The Economics lecture hall buzzed with pre-class chatter as Lance slid into an empty seat, his temples throbbing from another restless night. The room''s fluorescent lights cast a harsh glow over rows of tired students clutching coffee cups and energy drinks. Professor Shepherd organized his materials at the front, his voice blending with the steady clicking of  the rustle of opening textbooks. Lance checked his phone—9:47 AM—and then glanced at the wall clock showing 9:52. The five-minute discrepancy made his stomach lurch, a familiar sensation of temporal vertigo.


    "Is this seat taken?"


    Lance looked up to find a lanky student hovering nearby, practically vibrating with nervous energy. The guy wore a bright orange hoodie that clashed with his lime green backpack, his dark hair sticking up in impossible directions despite obvious attempts to tame it. He fidgeted constantly—fingers drumming, foot tapping, shoulders shifting.


    "No, go ahead," Lance replied, moving his bag aside on the worn lecture hall chair.


    "Thanks! I''m Jasper," the student said, dropping into the chair with barely contained enthusiasm. Papers spilled from his unzipped backpack as it hit the floor. "Jasper Lee. Fair warning—I talk during class. Like, a lot. Usually about relevant stuff, mostly. Sometimes about my parents'' food truck. Have you tried the Korean-Mexican fusion place near the student center? That''s them! You look like someone who''d appreciate a good bulgogi burrito."


    Lance blinked at the rapid-fire introduction, watching as Jasper produced three different highlighters and began arranging them neatly beside his notebook. "Uh, no, I haven''t—"


    "You should! The kimchi quesadillas are amazing. I helped develop the recipe. Well, mostly I just ate a lot of test versions, but that''s part of the process, right?" Jasper''s enthusiasm was infectious, his wide grin genuine despite his restless energy. "Plus, I get free food whenever I help out on weekends. Employee benefits, you know? Well, more like son benefits. Is that a thing? It should be."


    Despite his mounting anxiety about temporal anomalies, Lance found himself smiling. Jasper''s earnest energy was oddly comforting—like an anchor in the increasingly unstable reality around him. The constant motion and chatter felt predictable, normal, unlike the shifting time streams he''d been experiencing.


    Professor Shepherd called the class to order, his crisp voice cutting through the morning haze as he launched into a lecture about market equilibrium. Graphs and equations appeared on the whiteboard in neat rows. Lance tried to focus, but his attention kept drifting to the clock. Its hands seemed to stutter, jumping forward or back a few minutes at random intervals. Only he seemed to notice the anomalies, while other students dutifully took notes on supply and demand curves.


    Beside him, Jasper scribbled notes with surprising intensity, occasionally muttering economic principles under his breath. His presence felt grounding—totally normal yet completely unique, without any hint of temporal distortion. His highlighters moved in a complex choreography of color-coding that made sense only to him.


    "Psst," Jasper whispered during a lull, leaning closer. His pen had left multicolored marks on his chin. "Is it just me, or does the professor''s tie keep changing patterns?"


    Lance''s heart skipped a beat. "What?"


    "Never mind," Jasper shrugged, refocusing on his notes. "Probably just the lighting. Though I swear it was striped a minute ago, and now it''s polka dots. Maybe I need more coffee. Or less coffee. Probably less coffee."


    After class, Lance retreated to his dorm room, pulling out his laptop. The afternoon sun cast long shadows across his desk as he opened an incognito browser window and began searching: "temporal anomalies," "time loop experiences," "deja vu causes." Most results were fictional or paranoid ramblings on conspiracy theory websites, but a few caught his attention.


    A physics forum discussed the observer effect in relation to consciousness, with one thread specifically addressing temporal perception anomalies in quantum mechanics. A psychology paper explored the relationship between stress and temporal perception, suggesting that extreme anxiety could distort one''s experience of time. He found himself deep in a rabbit hole of quantum mechanics theories and testimonials from people claiming to have experienced time slips, though none quite matched his experiences at Greylock.


    His phone buzzed—a message from Chris: "You''ve been quiet lately. Everything okay? Mom''s asking about you too." The concern in his best friend''s text tightened Lance''s chest with guilt.The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.


    His gaze fixed on the display, fingers poised above the keys. How could he articulate the situation without seeming entirely unglued? "Just adjusting to college life," he typed, deleting and rewriting the words several times. "Want to game tonight?"


    "Hell yeah!" Chris replied instantly, his enthusiasm clear even through text. "9 PM? I need to show you this new strategy I found. Been practicing all week."


    The gaming session started normally enough. Lance logged into their usual voice chat, Chris''s familiar excitement filling his headphones as they loaded into their favorite strategy game. The interface and Chris''s running commentary about his classes felt wonderfully normal—just two friends playing games like they had countless times before in high school.


    Then it happened.


    "Dude, did you see that?" Chris''s voice crackled through the headset, tension breaking his usual casual tone. "The match timer just went backward like ten seconds. All my units reset positions."


    Lance froze, his character standing motionless on screen. "What?"


    "Must be server lag or something," Chris continued casually, though Lance could hear the confusion in his voice. "But it was weird. Like watching a video in reverse. Everything just... rewound."


    Lance''s hands trembled on the keyboard as pressure built behind his eyes. "Yeah, probably just lag," he managed, though his throat felt tight and dry.


    "You okay? You sound off. Like, more off than usual lately."


    "I''m fine," Lance lied, watching the game''s timer flicker between numbers. "Just tired. New schedule and everything."


    "Lance," Chris''s voice turned serious, dropping the casual gaming banter. "I''ve known you since middle school. Since that weird gaming club where you beat everyone at Street Fighter. Something''s up."


    Lance opened his mouth to confess everything—the loops, the time slips, the fear of losing his grip on reality. But the words wouldn''t come. How could he explain without sounding crazy? How could he describe watching moments repeat while everyone else remained oblivious? How could he know he wasn’t crazy?


    "It''s just..." he murmured, his words dissolving as the desk lamp flickered unsteadily. The monitor''s digital display wavered unpredictably, cycling through 9:47, 9:52, and 9:45. "It''s just college stress, I guess. Everything feels a bit... unstable sometimes."


    "Unstable how?" Chris pressed, genuine concern evident in his voice.


    Before Lance could answer, a knock at his door made him jump. "Hold on," he told Chris, pulling off his headset, the plastic catching in his hair.


    Sophie Martinez, his dorm''s RA, stood in the hallway, clipboard in hand. Her professional demeanor couldn''t quite hide her exhaustion—being responsible for an entire floor of freshmen clearly took its toll. "Hey Lance, just doing room checks. Sorry to check in so late, I think my desk clock reset and I lost track of time. Everything going okay?"


    "Yeah, fine," he said quickly, too quickly. Sophie''s eyes narrowed slightly, her psychology major instincts kicking in.


    "You sure? You seem a bit stressed. More than typical first-week jitters." She glanced past him into the room, probably checking for obvious signs of struggle or contraband.


    Lance forced a smile, trying to appear more composed than he felt. "Just adjusting. New environment and all that. You know how it is."


    Sophie studied him for a moment, her clipboard lowering slightly. "Well, my door''s always open if you need to talk. Room 301. We have resources for students feeling overwhelmed. The counseling center''s really good, actually."


    After she left, Lance returned to his desk but didn''t put his headset back on. His browser tabs still displayed various articles about temporal phenomena and stress-related symptoms. One headline caught his eye: "Time Perception Disorders: When Reality Doesn''t Match Your Clock." The clinical terminology felt both reassuring and terrifying.


    He clicked through medical websites, reading about anxiety symptoms, stress-induced temporal distortion, and various psychological conditions that could affect time perception. Was he just stressed? Having some kind of breakdown? Or was something genuinely wrong with time itself at Greylock?


    His phone lit up with another text from Chris: "You still there? Did you rage quit on me? Don''t leave me hanging, bro."


    "Sorry," Lance replied, feeling guilty for abandoning their game. "RA stopped by. Rain check?"


    He spent the next hour documenting everything in a private Google Doc—every time slip, every loop, every temporal inconsistency he''d noticed since arriving at Greylock. The pattern seemed clear, yet made no sense. The anomalies were increasing in frequency but became more focused, following some incomprehensible logic. Seeing it all written down made it feel both more real and more impossible.


    The radiator clicked steadily, marking time in its own peculiar rhythm. Through his window, the clock tower''s illuminated faces stubbornly showed different times, as if reality itself still couldn''t agree on the current moment. He noticed a snippet of conversation from two students in the hallway outside his room repeating twice within minutes.


    Later after he’d settled down and Reid had returned, he lay in bed, listening to Reid''s steady breathing from across the room, and wondered how many others at Greylock were lying awake, watching time behave in ways it shouldn''t. Tomorrow would bring more classes, more moments that might or might not repeat, more chances to question his sanity or confirm his suspicions. But for now, in the quiet darkness of Room 317, Lance could only wait and watch as time continued its increasingly erratic dance around him, wondering if he was losing his mind or discovering something profound about the nature of reality itself.


    His phone showed 11:43 PM when he finally drifted off, the tower faces still gleaming outside his window, their hands spinning in patterns that defied both physics and logic, counting down to something he couldn''t quite understand but could feel approaching with every temporal hiccup and reset.