Eira didn't go home after class.
She took the long way around the north side of campus, where the tall hedges muffled the world and the older buildings held onto shadows longer than they should.
Her fingers curled tighter around the key in her pocket.
She hadn't touched it in over a year. Had sworn she'd never need it again.
But tonight, everything felt different.
She could feel it in the shift of the air.
In the silence that wasn't quite silent anymore.
Something was fraying.
Something was watching.
She glanced over her shoulder, seeing nothing, but feeling the pressure of eyes on her back. Not the casual curiosity of classmates. Not the judgment of teachers. This was deeper. Intentional. Like something waiting for her to make a mistake.
---
Callum sat alone in his dorm, monitors flickering around him, casting ghostlight across his face. He hadn't eaten. Barely blinked.
The name he found in the archives—Mercer—looped endlessly in his head.
He thought about Theo.
The loyalty. The jokes. The masks.
Everything about him had always seemed so... normal. But now, every memory was under suspicion.
The day they met in freshman orientation. The time Theo covered for him during a test. The little moments that built trust.
Now they all felt planted.
Fake.
Calculated.
His phone buzzed.
A message from an unknown number:
"Stop digging."
No name.
No context.
Just two words that sent a spike of ice through his spine.
He stared at it.
Then deleted it.
But his heart didn't stop racing.
He stood abruptly and crossed to the small safe hidden behind a shelf. With trembling fingers, he pulled out a flash drive—a backup of the surveillance footage he'd found.
He had to keep it off-grid now.
---
Eira stepped into the underground archive.
The key clicked into the old iron door, and a draft greeted her like a whisper from the past.
Stacks of restricted files lined the walls, covered in dust, untouched by any digital system. These were the files the university didn't want online. The ones redacted, sealed, and forgotten.
But Eira hadn't forgotten.
She moved through the narrow aisles until she found what she was looking for: a black file folder labeled K-01.
She opened it carefully.
Pages fell open like wounds.
Photos.
Incident reports.
Behavioral analyses.
At the top of each page was the same name:
Kurtis Mercer.
She sat on the cold floor, knees bent, file on her lap.
Report after report painted a terrifying picture. A prodigy. A genius. A manipulator. Someone who had been in the system far too young, flagged as "unstable" by more than one evaluation.
Then he vanished.
Presumed dead after an unsolved fire at a juvenile facility.
But she knew now—that wasn't the end.
That was just the beginning.
---
Across campus, Theo—or whoever he truly was—sat inside a sleek black car, a burner phone pressed to his ear.
"She accessed the file."
A pause.
The voice on the other end was calm. Female. Icy.
"Then we proceed."
Theo smiled, small and dangerous. "Understood."
He hung up, then reached into his coat.
Inside was a red thread.
He wrapped it slowly around his finger, letting it cut just enough to feel.
Then whispered, like it was a vow:
"Time to burn the rest of the pieces."
---
Eira didn't leave the archive right away. She sat there, long after the file had gone cold in her hands.
She stared at the final document—Presumed Deceased—and felt the old memory rise like smoke from a locked room.
She had met Kurtis once.
Years ago.
A rainy day. A broken promise. A scream that never made it out of her throat.
She had buried that part of her life. Rewrote it into something manageable. Something quiet.
But now he was back.
And he wasn't hiding anymore.
She stood, carefully returned the folder to the shelf, and reset the lock. Her fingers trembled, but her eyes were clear.
No more running.
---
Callum paced his room, rereading the scribbled notes on his whiteboard.
Arrows. Timelines. Code names. Glitches.
And at the center: Eira Vale
He didn't want her to be involved.
But she was.
And if he didn't figure this out fast, they were both going to end up on the wrong side of someone else's plan.
He grabbed his coat.
He had one more place to check.
---
Meanwhile, back at the café from earlier, Juliet accidentally dropped her phone in her smoothie.
"Oh my god, this is karma!" she shrieked, pulling it out and waving it around like a limp fish.
Theo—the fake one, the possibly evil one—walked past the window and paused.
He blinked. Then kept walking.
Juliet squinted. "Weird. That guy looked like Theo. But like... more villain-core."
Her best friend shrugged, sipping her drink.
"Probably just someone else who hates your voice."
Juliet gasped dramatically. "Rude. My voice is iconic."
---
A camera flickered.
Inside a hidden room, monitors tracked every move.
Eira is leaving the archives.
Callum is exiting his dorm.
The masked figure leaned back in their chair, watching the threads pull tighter.
Two pawns.
One game.
And the board was already burning.