Cold Stew at Table Four

The tray slipped. It was a simple physics failure—sweaty palms meeting cheap, condensation-slicked plastic—but the result sounded like a gunshot in a library. The melamine platter hit the linoleum edge-first, flipping with a wet, heavy slap. Lukewarm brown stew splattered across the cuffs of Simon’s trousers. The apple, bruised and waxy, rolled aggressively toward the boots of a passing senior prefect.

Silence rippled outward from the impact zone, faster than the spill itself. The low hum of three hundred students chewing and gossiping died instantly.

Simon froze. His heart hammered a frantic rhythm against his ribs, a trapped bird throwing itself against a cage. He stared at the mess. The grey chunks of meat. The puddle of water. The shame was physical, a hot flush creeping up his neck, burning his ears. He wasn't supposed to be noticed. Being noticed was dangerous. Being noticed got you listed.

"Clean it up," the prefect said. He didn't stop walking. He didn't even look down. He just stepped over the rolling apple, his polished leather boot missing it by an inch. The prefects didn't need to look; they were the law, and the law didn't concern itself with accidents.

Simon dropped to his knees. The floor smelled of industrial bleach and old milk. He grabbed napkins from the dispenser on the nearest table—wads of rough, brown paper that didn't absorb anything, just smeared the grease around. His hands shook. He could feel eyes on him. The cameras in the corners of the ceiling, the little red LEDs blinking like unblinking eyes, recorded his humiliation in high definition.

"Leave it, Si," a voice whispered nearby. Someone kicked a fresh napkin toward him. He didn't look up to see who. He just scrubbed harder.

Once the floor was merely sticky rather than wet, he stood up. He didn't go back for more food. He couldn't face the serving lady with her hairnet and her ladle of sludge. He took the tray, now light and empty, and walked to the far corner of the room, near the radiators.

The Uninvited Guest

Table Four was wobbly. It always had been. A folded piece of cardboard was wedged under one leg, but it had compressed over the semester, leaving the table with a persistent, annoying list to the left. Simon sat. He kept his head down, staring at the grain of the fake wood laminate. Someone had carved *WATCH* into the surface with a compass point years ago. Dirt had filled the grooves, turning the warning black.

Outside, the autumn rain lashed against the tall Victorian windows. It wasn't a gentle shower; it was a deluge, a vertical sheet of grey water that obscured the fences and the guard towers at the perimeter. The wind howled, rattling the frames. It was cold near the glass, a damp, seeping chill that settled in the marrow.

The chair opposite him scraped back.

Simon didn't move. Table Four was a single-occupancy zone. That was the unwritten rule. Simon sat alone, ate alone, and left alone. It was how he survived. It was how he kept his mother’s file from being pulled by the Administration.

"Eat," the voice said. Rough. Low. Familiar.

Simon looked up.

Jimmy. He looked like he’d gone twelve rounds with a concrete mixer. His tie was loose, the knot pulled aggressively to the side. There was a purpling bruise blossoming on his left cheekbone, tight and shiny, and a split in his lower lip that had scabbed over darkly. He was soaking wet. His blazer smelled of wet wool, tobacco, and the metallic tang of dried blood.

"You shouldn't be here," Simon said. The words were barely a breath. He scanned the room. The prefects were by the doors, laughing, checking their phones. But they would turn around eventually.

Jimmy didn't answer. He had a tray. On it was a single bowl of the brown stew and a carton of milk. He pushed the bowl across the table toward Simon.

"Eat," Jimmy repeated. He wasn't looking at Simon. He was looking at the window, watching the rain blur the world outside.

"I'm not hungry."

"Don't care. Look busy."

Simon picked up the spoon. It felt heavy, clumsy in his fingers. He dipped it into the stew, stirring the gelatinous gravy. "What happened to your face?"

"Stairs," Jimmy said flatly. "Very slippery. Dangerous place, this."

"Jimmy."

"Shut up, Simon. Just eat."

The tension coming off Jimmy was radioactive. It made the hair on Simon’s arms stand up. Jimmy was usually the calm one, the one who leaned against walls and smoked imaginary cigarettes and watched the world burn with a cynical smirk. This Jimmy was a wire pulled to the breaking point. His leg was bouncing under the table, a frantic, jackhammer rhythm that vibrated through the floor and up into Simon’s soles.

The Transfer

Simon took a bite. It tasted of salt and burnt onion. He forced himself to swallow. "They're watching you," he murmured, eyes on his spoon.

"They're always watching," Jimmy said. He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the table. The movement was stiff, painful. He winced, a tiny flicker of weakness that vanished as quickly as it appeared. "But the cameras have a blind spot. Here. The pillar blocks the angle from the east corner."

"Is that why you sat here? To hide?"

Jimmy’s eyes snapped to Simon. They were dark, storm-grey, rimmed with red from lack of sleep. "I sat here because you're the only one who isn't a snitch or a coward."

Simon felt a flush that had nothing to do with the earlier embarrassment. He gripped the spoon tighter. "I'm a coward, Jimmy. I'm the biggest coward here. I just want to graduate and get out."

"None of us are getting out," Jimmy said. He reached for his milk carton. His hand brushed Simon’s wrist. His skin was freezing. "Not unless we burn the lock."

The touch lingered for a second too long. It was electric, terrifying. In a school where fraternity was monitored and intimacy was suspect, the contact felt like a crime. Simon didn't pull away. He wanted to turn his hand over, to lace his fingers with Jimmy’s, to anchor him. But he didn't. He sat frozen, feeling the cold seep from Jimmy’s skin into his own.

"Under the tray," Jimmy whispered. His lips barely moved.

Simon blinked. "What?"

"When you stand up. Take the tray. My tray. There's a gap between the plastic layers on the underside. I wedged it in."

"Wedged what in?"

"The roster," Jimmy said. "The real one. The one the Director keeps on the offline server. It has the deportation dates. For everyone. Your mum included."

The air left Simon’s lungs. The noise of the cafeteria—the clatter of cutlery, the roar of teenage voices—seemed to fade into a distant, underwater murmur. "You... you hacked the Director's private server? Jimmy, that's treason. That's not detention, that's disappearing."

"I'm already gone, Si," Jimmy said softly. He picked up his milk, took a sip, and grimaced. "They raided my dorm this morning. found the decryption key. They don't know I moved the data yet. They think I failed."

"If they find you..."

"They will. I bought you five minutes. Maybe ten."

"Why?" Simon asked. His voice cracked. He hated it. Hated how weak he sounded compared to the boy sitting across from him with a busted lip and a death sentence in his eyes.

Jimmy looked at him then. Really looked at him. The mask slipped. For a second, he wasn't the rebel, the stoic. He was just seventeen and scared and looking at the only thing in the world he didn't want to break. "Because you like the rain," Jimmy said. A nonsensical, stupid answer. "And because you look at me like I'm real."

The Departure

A bell rang. Not the class bell. The lockdown bell. A harsh, rhythmic buzzer that cut through the noise like a saw blade.

Chairs scraped. Confusion. Voices rising in pitch. "Is it a drill?" someone shouted.

Jimmy stood up. He moved fast, shoving his hands into his pockets. "Go," he hissed. "Take the tray to the return rack. Slip the drive out. Then run. Don't go to class. Go to the perimeter. The section by the old power station has a rusted calm-clamp on the fence. You can kick it loose."

"Jimmy, come with me."

"I can't." Jimmy stepped back, away from the table. He turned his body toward the doors, making himself a target. "I have to be the distraction."

"No."

"Go!" Jimmy shouted. It wasn't a whisper anymore. Heads turned. The prefects by the door straightened up, sensing prey.

Jimmy grabbed a chair from the next table and hurled it. It didn't hit anyone—it wasn't meant to—but it crashed into a stack of trays with a chaotic, deafening clatter. He stood in the centre of the aisle, arms wide, drawing every eye, every camera, every ounce of hostility in the room toward him.

"Hey!" Jimmy yelled at the prefects, a wild, jagged grin splitting his bruised face. "Is that all you've got?"

The prefects moved. They swarmed like black wasps.

Simon didn't watch. He couldn't. His chest felt like it was caving in. He stood up, his legs feeling like water. He grabbed Jimmy’s tray. It was light. Just plastic and waste.

He walked. He forced himself to walk. One foot in front of the other. Toward the conveyor belt for the dirty dishes. The chaos behind him was escalating—shouts, the sound of a scuffle, a body hitting a table. He didn't turn. If he turned, he would scream. If he turned, he would run to Jimmy, and then they would both end up in the basement cells.

He reached the racks. The conveyor belt hummed, carrying the debris of lunch into the dark, steaming maw of the kitchen. He pretended to scrape the bowl.

His fingers found the lip of the tray. There was a slit in the plastic, razor-thin. He dug a fingernail in. Something hard and metallic slid out into his palm. A USB drive. Small. heavy. Cold.

He shoved it into his pocket. His hand stayed there, gripping it so hard his knuckles turned white.

"Student! Halt!" a voice bellowed from the entrance.

Simon didn't halt. He saw the side exit, the one used for kitchen deliveries. The sign said *ALARM WILL SOUND*. But the alarm was already sounding. The whole world was an alarm.

He hit the bar on the door. It gave way with a rusty groan.

The Outside

The wind hit him like a physical blow. The rain was freezing, instantly soaking his shirt, plastering his hair to his forehead. It smelled of wet asphalt and rotting leaves. The sky was a bruised purple, heavy and low.

Simon gasped, the cold air burning his lungs. He was out. He was in the service alley.

Behind him, through the closing door, he heard a final shout, unmistakable and defiant. Jimmy’s voice. Then a thud.

Simon squeezed the drive in his pocket. The sharp edges dug into his skin. A map. A list. A way out.

He turned his collar up against the biting wind and started to run towards the treeline, his loafers slipping on the wet pavement, running away from the only person who had ever really seen him.