Lessons from Below

They say the desert never forgets. Not the wind. Not the sand. And certainly not the dead.   At Tulara University, tradition is everything. Robes must fall to the ankle. Voices must never rise in the lecture halls. The students file through corridors of sandstone and shadow, beneath ceiling fans powered by the mechanical miracle of the Tunnelworks—a labyrinth of humming, gear-driven passages below the university, circulating cool air through every classroom.   But older still than the Tunnelworks is what lies beneath them: the cistern.   Most students don’t even know it exists. But if you study long enough, if you stay through the silent, blistering summers while the rest go home to cooler climes, you'll begin to notice the signs. A draught too cold for any fan to have made. A whisper echoing through an empty lecture hall. The metal floor grilles rattling... though there’s no wind that day.   They say it started with Professor Harun Meskil, one of the original engineers who modernized the Tunnelworks in the early days of the school's expansion. He was a brilliant man, but reckless. He worked alone, they say, because no one else would go as deep as he did.   Down into the guts of the university. Down to where the tunnels met the stone-lined cistern, built by hands long turned to dust.   According to university records, Harun went missing in the winter of 847. Officially, they said he retired to the coast. But the engineers speak differently when the sun dips behind the sand dunes.   They say he never left. That he found something moving in the cistern. Not water—no, the cistern’s been dry for centuries. Something else. Something old. Something that remembers.   When students disappear now—always just one, every few years, always during the hot months—there’s barely a notice. The university issues a statement. "Voluntary withdrawal." "Left for personal reasons." But the others know. The ones who stay behind. The ones who hear it.   It starts with a metallic ticking behind your walls at night. Then a voice calling your name—but it's your own voice, perfectly echoed, coming from a floor vent.   They say if you open the wrong service hatch at the wrong hour, you’ll see a light. Pale green. Flickering like gaslight. And if you follow it, you’ll descend deeper than the blueprints allow. The air will turn sweet and wet, like ancient rot.   Then you’ll hear it: the turning of a massive crank. A groan like lungs inhaling dust. The voice will welcome you. It will call you student.   And you will answer.   The elders say the cistern was once a temple—long before Tulara was a university. Long before Tulara was a name at all. They say the first civilization gave their brightest minds to the dark water beneath, trading brilliance for coolness, knowledge for survival.   Professor Meskil went to learn. But now he teaches.   And if you're not careful—if your grades falter, if you sleep too deeply near a vent—you may be invited to office hours... below.   So if you're new to Tulara, here's your only real advice:   Never remove a floor grate. Never walk alone after midnight. And if you hear your own voice asking for help from the tunnel below—do not answer.   Because the desert never forgets.   And neither does the cistern.