Copper Haze Over Asphalt

He watched the rain run in rivulets down the grime-streaked window of the library’s fifth floor. Not like home. Never like home. Back there, rain meant thick, sweet earth smell, the sound of it tapping against broad leaves, then sinking, actually sinking, into something real. Here, it just sheeted off glass and metal, pooled in dips in the asphalt, smelling like exhaust and wet concrete, and eventually, he supposed, draining into some buried pipe. It was a cycle, sure, but a manufactured one, choked of all true life. He felt it, sometimes, that choke, right in his throat.

His hand, without conscious thought, brushed the rough wool of his scarf, a dark blue weave his grandmother had sent, smelling faintly of woodsmoke and something indefinable – the North, he guessed. He missed the quiet. This city was a constant, grinding symphony of noise he hadn't known existed until he was plunged into it, all sirens and distant, insistent traffic and the vague, metallic thrum of… something large beneath the ground. The thought made his teeth ache.

He should be studying. There was a stack of textbooks on environmental law, all sharp angles and impenetrable jargon, waiting for him on the scarred oak table. But his gaze kept drifting, past the glass, past the grey, reaching fingers of autumn trees, to the central quad where the 'Pumpkin Parade' was about to begin. A truly bizarre, frankly unsettling, tradition that had started as a campus art project and now felt more like some kind of pagan ritual gone terribly, comically wrong.

A shiver, not entirely from the chill seeping through the old window frame, worked its way down his spine. This whole place felt like a stage, always. Everyone performing, always. Even him. Especially him. He’d learned to flatten his accent, to pretend he knew what a 'latte' was without having to google it later. He’d learned to walk with a quicker step, to look less like a deer in headlights, though inside, the deer was still very much there, heart hammering against its ribs.

A faint clatter of books nearby, then a heavy sigh. Cody. Wally didn't need to look. He knew the sound of Cody, the subtle shift in the air, the way the light seemed to thicken around him. Cody, who also carried the North in his bones, though he wore it with a kind of grim, quiet defiance Wally could only admire. He was all solid angles and unyielding gaze, like a rock face that had weathered a thousand winters. Wally, by contrast, felt like a sapling, easily swayed, easily broken.

“Still staring at the spectacle?” Cody’s voice was low, rough, like gravel dragged across stone, but held a surprising, almost gentle quality. He didn’t use his full name, never did. Just ‘Wally’ – simple, direct, like a label on a very important, very fragile thing.

Wally didn't turn. “It’s… something.”

“It is that.” Cody pulled out the chair opposite him, the legs scraping a sharp, unhappy noise across the floor. “Like something out of a bad dream, only with more squashed gourd bits.”

Wally let a small, involuntary huff of air escape his nose. He liked when Cody said things like that. Grounded him, somehow, in the absurdity. “They’re trying to out-do last year, aren’t they? The 'Great Gourd God of Granby Hall'.”

Cody hummed, a low, rumbling sound in his chest. “Looks like it. Saw one with actual smoke coming out of its eyes. Probably a fire hazard, knowing this place.” He pushed a small, slightly crumpled package of biscuits across the table. “Got these from the campus shop. Figured you hadn’t eaten.”

Wally looked at the biscuits. Chocolate digestives. Cody remembered. He always did. It was a small thing, but it sent a strange, warm flutter through Wally’s chest, a feeling he tried to ignore, tried to classify as just… friendship. But it wasn’t. Not entirely. It was a deeper current, pulling him, steadying him in this relentless, chaotic sea.

“Thanks.” Wally’s voice was a little rougher than he intended. He picked one up, the chocolate already slightly melted from the warmth of the package. It tasted like home, somehow, like comfort, like something real amidst the surreal blur.

The Unblinking Orange Eyes

Below, in the quad, a small crowd had begun to gather. Students, bundled in scarves and thick coats, their breath pluming white in the crisp autumn air. The sky above them was a bruised purple-grey, promising more rain. And arrayed across the lawn were the pumpkins. Hundreds of them. Carved, painted, stacked, wired, some emitting strange, flickering lights from within. A few were enormous, almost human-sized, propped up on wooden frames, their carved faces leering, unnervingly expressive.

“It’s the eyes that get me,” Wally murmured, taking a bite of his biscuit. The chocolate was sweet, familiar.

Cody leaned forward, his elbows on the table, his gaze fixed on the scene below. His profile was sharp, almost stark, against the dull light of the window. “They’re too…knowing. Like they’ve seen things.”

“Or they’re about to,” Wally added, a dark, dry humour in his voice. This was their shared language, the unspoken understanding that this world, this city, was a strange, often comical, sometimes terrifying place. And they were in it together.

A figure in a long, flowing cloak — likely a student council member, or some overzealous art major — began to address the crowd from a makeshift podium. Their voice, tinny and distorted, drifted up to the fifth floor, a garble of 'community' and 'artistic expression' and 'spirit of the season.' It sounded hollow, like the gourds themselves.

Cody shifted, his knee brushing Wally’s under the table. A small spark, unexpected, electric. Wally pulled his leg back almost imperceptibly, his cheeks warming. He hoped Cody hadn’t noticed. Hoped he had.

“You still… think about going back?” Wally asked, the words feeling clumsy, too heavy, like stones he was trying to skim across water.

Cody took a moment to answer, his eyes still on the spectacle below. He plucked at a loose thread on his sleeve, a familiar gesture. “Every damn day. Especially when the heating in my dorm dies. Or when the coffee tastes like… well, like this city.” He finally turned, his gaze meeting Wally’s. There was a raw, aching honesty there that made Wally’s throat catch. “But no. Not yet. Not for good.”

Wally nodded, relieved, a small, selfish part of him relaxing. He didn’t want to be here without Cody. The thought itself was a revelation, a sharp, clear truth cutting through the haze of homesickness and confusion. Cody was his compass in this alien landscape. His anchor. Maybe… more than that.

“My sister called last night,” Wally said, changing the subject, but not really. “Said the first snow fell. Just a dusting.” He watched Cody’s eyes, saw the way they softened, the brief flicker of memory in their depths. It was like they both felt the same chill wind from home, even here, in this stuffy, overlit library.

“Always early,” Cody murmured. “Remember that year the car wouldn’t start? Had to walk all the way to the bus stop in that whiteout.”

“And you complained the whole way,” Wally recalled, a faint smile touching his lips. It was a shared memory, a small, treasured thing, like a smooth river stone. “But you carried my bag.”

Cody’s lips twitched, almost a smile. “Someone had to. You looked like a lost pup.”

The air between them settled, thick with unspoken things. The memory, the shared past, the unspoken future. A comfortable, heavy silence. Below, the robed figure waved their arms dramatically, and a collective cheer rose from the crowd, thin and reedy. A few of the larger pumpkins, operated by hidden mechanisms, began to slowly turn, their unblinking orange eyes swivelling towards the library.

Wally felt a distinct prickle on the back of his neck. It was just an art project. Just students. But the synchronicity, the sheer number of those carved, grinning faces all turning, all seeming to *look* at them… it was too much. It was the surreality bleeding into the real, an ominous whisper beneath the festive veneer. Cody, sensing his unease, reached out, his fingers briefly, lightly, covering Wally’s where they rested on the cold tabletop. The touch was quick, gone almost before it registered, but it left a lingering warmth, a small brand on his skin.

Later, as the sun dipped below the city’s jagged skyline, painting the clouds in bruised purples and bloody oranges that felt entirely too dramatic, they left the library. The Pumpkin Parade was in full swing. Students milled about, laughing, taking photos of the grotesque gourds, some even trying to dance to the tinny, distorted music blasting from hidden speakers. The air, though cold, was thick with the smell of roasting pumpkin seeds and something else, something metallic and acrid, like burnt sugar and old copper.

Wally felt disoriented, the colours too bright, the sounds too loud. The faces of the students in the crowd seemed to morph and shift in the fading light, losing their individual features, becoming a single, vast, grinning mask, all part of the bizarre, slow-moving ritual. He wanted to reach for Cody’s hand, to hold onto something solid, but he didn’t. He just walked a little closer, their shoulders brushing with every few steps. It was enough.

They passed a particularly elaborate pumpkin display: a towering, skeletal figure made entirely of smaller gourds, its arms outstretched, holding aloft a single, glowing orange orb. Its carved face was a cavernous maw, filled with what looked like… teeth. Real teeth. Wally stumbled, his foot catching on an uneven flagstone. He caught himself, breath hitched, turning back to stare at the display.

“Did you… did you see that?” he whispered, his voice thin against the ambient noise.

Cody had stopped too, his gaze following Wally’s. His expression was unreadable, a familiar mask of quiet stoicism. “See what?” His tone was even, but Wally saw the subtle clench of his jaw, the slight tension in his shoulders.

“The… teeth. In that one. They looked real.”

Cody looked, then looked away. “Probably just carved bone. Or plastic. It’s an art school, Wally. They go for… realism.” He said the word 'realism' with a dry, almost cynical emphasis, as if it was a foreign concept he was merely tolerating. But there was a beat, a stretched silence, before he spoke, that told Wally he’d seen it too, or at least, had registered the same unsettling quality.

A group of boisterous students, cloaked in black hoodies and carrying smaller, glowing pumpkins, swept past them, laughing. One of them, a tall, lanky student with wide, unnervingly bright eyes, paused, turning their head to meet Wally’s gaze. A smile, too wide, too sharp, stretched across their face, revealing a flash of something white and unnatural within their mouth. Then they were gone, swallowed by the crowd.

Wally’s blood ran cold. He clutched his hands into fists inside his pockets, his nails digging into his palms. He couldn’t have imagined it. The look, the smile, the… *teeth*. He felt a tremor start deep in his gut. This place, this whole city, it wasn’t just unfamiliar. It was wrong. Fundamentally, subtly, terrifyingly wrong.

Cody placed a hand on his back, a solid, reassuring weight through the layers of his jacket. “Come on,” he said, his voice a low rumble. “Let’s get some actual food. The dining hall will be quieter now.” He steered Wally gently through the throng, away from the unsettling spectacle, but Wally couldn't shake the image. The wide, unnatural smile. The glint of white. This wasn't just city life, not just adapting. This was something else entirely. Something had unlatched itself, something dark and sharp, right here on campus, and it was watching them.

He wondered, with a sickening lurch in his stomach, how long it had been watching.