Chapter 9 - Part 1
Autumn Berry – POV
The campus felt unusually quiet that Monday morning, like it was holding its breath. Quinn and I were the first to arrive in the club room, still half-tangled in memories from the weekend's water park trip. She was bouncing on her heels, waving a notebook filled with her calculations and probability charts.
Before she could launch into her usual enthusiasm, the door swung open. A girl from the Poetry Club, pale and anxious, stepped in. Her notebook clutched tightly to her chest, she looked almost like she had run all the way from the office.
"You… you're the detective club, right?" she asked, voice shaky. "I—I need help. It's… Selene Torres. She's been missing."
I blinked. "Missing? What do you mean?"
The girl swallowed hard. "She's a member of the Student Council and the Poetry Club. Everyone in Poetry Club is required to submit a poem every day, and she hasn't submitted one in seven days. That's… not like her. We thought maybe she was just busy, but now we're worried. No one's seen her. Nobody knows where she is."
Quinn's eyes went wide. "Seven days? That's… scary. Is she okay? Is she—"
"She's a perfectionist," the girl interrupted quickly. "She would never just skip school. She hates being absent. And she writes poetry every single day. If she hadn't sent a poem, something's wrong."
I pulled out my notebook, opening it to a fresh page. Already, pieces were forming in my mind: the missing poems, the routine of submission, her perfectionist habits, and the fact that her absence had lasted a full week. Small details in the girl's nervous gestures, the way she clutched her notebook, even the folds in her sleeves, all registered in my memory.
Rhea and the others arrived shortly after, calm and composed, clipboard in hand. "We'll need specifics," she said. "When was the last poem submitted? Who normally checks submissions? Who else might have been involved in her routines?"
The girl nodded rapidly. "She submitted her last poem seven days ago. I checked the club records. Her roommate didn't see her either. And… there was a fight with her boyfriend a few days before that. But after the argument, she still submitted her poem the next day. Then… nothing. No poems. No messages. Nobody knows anything."
Dorielle leaned lazily against the wall, smirking. "So… classic scenario. Fight with a boyfriend? Dramatic disappearance?"
Liam gave her a sharp look. "Not necessarily. We don't know anything yet."
Theo flipped open his notebook. "From a behavioral perspective, a perfectionist missing deadlines and not submitting her work is significant. This suggests either coercion or a serious incident."
Rhea tapped her pen against her clipboard. "Alright. Autumn, start reviewing her submitted poems. Liam, see if there's any trace of digital activity. Theo, note her habits, routines, mental patterns. Dorielle, talk to friends or people who interacted with her recently. Quinn, run your probability charts—timing, location, and likelihood of voluntary versus forced absence."
I opened the files the girl had brought, scanning the poems. At first, they seemed like normal poetry: metaphors, imagery, subtle emotion. But my mind, trained to notice detail, started picking up patterns—words repeated unusually, phrasing that seemed off, subtle shifts in style.
Even before the others started, I felt it: *these poems might be more than just poems*. They could be clues. And if we missed the meaning hidden within them, we could miss where Selene was… or worse, who was keeping her from submitting them.
Rhea's voice broke through my thoughts. "We have a serious problem on our hands. This isn't just a missing student. Someone has manipulated the situation so well that, at first glance, it looks like nothing happened. We need to approach this carefully, piece by piece."
I nodded silently. Already, my mind was replaying each poem I had scanned, cataloging every detail. Seven days without a poem. A perfectionist. A fight with someone close. Someone had taken her, or something had happened, and the signs were in front of us—if we could only read them correctly.
For the first time, I realized this wasn't a case any of us could rush. This would be *our heaviest problem yet*, and every single one of us had to bring everything we had.