The tram rattled across Grunwaldzki Bridge, its windows open to let in the thick late-summer air. Wroc?aw still smelled faintly of warm stone and river algae, the last traces of July clinging stubbornly before the autumn chill would arrive.

  Tina sat by the window, notebook balanced on her knees. She had been scribbling without really writing anything — diagrams of cells, a half-written phrase about mitochondria, then lines trailing off into silence. Her handwriting looked distracted, as if she were trying to catch her thoughts before they slipped away.

  “Are you nervous?” Marcin asked quietly beside her. He wasn’t looking at her, only at the city rolling past — the cracked plaster of old buildings, the graffiti under the bridge, the blue-grey of the Oder below.

  Tina blinked. “Nervous?”

  Marcin grinned, his expression open and almost boyish. “That’s how it always is. Summer feels endless, and then suddenly we’re back here. Same bridge, same tram, same halls.”

  She studied him for a moment. He had the kind of face that looked trustworthy without trying — clear-eyed, sincere. Marcin didn’t talk too much, but when he did, there was no edge in his words.

  The tram slowed, brakes screeching faintly. Ahead, Wroc?aw University stood in sunlight, its baroque facade solemn but alive with students pouring in through the tunnel leading into the square. The air buzzed with greetings, laughter, and the shuffle of bags.

  As they stepped off, Tina adjusted the strap of her satchel. Marcin walked beside her, hands in his pockets, looking around as though he were glad simply to be back.

  “It’s good to see everyone again,” he said. “Feels like the city wakes up when classes start!”

  “Not everyone’s back,” Tina murmured, her gaze caught by a notice board plastered with posters. Research announcements, club invitations… and in the corner, a single black-and-white flyer.

  Missing. Last seen June 30. A male junior year student’s smiling face stared back, grainy from the print.

  Marcin followed her eyes. His cheerful expression faltered for just a second. “That’s been up since freshman orientation week,” he said quietly. “No news yet.”

  Tina lingered. The sound of students laughing around them felt suddenly distant, like voices heard underwater.

  Marcin touched her elbow gently. “Come on. First lecture’s about to start. We’ll be late.”

  She nodded, tearing her eyes away, and let him guide her through the gates.

  The crowd pressed forward into the main hall, where sunlight streamed through high windows, casting sharp lines across the marble floor. Tina clutched her notebook closer, the last word she had written still visible on the page, circled again and again:

  “Origin.”

  This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  ***

  The lecture hall was already crowded when they arrived, rows of wooden seats filling with the hum of returning students. Dust drifted in the sunlight, cutting through high windows. Tina hesitated in the doorway for a moment, scanning the room.

  Marcin nudged her lightly. “Middle row? That way, you can hear without being right in the professor’s shadow.”

  She smiled faintly at his thoughtfulness. “Middle row,” she agreed.

  They found seats together. Around them, students murmured about summer trips, internships, and trivial gossip that felt too loud in the vaulted space. Tina kept her notebook open on her lap, the circled word Origin glaring back at her like an unfinished thought.

  At precisely ten o’clock, the professor entered. A tall man with thinning grey hair and sharp glasses, he moved with the deliberate pace of someone who had been teaching for decades. The hall hushed almost immediately.

  “Good morning,” he began, his Polish voice deep, carrying across the room with practiced weight. “Welcome back. I hope your summers were… restorative. But let us not waste time. Biology waits for no one.”

  A ripple of nervous laughter spread, then died just as quickly. The professor set his notes down but didn’t look at them.

  “Today,” he continued, “we begin where everything begins. With origins. The origin of life, the cell, the building block of all that you are, all that you remember, all that you hope to become.”

  Tina’s pencil paused mid-stroke. She felt the word echo inside her, uncomfortably close to the one she had written and circled again and again.

  The professor’s gaze swept the room. “We take for granted that life begins once, that it follows rules. But the truth, as you will come to learn, is far more… complicated. Biology is not just a science. It is history. It is philosophy. It is the story of what you are — and what you are not.”

  Marcin leaned forward slightly, his brow furrowed in quiet interest. He looked almost eager, absorbing every word.

  The professor lifted a piece of chalk and began sketching on the blackboard: a simple circle, then another, dividing, replicating. The sound of chalk against slate was sharp, rhythmic, almost like a metronome.

  “Replication,” he said. “Every one of you began here, in this silent act. A single origin. And yet, from this sameness, difference arises. Identity. Memory. Conflict.” He stopped, resting the chalk against the board. “Ask yourselves: how much of what you call yourself belongs to you? And how much belongs to the chain of origins before you?”

  The silence that followed was heavier than before. A few students scribbled dutiful notes, but most sat still, caught in the weight of the question.

  Marcin glanced sideways at Tina, as though to gauge her reaction. Her eyes were fixed on the blackboard, but she wasn’t writing. The chalk circles seemed to swim before her eyes, expanding into something larger, something unspoken.

  The professor dropped the chalk into the tray. “This semester, we will trace these origins — and perhaps you will come to understand not only life itself, but the fragile stories it writes into your blood.”

  The lecture resumed, more technical now — prokaryotes, eukaryotes, the mechanics of division. Yet the earlier words lingered, lodged somewhere deep.

  Tina finally exhaled, her pencil trembling slightly as she wrote down a single note, smaller than the rest:

  “What if the origin isn’t singular?”

  Beside her, Marcin sat upright, listening intently, his hands folded neatly on the desk. He didn’t see her writing, but he noticed the way she held her notebook tighter, as if bracing against something unseen.

  Outside, the sun blazed against the university’s baroque facade. Inside, in the dust and stillness of the lecture hall, it felt like a beginning — and also like a warning.