Trizha's footsteps echoed rhythmically against the polished floorboards as she hurried through the final stretch of the dormitory wing.
She moved with a purpose, her mind already occupied with the logistics of retrieving her dress, and in her haste, she sprinted past a heavy oak door with a silver room number.
She didn't pause; she didn't feel the sudden drop in temperature or the lingering scent of iron and ozone.
Neither did she even had died within that room.
The moment her blonde hair vanished around the far corner, the atmosphere in the hallway shifted.
A group of men and women, dressed in the crisp uniforms of Yuri Calypso's private staff, rounded the opposite bend.
They moved with a silent, eerie synchronization, their faces obscured by professional-grade masks and their hands encased in pristine white latex gloves.
One employee stepped forward, slid a master key into the lock of that specific room, and pushed the door open.
The scene inside remained a testament to a nightmare.
The young girl was still there, her body a broken, motionless shape on the floor.
The blood had begun to darken, soaking into the fibers of the carpet.
However, a collective shiver ran through the cleanup crew as their eyes drifted toward the couch.
The space was empty.
The boy who had been sitting there with a knife in his chest—the one they had all seen as a corpse only hours ago—was gone.
Not a single drop of fresh blood trailed toward the door, and the seat of the chair didn't even bear the indentation of a body anymore.
One of the employees, a man named Kevin, fumbled for the walkie-talkie clipped to his belt.
His voice was a strained whisper as he spoke into the device.
"Employee Kevin reporting to Command. The body of Zackier Morkator has disappeared. I repeat, the secondary body is gone. There is no trace of—"
The line went dead with a sharp, static click.
In the dimly lit CCTV command center, Yuri Calypso stood with her arms crossed, her eyes fixed on a wall of monitors.
The Assistant, the hired detective, and a phalanx of stone-faced guards stood behind her.
Yuri lowered the walkie-talkie she had just used to cut the call and, with a casual flick of her wrist, hurled it across the room without a single care for the world.
It shattered against the far wall, sending plastic shards flying.
The Assistant's face turned a shade of purple, his eyebrow twitching violently as he stared at the ruins of his personal communication device.
"As expected," Yuri remarked, her voice chillingly nonchalant, almost as if she were discussing the weather rather than a vanishing corpse. "He disappeared without a trace, leaving us with a mess to scrub. Honestly, I'd pay a fortune to learn that magic trick. It's quite the exit."
"There is absolutely no time for this nonsense, Yuri!" the Assistant barked, his voice cracking under the weight of the secret crisis. "We are in the middle of a security breach that could ruin this entire foundation! A murderer is loose in the building, and you're making jokes about magic tricks?"
Yuri turned, her eyes flashing with a sudden, predatory light that silenced him instantly.
"Blah, blah, blah. I heard you the first time," Yuri said, her tone shifting into a rapid-fire command style. "Listen carefully. Divert thirty percent of our security personnel to the student and faculty zones. They are to blend in, act as chaperones, and guard them with their lives. Sixty-five percent are to initiate a full-sweep search for that murderous brat across the entire campus. Every vent, every basement, every shadow."
She paused, her face going deathly serious as she straightened her coat.
"And the remaining five percent? They come with me to the main entrance. Prepare the heavy transport. That 'man' is nearby... I can feel his presence like a splinter in my mind."
The Assistant blinked, trying to keep up with the sudden pivot. "Who? You mean that Zackier? You think he's heading for the gates?"
Yuri scoffed, a dark, amused sound.
She shook her head and looked at the guards, her expression hardening into something ancient and cold.
"Nah," she whispered. "Koby Frantzes is here."
As the sun began its slow descent toward the horizon, casting long, orange shadows across the La Luna Sangre, the secret operation went into full effect.
The sixty-five percent—a small army of Yuri's most trusted men—roamed the hotel grounds.
They moved through the crowds of excited students with practiced ease, pretending to be maintenance workers, extra catering staff, or simply late-arriving guests.
To the public eye, everything was normal. The air was thick with the scent of perfume, the sound of laughter, and the frantic energy of Prom Night preparations.
No one noticed the bulge of sidearms beneath tailored jackets or the way the "staff" communicated through subtle hand signals.
The question that burned in the Assistant's mind was how Yuri had known.
How had she looked at that room and known Zackier was the killer?
Yuri had finally answered him in the elevator: she had seen the rise and fall of his chest when she first walked in.
She knew he was alive, playing dead to bait her.
But she was unarmed, and a cornered animal like Zackier would have lashed out in a way that would have caused a massacre before she could stop him.
She had played the long game, retreating to arm herself and mobilize her forces.
She had come prepared to annihilate the interrupter of her establishment.
Unfortunately for the Founder, Zackier was not a creature of habit.
He had perceived the tightening of the net long before the first guard took their post.
By the time Yuri's ambush team was in position, Zackier Morkator had already slipped through the hotel's sophisticated defenses, vanishing into the treeline beyond the gates.
While the hunt intensified within the walls, Margaret stepped out of the dormitory wing herself.
She had spent the last hour on her phone, her voice uncharacteristically soft as she spoke to Wyne.
They had agreed to meet one last time near the hotel's grand entrance.
Margaret moved through the lobby, her long bangs swaying.
She was looking for a specific face, a specific goodbye.
But where was Wyne?
Wyne was currently standing near the gravel driveway of the pick-up area, the cool evening air ruffling her hair.
She wasn't preparing for the Prom.
Instead, she stood beside her only parent—her father—who had arrived in the same sturdy, unassuming car.
The reality of Wyne's life was far removed from the glitter of the ballroom.
As a surviving cancer patient, her recovery was a delicate, ongoing battle.
Her father had made a formal arrangement with Yuri Calypso weeks in advance: his daughter would attend the one week vacation event, but she would depart before the final night.
She needed to return to the hospital for a series of critical check-ups and records to monitor her physical state.
The deadline for her appointment was Monday midnight—tonight.
She stood there, her bags packed and tucked into the trunk, looking back at the hotel with a complex mixture of relief and lingering sadness.
She was leaving it all behind.
The conflict, the friendship, the betrayal—it was all becoming a silhouette against the setting sun.
"Are you ready to go, Wyne?" her father asked, his voice full of a quiet, protective warmth. "The moment your friend comes over, we leave. That's it."
Wyne didn't answer immediately.
She looked toward the dormitory entrance, hoping for one last glimpse of the girl who had been her world, but also became the girl who had nearly destroyed it.
"Yeah," Wyne finally whispered, her voice barely audible over the idling engine. "I'm ready."