Every morning, the sunlight entered through the dormitory window at an angle that consistently hit Adam directly in the face.
He attempted to move the bed during the first week, nudging it a few inches to the left.
MHowever, the window was large enough that it made little difference, and eventually he ceased resisting, accepting that this world would wake him at dawn whether he was prepared or not.
He lay there for a moment with his eyes half open, observing the light tracing thin pale strips across the stone ceiling.
It was the quiet of early morning, lasting roughly twenty minutes before the dormitory corridor filled with the sounds of a hundred students starting their day.
He sat up gradually, ran a hand through his hair, and reached for the glass of water on the small table next to the bed.
The room was cool, lasting like the chill that clings to stone buildings overnight and lingers into the morning.
He could hear the wind outside the window, carrying the faint scent of the grounds after a light rain.
He dressed calmly without hurrying.
Wearing the uniform, jacket, and boots, the same routine that the original Adam Reindeer's memories had established for him.
It was simple enough to perform almost automatically, which was useful since, in the first few minutes of each morning, that was roughly all he was capable of.
He rinsed his face at the small basin by the door, gazed at his reflection for a moment, the same way he still did every morning, still a bit unaccustomed to the face staring back, and then grabbed his bag before heading out.
The corridor was already alive.
Two doors away, two students engaged in a hushed but sharp disagreement about who should return the borrowed notes.
Their voices were subdued, as if trying not to wake anyone, yet it was obvious they had already stirred themselves with their argument.
Across the hall, a third-year student named Adam, whom I vaguely recognised, was leaning against the wall.
He was eating an apple and reading from a small book with focused efficiency, as if he had turned every available moment into study time.
From somewhere further down the corridor, the sound of someone's alarm persisted, either ignored or slept through, its muffled insistence a common early morning fixture that no one paid attention to anymore.
Adam moved through everything smoothly, nodding at familiar faces and keeping his eyes alert as he had practised over the past week.
He avoided staring, didn't seem to be taking stock, just stayed present and aware.
He spotted Rim at the corridor's end, tying his boots on the bench near the stairwell, with his jacket only partially on and tousled hair that indicated he had been awake for about four minutes.
"You look terrible," Adam said.
"I look fine," Rim said without looking up, "I just look fine very quickly." He finished with his boots and stood, shrugging his jacket properly onto his shoulders. "Dining hall?"
"Dining hall," Adam agreed.
They used the main staircase, descending and exiting through the side door that leads onto the path between the residential block and the main building, providing the quickest way to reach the dining hall while avoiding the crowded main entrance.
The morning air greeted them as they stepped outside, cool and fresh with remnants of last night's rain lingering on the stone and grass.
It was the kind of morning that made the campus appear just washed, with every surface sharper and more distinct in the early light.
The path was crowded with students heading the same way, some in pairs, others alone, some still half asleep and guiding themselves by routine.
Adam naturally blended into the flow, hands in his pockets, observing the campus come to life around him.
The main courtyard caught the morning sun better than anywhere else on campus, the light falling across the stone at a low angle that made everything look slightly golden, and for a moment as they crossed it Adam found himself simply noticing how good it looked, the old stone and the climbing vines still wet from the rain and the pale sky overhead just beginning to deepen into proper morning blue. It was the kind of thing he probably would not have paid attention to before, back in his old life, but this world had a texture to it that kept catching him off guard, a realness that the novel had never once managed to convey.
He looked away from the sky and kept walking.
The dining hall was warm, loud, and filled with the aroma of bread and something savory from the kitchen.
The noise felt familiar to Adam as he picked up a tray and joined the queue.
He loaded up with bread, a bowl of something thick and grain-based that was better than it looked, and a cup of the dark, bitter drink the academy served in the mornings, which he decided was close enough to coffee to count.
He and Rim found their usual table, the one by the second window from the left that got decent light without the direct glare, and settled in.
"Theory assessment," Rim said, breaking his bread, "are you ready for it?"
"Mostly," Adam said.
"Mostly," Rim repeated, in the tone of someone who had heard that answer before and knew what it usually meant. "What part are you not ready for?"
"The practical application section," Adam admitted, "the theory is fine but the application examples they use are all from the third volume of the core text and I have not finished it."
"I have notes," Rim said, "good ones, from when Sera in our class explained it last term." He paused. "Actually very good notes because Sera explains things in a way that makes sense and I was paying attention for once."
"I'll take those notes," Adam said.
"Thought you might." Rim tore off a piece of bread and ate it. "Tonight after dinner?"
"Works for me."