For weeks, no one had seen the actual professor. Rumor said she was on sabbatical, or maybe she’d just burned out mid-semester and ghosted the university. Either way, the Teaching Assistant, a grad student named “Nico,” had taken over her Literary Theory course without question.

Nico didn’t show up on the class roster. No one knew his last name, or what department he belonged to. He wore a charcoal-gray coat every day, even when it was ninety degrees, and he smelled faintly of old books and rosewater.

But he knew things.

He recited obscure passages from untranslated tomes. He quoted authors none of the students had ever heard of—authors who, when Googled, returned no results.

“Some texts are too old for the internet,” he would say, with that smile that made everyone uneasy.

He never collected homework, yet remembered every answer. When students tried to drop the class, the registrar claimed it didn’t exist. “Maybe you’re enrolled under Directed Reading?” they’d offer, tapping their keyboards like they were trying to summon smoke from stone.

Carla, a sophomore who took the class as an elective, grew suspicious after midterms. Nico had praised her paper before she submitted it. He even quoted her conclusion word for word—three days before she wrote it.

“You’re progressing nicely,” he’d said. “I look forward to your final.”

She never handed it in.

She disappeared the next day.

Students whispered that she had gone home. But no one had seen her leave campus. Her dorm room remained undisturbed, backpack still slumped by the bed, toothbrush dry on the sink.

Still, class continued. Nico never mentioned her again.

It was Alex who finally confronted him. The classroom, Room 317 of the Humanities Building, was unusually cold that morning. The lights flickered overhead. Alex stood up mid-lecture and said, “Who are you, really?”

Nico paused. He turned, slowly, the sleeves of his coat shifting like the folds of a burial shroud.

“I’m what fills the gap,” he said. “Between the one who abandoned you… and the one who’s not yet born.”

A tremor passed through the class. One girl began to cry. Another crossed herself without realizing.

Nico gestured to the chalkboard. Behind it, a seam in the wall opened—a slit that had never been there before.

The room darkened.

“Your final,” he said, “is not a test. It’s a transformation.”

Alex backed away. “We want to drop this course.”

Nico’s smile deepened. “It’s too late. You were enrolled the moment you listened.”

That was the last session. Room 317 was sealed the next day. A sign appeared on the door:

Under Maintenance. Do Not Enter.

No one remembers enrolling in that class. No one remembers Carla. But when students pass the Humanities Building at night, they sometimes see flickering lights from the third floor and hear someone lecturing in a voice that echoes backward.