[center][img]https://i.imgur.com/5xgAJ5K.png[/img][/center]

[b]Just before the corner joining the Psychology Corridor to the Sociology Corridor, Evergreen Grammar School
Friday Morning[/b]

[color=0072bc][i]It does seem to fit…[/i][/color]  Alistair wanders through the bustling corridor to his next lesson, head resting on the unsupported pillar of his arm and hand as he does his best to keep himself from falling totally asleep.  The cloud-covered sky doesn’t exactly help matters; the daylight that might supply him a touch of extra vigour is, at best, much reduced.  [color=0072bc][i]With the world now…  Feminism, populism, all the…  ‘isms’.  All fighting power gaps.  Some more than others.[/i][/color]

He sighs, mind too exhausted even for indignation.  [color=0072bc][i]It…  I can’t believe it.  Conflict Theory’s Marx’s.  He saw society having an end state – that’s not right, and if it’s not right…  People can’t spread their work across humanity; they help people they care about.  Enough people with good ideas, there’s a new power gap, new conflict.  No room for growth past it.[/i][/color]

On Alistair pushes; a few rays of sunlight splash in through the window.  [color=0072bc][i]I suppose…  Communications?  Get the world joined up, throw those ideas arou-[/i][/color]

And then he feels a weight.

Alistair lets go of his forehead – and then lets his hand drop to one side, falling into a slightly more regular walking position even as he shrinks, shoulders subconsciously hunching, head bowing.  Along the corridor powerful, shuddering steps ring out, beating a drum of submission and order.  Mr Ashcroft, Vice-Principal of Evergreen Grammar School, marches forth; his eyes flick over his charges, trapping and dissecting students caught in their burning gaze.  As he strides past, Alistair feels the [i]imprint[/i] of his aura, authoritative and judging, undeniable, unbreakable and imposing.  He shrinks further, the force crushing him downwards, unresisted and irresistable.

From within his deep recesses of his mind, the tolling returns – and his conscious mind misses it, not even processing it enough to dismiss it as imagination.

Ashcroft passes.  Behind him, Alistair slows, dampened.

[i][color=646d7c]W[/color][color=576f8f]h[/color][color=0072bc][color=4170a5]a[/color]t was I…[/color][/i]

He comes to a standstill, expression near-blank.  People shove around him; a couple grumble irritably.

He misses them, too.