the math of it all.
I studied.
He adjusted the strap of his bag against his shoulder.
I definitely studied.
He had spent hours going through world history. Timelines. Political movements. Treaties. Revolutions. Economic transitions. Every chapter he'd reviewed had opened a door into three more chapters he should probably understand before he could claim to understand the first one.
I'm pretty sure I studied.
His thumb tapped once against the edge of his tablet.
Why does it feel like I've never seen this material before in my life?
Someone behind him whispered.
Or thought they whispered.
"...Adam..."
His ears caught it automatically.
He didn't turn.
"...probably..."
"...next semester..."
"...which sucks because he's actually kind of hot."
His eyes closed for half a second.
He could have listened harder.
He didn't.
Someone said my name. Nah I definetly heard my name.
He exhaled through his nose.
fuck everyone thinks i'm next in line to get kicked out.
The strange part was that he wasn't even annoyed anymore.
At least the hot part was nice.
He spotted a bulletin board beside the classroom door and let his eyes drift over the notices pinned to it. Examination regulations. Seating assignments. Device requirements.
A newer sheet of paper had been added over the weekend.
Adjusted travel protocols for students leaving campus during finals week due to increased activity in surrounding areas...
He read the first line and stopped.
The classroom door across the corridor opened.
Students from another class started filing inside.
He looked away from the notice.
"Okay," Aiva said, holding her revision cards between both hands. "Last-minute review. If they ask about twentieth-century reconstruction efforts, what are they probably looking for?"
"The economic programs," Bryce answered.
"The treaties," Adam said at the same time.
Aiva pointed at him.
"Exactly. The treaties lead into the economic programs."
Bryce nodded once.
"Post-war agreements. Political restructuring. Resource allocation."
He said it like he was reading labels off grocery shelves.
Aiva flipped another card.
"Decolonization movements?"
"Mid-century," Bryce said.
"Multiple regions. Different timelines."
"Good." She looked at Adam. "Major contributing factors?"
He opened his mouth.
Closed it.
Opened it again.
"Political pressure?"
"Yes."
"National identity?"
"Also yes."
He nodded slowly.
He knew this.
He absolutely knew this.
I know that one.
Aiva kept going.
"Social movements, economic instability, external influence. Remember the overlap. They love overlap."
I definitely know that one.
Bryce crossed his arms.
"They'll probably compare regions."
I studied that yesterday.
Adam stared at the revision card in Aiva's hand.
So where the fuck did it go?
"You okay?" Aiva asked.
"Fantastic."
"You look like you're trying to remember your own birthday."
"I might've forgotten that too."
She laughed.
"You'll be fine."
The class A door opened.
Students immediately started moving.
Bryce shifted his bag higher onto his shoulder.
"See you after."
Aiva reached up and squeezed Adam's arm.
"You know more than you think you do."
He gave her a doubtful look.
"That sentence sounds suspiciously motivational."
"Good luck."
Then they were gone.
He watched them disappear into the classroom with the rest of the class.
The corridor suddenly felt wider.
His heartbeat sat high in his chest.
"Hey."
Brandon stepped up beside him.
His hair was still damp from an early shower. His tablet hung loosely at his side.
"You ready?" Adam asked.
Brandon shook his head.
"No."
"Fair."
"I don't think I'm making it."
Adam turned toward him.
Brandon wasn't joking.
"I was fourth from the bottom at midterms," he said. "Technically last after that round of expulsions."
"Yeah."
"Which means I'm basically first in line if my score doesn't move."
Students passed behind them.
Someone laughed too loudly.
Someone else immediately shushed them.
Brandon rubbed the back of his neck.
"I keep running the numbers."
"Stop doing that."
"I can't."
"Yeah. I know."
Brandon looked toward the classroom door.
"I studied."
"So did I."
"I don't think it was enough."
Adam glanced at him for a moment. He'd scored higher than Brandon. Not by much, just barely. But still, higher. And that was the problem.
"It's one exam," Adam said.
Brandon didn't answer.
"We've still got the rest of the week."
"Yeah."
"You could crush this one."
"I could."
"You probably will."
Brandon finally looked at him.
"You don't believe that."
Adam snorted.
"Man, I barely believe anything right now."
That earned a laugh.
Small.
Real.
He's not going to get expelled.
Adam shifted his tablet from one hand to the other.
He's not going to get expelled.
He looked at Brandon.
Oh who am I kidding, he might get expelled.
And so might he.
The classroom door opened.
Conversation in the corridor faded almost immediately.
The teacher standing in the doorway was tall enough that students near the back straightened automatically when they saw him. Black hair. Dark coat. His expression suggested that every object in the room already occupied a predetermined position and that students were expected to do the same.
"Second year class C," he said. "Please prepare to enter."
People gathered their things.
The teacher lifted one hand.
"One moment."
Nobody moved.
"There has been a slight adjustment to today's seating arrangement. Two students will be seated first."
He glanced at the tablet in his hand.
"Adam Greene."
Adam's shoulders dropped.
Ofcourse.
"Luna Rivera."
Luna pushed herself away from the wall where she'd been leaning and started toward the door without any visible concern.
Adam followed.
The classroom looked exactly the way he expected it to.
Rows of desks.
Tablets placed neatly at each station.
Sunlight through the windows.
And then he saw the front.
Two desks sat apart from the others.
Three-sided partitions surrounded them.
One panel directly ahead.
One on each side.
They looked less like school furniture and more like voting booths somebody had stolen from a government office and dropped into the classroom by mistake.
He stopped walking.
Luna stopped beside him.
"What in the actual fuck is this?" Her voice carried across the room.
The teacher didn't react.
"Miss Rivera, please watch your language."
"Bite me."
He continued as if neither sentence had happened.
"These stations were prepared to accommodate a documented difference in sensory capability."
He gestured toward the partitions.
"Enhanced visual perception creates an unintended advantage in a standard examination environment. These privacy screens eliminate direct sight lines and ensure that no student can view another student's work regardless of individual ability."
He reached beneath one of the desks and placed a set of ear protectors on top.
"Additionally, enhanced auditory perception permits access to environmental information unavailable to other examinees. Whispering, subvocalization, and incidental verbal processing can influence outcomes."
He folded his hands behind his back.
"The ear protection provided will reduce ambient input and preserve examination parity."
Luna folded her arms.
"This is ridiculous."
"It is not punitive."
"It's ridiculous."
"It is procedural."
His expression never changed.
"This arrangement is not a commentary on character, integrity, or intent. It is a practical accommodation for an unusual circumstance. The standard of fairness must remain consistent for all participants."
He honestly believed every word, and that was the weird part.
Adam glanced back at the booth, the partitions, the ear protection, the desk set apart from everyone else. Discrimination dressed up in official language. He was too drained to pick it apart, too exhausted to argue.
And the exam sitting on the locked tablet in front of him was suddenly more important than the principle behind the partition walls.
He took a breath.
Sat down.
Picked up the ear protectors.
The padded cups settled over his ears.
The classroom immediately changed.
Chairs scraping against the floor became distant.
Voices collapsed into soft, indistinct sound.
He sat inside the booth looking at the blank screen in front of him.
World history.
Everything he knew about it.
Everything he didn't.
Students began filling the room behind him.
He slid one side of the ear protection away from his ear.
The teacher moved to the front of the classroom.
His voice reached Adam in fragments.
"One hundred and five students in the second year."
Muffled.
"One hundred and two will continue."
A chair shifted somewhere behind him.
"This process is not discrimination. It is meritocracy."
Tablets were distributed.
"The academy's responsibility is to identify excellence."
Someone coughed.
"Ninety students will ultimately graduate from the current cohort."
The teacher continued speaking.
"This examination period provides each of you with an opportunity to compete for your place. You should consider that opportunity a privilege."
I should be honored?
Adam looked at the inactive tablet.
I am honored.
Adam thought sarcastically as the teacher began explaining the modified seating arrangement again for the rest of the class.
I'm so honored.
He didn't look behind him.
Didn't look at the students who had turned toward the front of the room.
He kept his eyes on the screen.
I'm going to fail my world history exam and be expelled and be so honored.
He thought in triumphant sarcasm.
The room grew still, and all movement ceased as the digital clock above the whiteboard flicked to 08:00.
The teacher read out the access code, and Adam quickly typed it in. With a soft click, the tablet unlocked, revealing the examination on the screen. There were multiple sections to navigate—dates to remember, political movements to examine, and comparative analyses to complete.
His fingers rested against the edges of the device while the classroom disappeared behind layers of muted sound. The booth walls stood on three sides of him, cutting away the rest of the room until all that remained was the screen, his hands, and two hours and thirty minutes of answers waiting to be discovered.
He had spent days dreading this moment.
Now it was here.
There was no more waiting.
No more reviewing.
No more pretending another ten minutes in the corridor would suddenly organize every fact he'd forced into his head over the weekend.
He read the first question.
His thumb moved toward the answer field.
Whatever he knew was here.
Whatever he didn't know was here too.
There was only one way to find out which one outweighed the other.
He began.