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Clara sat at her desk, resting her face on her right hand and doing little to hide her boredom.

Class had already begun, but like almost every other student in the classroom, she would have preferred to skip it. Not because the subject itself was boring, but because of Professor Isaac Alcazar.

The short man, with a prominent mustache and thinning hair that foretold his impending baldness, was teaching Introduction to Neuropsychology.

Whenever Professor Alcazar began class, he immediately put all the students to sleep, as if he possessed some kind of magical power that induced drowsiness.

This was because the man's voice was slow, measured, and utterly unenthusiastic. It seemed that even the professor himself didn't want to be there.

When Clara felt her cheek beginning to sting from pressing it against her hand for so long, she decided to switch sides, adopting the same position with her left hand instead.

At that moment, she saw the classroom door slowly open, but she wasn't the only one who looked. Every student, including the professor, fixed their eyes on the door. After all, the surprise of seeing who was coming in was much more interesting than the class itself.

Shyly, with his messy black hair, Izan entered the classroom. He gave the professor an apologetic nod, which was met with a disapproving look, and hurried to find an available seat.

Clara smiled when she saw him and waved her hand to show him where she was sitting.

The boy hurried over to her and whispered:

"I fell asleep. I don't even know when I turned off the alarm."

"I figured. I sent you messages, and you didn't even see them."

"Ah, shit. I knew I was forgetting something," Izan replied as he felt around his pockets for his phone.

Clara chuckled quietly. She was used to how absentminded her friend could be.

"Well, looks like you'll have no choice but to pay attention to Mr. Alcatraz's class."

Alcatraz was the nickname they had given Professor Alcazar. The names sounded similar, and the nickname was fitting, as his classes seemed worthy of being held in a prison located in one of Dante's seven circles of Hell. It was the punishment of boredom.

Izan let out a snort that sounded more like a groan than a complaint and, with no other choice, pulled out his notebook and began drawing whatever came to mind.

As he did so, he glanced at his friend and asked:

"And what happened to your face? It looks like someone hit you or something."

Confused, Clara touched her face and frowned.

"What are you talking about?"

"This red mark you have here," he replied, poking his index finger into his friend's cheek, right where the redness was.

"That's where I was resting my hand... Stop! What are you doing?" she scolded, annoyed as she pushed his hand away.

It was then that she realized she hadn't whispered those last words, and Professor Alcazar was looking at her with an expression of anger and disappointment.

Clara turned red and immediately apologized, enduring the typical university lecture about how they were no longer in high school.

Once the class returned to normal, she whispered again:

"Idiot, don't do things like that."

Izan didn't answer because he was trying to hold back his laughter. When he finally calmed down, he said:

"Now the mark has spread across your whole face."

Clara kicked him under the desk, but she was smiling too.

Now and then, a thin young man would turn his head to look at the friends whispering to each other, his piercing eyes revealing his jealousy.

"Your boyfriend is looking at us," Izan said, discreetly pointing toward the boy sitting a few desks ahead of them. His name was Alex.

"Dah, I told you not to call him that anymore. I don't want anything to do with him," she grumbled. "We broke up a year ago, but he still keeps trying to talk to me, as if I'd forgive him for what he did."

Izan was about to say something when she beat him to it, speaking angrily:

"And I already know you told me he was an idiot. I know."

"I wasn't going to say anything," the boy replied with a laugh and a shrug.

The class continued to be just as boring as always, so Clara rested her head on her right hand again.

Clara and Alex had been dating for a little over a year. Although their relationship had started wonderfully, especially from Clara's perspective, things quickly went downhill when she discovered that Alex had been cheating on her with Sofía, another classmate who, coincidentally, was sitting at the very front of the classroom at that moment.

Izan and Clara had known each other since they were little, and for that reason, they had formed a bond similar to that of siblings. Neither of them had ever seen the other romantically, which was why they helped each other whenever one of them became interested in someone, as had been the case with Alex.

During their high school years, Izan had become friends with Alex, who was in the same class. More than once, especially during their final year of school, it was common to see the two of them together.

Clara, who went to a different school, would often run into Alex whenever she had the chance to meet up with Izan, and it could be said that she fell in love with him at first sight.

On more than one occasion, her friend warned her that there was something strange about Alex. Although they spent time together, Izan found it difficult to consider him a friend because of certain attitudes he had. He was quick to anger and always put his own interests above everything else, even when it affected other people.

He was the kind of person who would look for the smartest students to team up with for school projects, only to do the bare minimum himself.

Despite those attitudes, Alex and Izan got along well because they shared the same love for video games and would spend hours talking about how to defeat whatever boss they were currently fighting.

Of course, the teenager ignored her friend's warnings. She was a teenager in love, after all, and there wasn't much anyone could do about that.

Both Clara and Alex intended to continue studying psychology, and they liked to fantasize about having a college romance and graduating together.

Izan, for his part, wasn't sure what he wanted to study, or even if he wanted to pursue a degree at all. But he eventually gave in to his friends' insistence and joined the same program as them.

"Well, that's all for today," Professor Alcazar suddenly announced.

At those words, all the students seemed to awaken from a long stupor. It felt as though time itself had finally returned to its normal pace.

"Finally," Clara said, returning to the present as she stretched her legs.

"Yeah. I would've stayed here and slept," Izan added with a yawn, "but I couldn't miss any more classes."

As the two gathered their things and put them away in their backpacks, they noticed that something was happening at the classroom entrance.

The other students were crowding around the door, but none of them were leaving.

"What's going on?" Clara asked curiously as she approached the group.

"The door's stuck," Alex replied, appearing beside her.

The girl looked at him through narrowed eyes but didn't answer.

"Oh, come on! Are you still mad?" he asked with a grimace. "Just forget about it. Yeah, I screwed up," he admitted, "but that's in the past. It's not like I want us to get back together or anything."

"Really? Then why are you so interested?" Clara replied. "You couldn't stop looking at me. Sometimes you text me like nothing ever happened."

"I just want things to be okay between us."

"You should've thought about that before, don't you think?" Izan interrupted.

"Stay out of it, Izan. This has nothing to do with you," Alex told him. "Unless you're dating her now."

Izan and Clara exchanged glances, both frowning at the stupidity of what Alex had just said.

"Never," they said simultaneously.

"All right, what's all the commotion about?" Professor Alcazar called out.

The short man made his way through the students gathered at the entrance.

"It's completely stuck," one of the students told him.

The professor tried to open the door with all his strength, but he couldn't budge it. Grumbling and letting out a few curses that were hardly appropriate for a teacher, he began banging on the door and calling for help, but it seemed like no one could hear him.

"Looks like the never-ending class will be even more never-ending," Alex commented.

Clara gave him another disapproving look and walked toward the windows.

The classroom was on the third floor, so jumping out of the windows wasn't an option, but at least she could call for help from someone below.

The young woman approached the nearest window and struggled to open it. It was winter, so all the windows were normally kept closed.

The university was divided into two towers and a main building. The psychology department was located in the university's right wing, and the classroom windows faced the inner courtyard, where most students killed time between classes.

There were a couple of trees in the courtyard, almost completely bare of leaves because of the season. There was also a section of grass, while the rest was covered in white tiled flooring that had yellowed somewhat with age.

"Hey! We're trapped in here! Help!" she shouted when she spotted some people on the ground floor.

But no one answered.

"Hey!" she shouted louder.

Still, there was no response.

"Can't they hear you?" Izan asked, walking over to her curiously.

"It doesn't look like it, but it's strange. They're not even moving."

More students approached the windows to call for help after realizing there was no way to open the door, but no matter how loudly they shouted, no one answered.

"What's that in the air?" Sofía asked.

She had long blonde hair tied in a braid that she usually wore over her right shoulder.

"Isn't it a bird?" said Bruno, another student.

"But it's not moving. It's just frozen in the air."

"Nothing and no one is moving," Izan finally said. "Not the people, not the leaves on the trees, nothing."

Everyone exchanged worried glances.

It was as if time had truly frozen for the rest of the world, except for them.

They were trapped in the never-ending class.

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