Koa Takashi:
After what felt like hours of walking, we both finally made it to the school. The streets were dead quiet. All that was heard was just that low hum of wind that scraped against the fences and my own heartbeat that pounded in my ears. I didn't even get to plan this far ahead. I didn't think about how I'd get inside, or how I'd reach the second floor without getting caught, I just moved. That's all I'd ever do lately, move before I think.
"There are two police cars outside" Gabriel murmured as he squinted through the dark. His vision got even worse ever since those pebbles messed up his eye years ago, which somehow left me with the feeling of being dumb for not being able to notice them at first.
"Then we go from the back," he continued as he was already taking the lead.
It was kind of insane, this was my idea. My impulsive, no-plan, probably-going-to-regret-it idea, and yet he was the one leading like he's done this a thousand times. It was like he wasn't even scared.
"Yeah," I responded under my breath. "Alright."
We moved quietly along the side of the building. The air felt thicker here, it felt uneasy. Every time the gravel crunched under my shoes, I swear it would echo across the whole damn town. Just then, Gabriel suddenly stopped in front of one of the music room windows.
He leaned in close to it, pressed his hand to the glass, and lifted it. The thing slid open with barely any effort.
I blinked, stunned. "Wait, seriously? That's… open?"
Gabriel gave me this small, humorless laugh. "They always forget to close it. My idiot bandmates crack it open during practice 'cause it gets too hot."
Right, of course. Music club or whatever it was called. I'd almost forgotten that he still went to those clubs sometimes.
He slipped inside first and landed softly on the floor. He then reached out his hand for me, which I took eagerly. The first thing that hit me when I climbed in was the stench of the room. It was a pungent mix of dust, old wood, and that faint metallic buzz from the amps. This place was a mess: cords were sprawled across the floor, a trumpet half was buried under sheet music, drumsticks looked like they were tossed on a chair like the aftermath of a storm.
Gabriel's face tightened. "Careful," he whispered. "Don't touch anything."
I nodded as I walked through, careful to not trip on the tangled wires. He cracked the door open and he slowly peeked to his left, then his right.
"No one's here."
He held the door open for me and let me go in first. The hallway felt impossibly long, every step echoed like it was announcing our presence to the whole school. The type of silence that didn't feel empty, it felt like it was listening.
We reached the stairs, and my throat went dry. I stopped halfway up because I didn't want Gabriel getting caught if they caught me opening Ophelia's locker.
"Gabriel, just… stay here, okay? If I get caught, I don't want you getting dragged into it."
He raised an eyebrow, his eyes were sharp even in the dark. "Koa, I don't care if I get caught. This whole thing's already screwed up enough. I'd rather get in trouble than sit at home wondering if you got yourself killed over some bad feeling." His voice dipped lower, like he was afraid that saying it too loud might make it true.
I breathed out slowly and I dragged my hand through my hair. I should have told him to go home, but I couldn't. The truth is, without him, I probably would've turned back by now.
"Fine," I muttered. "Let's just get this over with."
The hallway upstairs was even darker, only the faint glow from the exit sign painted the lockers red. Ophelia's locker wasn't that far, it was right next to the stair rail, the same one she used to lean against every morning.
I moved quickly, not because I was brave, but because I was terrified of stopping. My fingers trembled as I reached for the lock on her locker.
"I'll be quick," I whispered as I tried to convince the both of us. "We can head home after this, and maybe I'll learn how to stop being reckless…"
Gabriel doesn't answer. I could feel his eyes on me, the weight of them, they felt heavy and afraid, he was right to be feeling such things.
It was because if this locker didn't tell me something—anything—I didn't know what I'd feel. Despair? Rage? Nothing? It was already eating at me.
I breathed in and forced my hands to stop shaking. I twisted the code I've memorized over and over. Ophelia forgets her design portfolio all the time as well as her locker combo; I've opened this locker for her before. It was a routine. It should've been easy.
I turned the dial left, right, then left again, I spun it like it was muscle memory. However, there was nothing. The lock sat there, smug and silent. I glanced up at Gabriel. He was watching my every move with that look he gets when he was trying not to judge too hard.
"I thought you knew her combo," he whispered.
"I do," I snapped at him, but quietly. The lie stung the insides of my own mouth. I tried again, re-doing the same motion, same rhythm, but there was still nothing. Despite failing a second time, I re-tried entering her combo, again and again. Each failed click rubbed at my nerves. Sweat beaded at my hairline, it slid down, cold, to my temple. Why wasn't this working? What was I doing wrong? My fingers felt clumsy, like they belonged to someone else.
Gabriel stepped forward and nudged me aside without a word. He crouched down with the kind of efficiency I wish I had. "Tell me the number." His thumb rested on the lock, confident. I spat out the code: "22—06—07"
He moved through the sequence, calm and precise. I watched his hands and felt stupid for not trusting him sooner. Still even with his effort there was nothing. The dial stubbornly refused to give; the locker was a small, cold challenge and I was losing it.
"Why won't it open?" I barked out, I felt more panicked than anger. My voice continued to echo in the music room, the sound was way too loud. I jabbed at the dial until my knuckles ached. I didn't know what to do anymore so I started shaking the lock. Of course I shook it, of course I was messing it up. This was happening when I was right on the edge.
"Koa, stop. You're making noise," Gabriel hissed quietly. He was right; I heard it, my own frantic breathing, the scrape of metal. I took a breath and tried to slow it down, so it was anything but an alarm for the security guards to overhear. Gabriel tried again, his fingers were steady. Click. Click. Just then, a sound just like salvation: a faint, clean click. His eyes went wide.
"I opened it," he breathed, half stunned and half relieved. I didn't even think as I shoved the locker door, my fingers were fumbling.
The locker yawned open, a ton of useless, ridiculous theatre of things happened: a wooden mannequin torso, the kind they use to drape dresses, tipped forward and pitched out like it was waiting for this exact moment. It slammed down with a brutal thunk. My stomach flipped at an instant. Time stretched so thin I could see the dust motes float upwards.
"Shit!" Gabriel whisper-yelled as he lunges forward to the mannequin torso. He in fact didn't catch it in time, instead he picked it up and shoved it back into the locker like a dumb, oversized secret. My heart was trying to beat out of my ribs. I could already hear the cliché: the thud, the scramble, the movement somewhere down the hall, footsteps running, a shout that I couldn't fully catch.
"Hey! You, stop there!" someone yelled, the voice was close enough that the panic went cold and bright in my veins.
For a second we both froze, our eyes were locked. The world tilted into that slow-motion, movie-moment nonsense. My brain supplied every worst-case scenario. Jail, headlines, my name in lights I didn't want. I couldn't breathe.
"We're done. This is it. I'm going to jail," I whispered in a panic, more to myself than to Gabriel. The words tasted like bloody metal.
Gabriel's hands were clumsy and desperate as he held the locker door shut while he shoved the mannequin deeper inside. "Lock it, Koa, Now! You're such a slow piece of shit!" His voice cracks from the rush.
I fumbled for the dial as I tried to twist it into place. However, my fingers wouldn't cooperate with my thoughts. The damn thing wouldn't lock. It felt like all hell went loose just then. Of course something had to betray us now. My hands slammed the metal again. "It's not locking! THIS ISN'T MY FAULT!" I cried out, my voice was sharp and too loud. My chest felt like a band of drummers drumming all at once. The footsteps were getting louder. I could spot a shadow at the end of the hall, someone was coming towards us, fast.
My brain tried to sort out what we needed to do: run? hide? explain? Lie? Before I could even make a decision on what to do, Gabriel was already griping onto my sleeve, the only tether that kept me from just bolting away and making everything worse. He was breathing heavy and his eyes darted around the hallways, searching for an escape. He looked at me like he's asking me to act like an adult for once, to think instead of explode.
I thought of Ophelia, empty frames, her messy pencil lines, the promise I couldn't let go of. I thought of Vivienne's glare, that cold certainty; of the fluorescent glare in the interrogation room, the way it made everything feel permanent. The lock gave a tiny mechanical click—a sound so small it might as well be a detonator.
I looked at Gabriel, and he looked at me. His whole face was tensed up, his eyes were wide, the fear was clear as day. The light of the flashlight felt brighter, harsher, like it was spotlighting our mistake. We were both on the edge, about to get caught, and all I could think about was whether I'd regret this, whether Gabriel would even understand why I was doing it, or if he'd see me exactly as I am in this moment. Someone who was utterly reckless, desperate, and deathly exposed.
Albien Larspur:
As much as I was regretting this from the start, I genuinely felt like ending it all. What the hell is this!? This is not normal. Anything but normal. I was literally next to the door, and the light underneath it looked like it's about to kill me on sight. My heart was literally doing parkour flips in my chest.
No. Nope. NOPE. I wanted to scream my lungs out, but instead, I was just standing here, well actually, I was crouching. I stared at Vivienne like she was my only hope of surviving this apocalyptic situation. If I could, I would drop everything, sprint out of here, and beg her to let me live. But that was not happening. If they caught us here, in the freaking offices, we were done for. Oh my god, I was going insane by the minute.
As I was in the midst of almost having a crisis, a miracle of miracles happened. The light under the door flickered away. I swear I almost cried from joy, like, hallelujah, the heavens do exist! Still through, none of us moved. The lights shifted to the window next, the shadows stretched across the walls, and suddenly, it felt like we were surrounded.
Alora looked like she was seconds away from a mental breakdown, the way she was gripping her face, it was like she was physically holding her sanity together.
"Slowly move," I whispered, my voice cracked. I crawled toward Vivienne, and she slid over to an office chair while Alora stayed frozen. My legs felt like jelly. I was, without a doubt, shitting my pants.
The second the light disappeared completely, I bolted to another chair, yanked my laptop out, and plugged in the USB like I was trying to defuse a bomb. My hands were shaking, but I was doing my best pretending they weren't.
Vivienne quietly asked, "Is this going to be quick?"
"Yeah," I replied confidently, lying through my teeth. "Just give me a moment."
The thing is, I am good at this. Coding, breaching security systems—it was my thing. I could lag through firewalls like I was sliding through DMs. But right now? Right now my brain was melting, I even felt the beating of my heart in the back of my throat, and my stomach was staging a protest.
Still, the code flowed. Fingers clacked, lines of text streamed across the screen. One by one, I bypass the restrictions. Access granted.
I almost laughed. "I'm in, hmph!"
The computer opened up a mountain of files, folders within folders, each labeled with timestamps and ID numbers. "Okay," I muttered. "Camera footage… where are you… oh! There you are."
Vivienne leaned in close to the laptop. "That's a lot of files."
"Yeah," I agreed. "Like, a lot a lot. Which one are we even looking for? Do we know when Ophelia went missing?"
"Check the outside cameras, maybe," she immediately replied.
I scrolled through the archive and scanned the list. "11 PM," I mumbled. "Ophelia's not the type to get caught sneaking out. If she left, it was late."
The video loaded, it was grainy and static-filled. I fast-forward the speed and watched the shadows shift across the empty campus. My heartbeat started syncing up with the flickering footage. Vivienne was staring so close her nose almost touched the screen. Alora was behind us, silent.
Then, there it was.
A blurry figure, half-hidden in the dark, was walking near the edge of the school grounds.
Vivienne's eyes widened. "Wait, wait, go back!"
I rewound the footage. The figure moved again.
"That has to be her," Vivienne whispered confidently as she pointed at the screen.
For the first time since this all started, the room went completely, terrifyingly quiet.
My throat felt dry, like, Sahara-desert-dry. I didn't even realize I'd stopped breathing until Vivienne nudged me, as she whispered again, "Albien… play it again."
I obliged. Slowly, the figure moved, just a shadow, but something about the posture, the way the light hit her hair, the way she looked over her shoulder.
It was her, Ophelia.
My fingers froze over the keyboard. Every stupid joke I had lined up died on my tongue.
I didn't know why, but guilt just slammed into me out of nowhere. Like a freight train made of regret. I was here and I wasted time, pretending everything was fine, pretending I was fine. But she was out there, all alone.
"Holy crap," I quietly exclaimed, my voice breaking. "That's really her."
Vivienne's hand was over her mouth. Alora was still, as still of one of those statues on Easter island.
The footage flickered again, and the figure turned, as it disappeared past the frame. Gone, just like that.
Suddenly, the silence wasn't peaceful, it was suffocating. The kind that crawled under your skin and the type that lingered on your thoughts.
I stared at the frozen screen, the time stamp flashing: 11:02 PM.
She was right there. Two minutes of footage, and then she walked out of the frame.
I should've said something, but all that came out was a shaky laugh. "Well… mission accomplished, I guess?" I mumbled weakly. "Now I can go cry in peace."
No one laughed.
That was when it really hit me.
This wasn't just another dumb school mystery. This was real and for the first time, I wish I'd never opened that damn laptop like, oh my fricking God.
I took a deep breath, trying to pull myself together, but I couldn't. Not even close. God, what am I doing?
"Hurry up, just download the images. We came for what we wanted. There's no point in staying here," Vivienne commanded. Her voice wasn't reassuring at all.
If I could, I'd hug her. Earlier I wanted to argue with her; now I just wanted her to stop shaking. She was my friend, maybe the only one who'd still believed that we could fix this, and seeing her state like this… hurted. Her silence said everything she couldn't: she wanted to cry and who wouldn't to be honest? We all saw it. Ophelia was here. The camera doesn't lie.
"Alright," I muttered as I forced my fingers to move. I started the downloads, fast and mechanical. Files appeared across the screen, each one was a reminder that we might've just uncovered something we weren't supposed to. When the last bar hit 100%, I yanked the USB free, shoved it and the laptop into my bag, then stood up.
"Let's go," I firmly said. "At least we didn't get caught."
No one laughed once again.
Vivienne didn't even look at me, her expression was tight, although she acted tough on the exterior, I knew that deep inside she was as fragile as the morning snow being crushed on. Alora looked pale, hands pressed against her knees like she was trying to ground herself even more. The office suddenly felt too small, like the walls were closing in on us.
Vivienne moved first, she held her heels in one hand as she cracked the door open. The hallway beyond us was pitch black, empty but still alive. Every sound felt louder than it should, the hum of the lights, the soft thud of our steps, my heartbeat that hammered in my ears.
We walked quickly, no one spoke a word. My usual jokes to lighten the mood vanished, swallowed by the anxiety that emerged from every step. Every time I blinked, I saw that blurry figure on the screen. Ophelia, frozen at 11:02 p.m. and who else knew what else was in that footage? We were all too scared to look past the image.
The air outside was cold enough to sting the tips of my skin. For a second, I let myself breathe.
I wanted to joke around, to say something stupid and warm the cold air, but nothing came out. I just nodded and gripped the strap of my bag like it was the only thing that was keeping me standing.
I walked behind Vivienne as I held my sister's trembling hand. Alora glanced up at me, and I forced out a half reassuring smile. I wanted her to believe that things would be okay, even though I wasn't sure they would be. The more I thought about it only made my stomach growl. Figures. Leave it to me to get hungry at the worst possible moment.
I looked at Vivienne. "So… we're just going back? That's it?"
She slightly turned her head. "Well, yeah. I don't know what else we can do," she said. Her voice was calm, but I could hear the frustration buried under it. If she could, she'd keep digging—keep pushing—but I think she knew that if she didn't stop now, she wouldn't stop at all. It was like being caught in a loop: the more you turned the clock, the more it winded you up. I'm glad she wasn't going to do that to herself.
We continued to follow her, step by step. The night felt tense, the atmosphere of it made it so that you'd think too much. After this, I don't even know what school would be like the next day. Would it be awkward? Normal? Haunted?
Would we tell Koa or Gabriel what we did? Probably not.
Would they catch us through the CCTV? Almost definitely yes.
At least I deleted everything from today before we left, every clip, every log. Not even Vivienne mentioned it, which made me feel weirdly proud of myself.
By the time we reached the gym, everything felt unreal. The silence, the dark halls, the way our footsteps echoed like we're still being followed. I don't even know what was waiting for us in the morning.
But I hoped that things would settle down.
I really, really hoped that Koa wouldn't start blaming himself, because I already knew that he probably was just like Vivenne in a different way.
Koa Takashi:
"Let's go!"
Gabriel's hands were clamped around my jacket sleeve and yanked me forward before I could even think.
"Wait—what!?"
No response. Just his grip, it was fierce as he dragged me into motion. We were sprinting now, shoes slammed against the stairs, air splitted in our ears, the entire building vibrated with our footsteps.
My chest felt like it's collapsing. Every inhale felt like cut glass, but Gabriel didn't slow down, not even for a second. He was too fast. Too desperate. There was something in the way he ran. It was like if he stopped, even for a moment, everything behind him would catch up and devour him whole.
"Gabriel, I can't— I can't breathe!"
He didn't even look back. "Shut the fuck up and run!"
His voice cracked like lightning, raw and terrified. Suddenly I wasn't sure if he was yelling at me or for himself.
We teared through the hallway. The lights above us sparked a little, it chased us, the flash was white-hot like warning flares. Shadows were stretched long and sharp against the walls. My heart beat felt erratic, it pounded in time with the sound of Gabriel's boots ahead of me.
We were near the gym. I could smell the dust and sweat that seeped from under the door. Just in the blink of an eye, Gabriel's foot caught on a broken tile.
He went down hard with a THUMP.
The sound of his fall echoed, his skin scraped the floor, his bones hit the tile and a semi-loud grunt ripped from his throat.
"Gabriel!"
I skidded to a stop as I reached for him, but he was already scrambling to his feet, blood streaked across his palm. His breathing was harsh, unnatural, his eyes wild and unfocused.
Then—
"Gabriel!?"
The voice hit him like a gunshot.
He froze.
That voice, sharp, disbelieving, cut through everything. My heart raced, the footsteps even rang in my ears, and that was when the beam of a flashlight hit us.
Vivienne.
She was standing right in front of him.
Time fractured.
Gabriel's chest tightened as his heart slammed upward, a noise trapped in his throat. The hallway felt too bright, too loud. All that he could see was Vivienne, her long, black-purple hair draped over her shoulders, her wide eyes locked onto his. Right beside her was Albien and Alora, their faces pale in the glare of the light, frozen mid-step like ghosts pulled straight out of his past.
"Shit, shit—RUN!"
Gabriel's voice cracked through the air, wild and desperate. He grabbed whoever was closest and dragged us down the hall, his palms were slick with sweat.
"Wait—what!?" Albien stammered, but there's no time to answer.
The beam of a flashlight sliced across us, it was blinding and sudden. For one frozen second, it caught all five of us, Gabriel, Vivienne, Albien, Alora, and me, trapped in the light like prey caught in a snare.
Then our instincts took over.
We dashed out of there.
"Oh shit!" Albien yelled.
"Stop! Security! Don't move!" Someone shouted from behind, the voice ricocheted off the concrete walls.
Gabriel didn't listen, he didn't even look back. His voice teared through the panic, "Go! Keep moving! Don't stop!"
We ran like the ground was about to split open beneath us. The sound of our shoes slapped the floor and it mixed with the shouts from behind us. Our ragged breathing, the faint buzz of the security's radios. The hallways twisted and turned, every corner looked identical, every second was tighter.
"Why the hell are you here!?" Vivienne shouted at me as we ran side by side.
"Shut up and just run!" I yelled back, my chest burned as I ran.
Gabriel was in front, leading us like a pack, his button-up and vest flared behind him with every stride he took. Albien was gripping Alora's hand so tightly she could barely keep up. Everything was a faint blur, the lights flashed, the loud echoes of the soles of our feet bounced off the walls, the pounding was never ending in my ears and it was louder than my own thoughts.
We turned the next corner, straight into another flashlight beam.
"There! On the left!"
A second security guard stepped out, blocking the hallway.
Gabriel threw his arm over his face, veered left and then charged.
He slammed into the security guard with his shoulder, full force which sent the man stumbling back into the wall. "MOVE!" Gabriel snarled, as he shoved him aside.
"Get them! Hurry!" the officer behind him yelled, fortunately, we managed to continue moving again, running.
That was when a sight crushed my hopes.
A dead end.
A wall of brick and shadow. No windows. No exits. Just silence and our own breaths were heavy and uneven.
"There's nowhere to go!" Albien cried out as he gasped for air.
The building trembled.
At first, I thought it's just my heartbeat, but it wasn't. The floor beneath us quaked violently, it thrummed like it's alive, and the air twisted and warped around us, thick and electric.
Vivienne screamed as she stumbled, the heels she held slipped from her hands and clattered across the floor as she crashed down hard.
"What the hell is happening!?" Albien shouted.
Mysterious blue light started to surround us.
It started as a faint glow beneath the cracks in the tile, but then it spreaded, veins of energy snaked out beneath us, it pulsed faster, hotter, until they carved into a perfect circle which surrounded all five of us. Strange symbols swirled across it, which shifted, it breathed.
Gabriel grabbed my wrist in the midst of this chaos, his eyes were wide. "Move! Get out of it!" he yelled as he yanked hard.
But it was too late.
The circle detonates in light.
Vivienne's scream stretched into a thin, ragged thread, which tore itself apart midair, swallowed by the electric crack of the floor beneath us. Albien's mouth opened, a silent howl trapped in his throat, jagged and raw. Gabriel's hand locked around mine, his fingers dug into my skin so hard I could feel his pulse thrum against mine, it was trembling, damp with sweat, desperate beyond reason as the tiles beneath us splintered like glass.
We started to descend.
It wasn't like falling down the stairs, it wasn't like slipping off a curb. This felt like we were weightless, we spun, the air pressed against my skin like a living thing, it twisted, it tore, it bended around us. Light exploded into shards, every color bled into another, blue and white. The sharp sting of electricity was hot and cold at once. Shadows fractured across the walls, along the ceiling, around us, which twisted into impossible angles.
I glance over to Gabriel. His eyes were wide and terrified, which glinted with sweat and panic. His grip doesn't loosen, not for a second. He refuses to let go. I felt every strain in his body, every heavy breath, just like mine.
Vivienne flailed, her heels slipped away from her hands, hair whipped like fire in the wind. Albien's voice now shattered into shards of sound, his trapped screams were now choked and distant, however, he still managed to hold Alora's hand like it's the last thing that kept him tethered to this world.
We continued to spin, we descended, we hurtled through a void that wasn't void, a space that wasn't space. Time stretched and shattered, each second splintered into a million pieces, each and everyone's mind was in a confused daze of some sort.
The last thing I really saw was Gabriel, eyes were locked on mine, sweat dripped, chest heaved, face twisted in fear and determination. He held me like if he faltered at any given moment, I'd vanish into nothing. Everything else, Vivienne, Albien, Alora, the school, the light, the world, blurred, it fractured, everything felt like it was gone, it disappeared into nothingness.
Then darkness consumed us.
It was absolute, complete, it stifled, endless.
In that black pit, I felt it: the pull, the drag, the absolute certainty that nothing will ever be the same again.