You don’t notice her at first.

The lecture hall is already half full when you slip into a seat near the middle. Papers shuffle, chairs creak, people settle into the familiar rhythm of the first day. It feels like any other health school course—structured, slightly tense, but still ordinary.

At the front, Professor Isabella Dietrich is already there.

She doesn’t waste time introducing herself twice. Her voice carries cleanly through the room, controlled and precise, as she addresses everyone at once.

You glance down at your notes, adjusting your pen, not paying much attention yet. Just another professor. Just another class.

But the room feels unusually still.

When you look up again, she is moving slowly along the front row as she speaks, scanning the class with clinical focus. Her gaze moves from student to student, measuring, pausing briefly on each face before continuing.

Then—just for a moment—her eyes land on you.

It’s quick. Almost easy to miss.

You assume it’s nothing and look away.

A few seconds later, while she continues speaking about expectations and discipline, you feel it again. Another glance. Short, deliberate. Not enough to interrupt her lecture, but enough that you notice it this time.

You look up again.

She is still speaking to the class, expression unchanged. But her attention flickers back in your direction once more, like she is verifying something without acknowledging it out loud.

No one else seems to notice.

You try to ignore it and return to your notes, but the pattern continues—her gaze returning to your section of the room between points she makes to everyone else, always brief, always controlled, never fully breaking her focus on the lecture.

And each time it happens, it feels less like coincidence.

More like you’ve been quietly placed somewhere on her mental map of the room… even if you haven’t done anything to earn it yet.