The Visitors

There had been rumors for years. Whispers passed from class to class, boys in hallways and locker rooms swapping stories about the day it would all change, the day the visitors would arrive. Teachers dismissed it as chatter, a joke to keep us entertained between endless assemblies and the lingering scent of incense in our blazers. But even those who laughed off the idea would sometimes cast a wary glance down the hall, wondering if it could really happen.

Then, on a foggy morning in October, they came.

They didn’t look like any invaders we’d pictured. No alien armor or silver suits, no strange languages or laser beams. They looked, at first glance, like us, ordinary. They had backpacks and books, an easy way of laughing, and a quiet, watchful way of walking through the halls. And yet, from the second they set foot on the stained carpet floors, everything felt… off. The routine, the way we drifted from morning ritual to the weight of Latin conjugations, felt somehow disrupted like someone had shifted the foundations we’d never questioned.

Suddenly, the commons felt smaller, the hallways narrower, every space buzzing with an unfamiliar energy that unsteadied even the most confident of us. Teachers, masters of ancient wisdom who could silence a room with a single look, now hesitated, speaking softer, leaving longer pauses. In P.E., our locker room chatter quieted, and out on the soccer field, we played with an unsettled focus, as if something larger was watching.

They weren’t like us, that much became clear. They questioned everything. They examined every rule and tradition we’d grown numb to with a critical eye, as if peeling back the old order to reveal something we’d been blind to. They slipped into places we’d thought were ours alone, moving through our once sacred routines with ease. Their very presence hinted at a world larger than our own, something beyond the brick walls and daily announcements that we’d known as permanent.

By the first week, boys who’d once strode through the halls slowed, their certainty fraying, while others, usually the quieter ones, seemed to come into focus, adapting to this unknown. The Arrival, it turned out, was no myth. It was the beginning. A shifting of worlds, an unraveling of the order we thought was unbreakable.