> "Surveillance breeds silence. But even the cameras forget to blink."
— Line scratched into the back of the East Stairwell fire alarm box
---
🎥 Cameras That Blink
The infirmary was off-limits now. Guarded. No students allowed unless escorted.
Sharon knew better than to walk in through the front. With Jayden watching from the far wing, she crept in through the abandoned janitor's hall. Reina had faked a nosebleed to create the distraction. Zuri was already inside, hidden in the supply closet, crouched beneath hanging lab coats that smelled like antiseptic and dust.
Jayden's map had shown a dead zone — a two-minute window between two old surveillance feeds that hadn't synced since the last system update. Two minutes. That was all they had.
Sharon slipped in and joined Zuri.
"Did you find it?" she whispered.
Zuri nodded. "But there's more."
She pulled out a roll of microfilm — medical records, handwritten notes, dosage lists. Some of the names were familiar.
One wasn't.
Eliora S.
Sharon's pulse skipped.
"That's the student who never existed," Zuri said. "She's in three medical records, but not in any admission logs. And one of the meds she was given—" Zuri held up the sheet, "—wasn't for memory loss. It was for suppression."
"Suppression of what?" Sharon asked.
Zuri met her eyes. "Cognition. Autonomy. She was being studied."
---
🕳 A File with No End
Later, in the chessroom, Ugo held up the pages.
"I've seen her name before," he murmured. "But not in Mara's notes. She's in the archives I wasn't supposed to find — the ones inside the server basement."
Jayden, pacing nearby, paused. "Wait. You got into the basement?"
"I did. Once. Years ago." Ugo looked haunted. "It's not a file room. It's a vault. Sealed doors, biometric locks… and shelves of patient logs that never made it to student records."
"And Eliora's was there?" Sharon asked.
Ugo nodded. "She was tested. Repeatedly. Her progress tracked. There were graphs, neural scans… her handwriting copied."
Reina's voice was quiet. "Like she was a prototype."
Jayden's fists clenched. "A prototype for what?"
Ugo didn't answer.
But Zuri did.
"A silent student. One who obeys. One who doesn't ask questions. One who… disappears when they're done with her."
---
🚨 The Red Wristband
That night, Bianca wore red.
Not crimson, not burgundy — red, like blood on snow. And on her left wrist was a band, like the ones given at hospitals.
Sharon saw it from across the hall.
Jayden caught it too.
"That's not fashion," he whispered. "That's clearance."
Bianca had been somewhere. Somewhere higher than the board. Somewhere above even the watchers.
"She knows about Eliora," Sharon said, eyes narrowing. "And she's been told not to speak."
Reina leaned in. "Then we need someone who doesn't follow their orders."
Zuri looked up. "We need to find someone else like Eliora."
Ugo turned sharply. "If there's someone else… they'll be invisible. You'll never find them."
"Then we'll find their shadow," Reina said. "Everyone leaves one."
---
🎙 Broadcast from the Black Room
Reina made her move first.
Slipping away during cleanup hour, she followed the corridor beneath the tech lab — one she'd been warned not to go near.
There, she found a locked room with a blinking red panel.
And inside, a voice.
Not live.
A recording.
Eliora's voice.
> "They think I don't remember. But I do. I remember the name of every student they called a mistake. I remember when Mara held my hand and said, 'They don't get to erase you.' But they did. And now they want to make more."
Reina pressed her hand to the wall, stunned.
Then a new sound.
Not from the recording.
From behind her.
Footsteps.
Coming fast.
---
📌 End of Chapter Twenty-Three
> The girl who vanished is trying to speak.
The watchers are not the only ones watching.
And the vault below the school is opening again.
---
🔜 Coming in Chapter Twenty-Four: The Girl Who Knew Too Much
Zuri makes a discovery that links Bianca and Eliora.
Jayden finally confronts someone from his past — a former prefect turned ghost.
Sharon finds herself cornered, not by enemies… but by someone who once protected her.
And Ugo? He's ready to burn what remains.