By Monday morning, the storm was gone, but the school felt stranger than ever.
Gabriel walked through the corridor, backpack slung low, eyes darting from door to door. He didn't need a list to know who was missing. The silence told him.
Three more desks were empty.
Three more names whispered in corners.
Shoes had been found at the edge of the football field, soaked and blood-stained. A cracked mirror in the girls' bathroom carried black scrawls in Latin: "Finis incipit in silentio."
— The end begins in silence.
The police had set up a token presence at the gates, but everyone knew it meant nothing. They came late, left early, and never answered questions.
Class dragged on in fragments. Teachers snapped at shadows, their nerves stretched thin. During Maths class. one of them broke down altogether. Mr. Clare, normally precise and stiff, slammed his books shut and cried out, "Somebody knows! You can't all sit here quiet while your friends vanish!" His voice cracked, and he turned away, trembling.
The class sat in suffocating silence. All eyes slid toward Gemma.
She sat in her usual place, motionless, expression unreadable. Not even a blink betrayed her.
A ripple went through the room—fear, disgust, something close to awe.
A boy muttered too loudly, "It's her. She's the reason."
A girl near the back whispered, "No—she's the answer."
The air turned ugly. Gabriel clenched his jaw, fists curling under his desk. He wanted to shout at them all, but he knew it wouldn't matter. The whispers had already found her.
Even Miss Aveline, standing at the front with chalk in her hand, faltered. Her sharp tongue—always quick to slice Gemma apart—didn't rise today. Her hand shook once before she dropped the chalk and dismissed the class early.
Gabriel lingered, watching his sister pack her books with the same measured calm. She gave no sign she'd heard a word. But as she walked out, he noticed something—her hand brushing briefly against the cracked window frame near the door.
Scratched into the wood, almost too faint to see, were the words:
"She remembers."