the case

One month and 15 days later...

Beep...beep...beep Thomas would wake up and turn off the alarm clock, get up and look at the time, it was 09:20. He stretched and walked towards the bathroom, upon entering he did his basic needs and then took a quick shower.

After getting out of the shower, Thomas dried off and put on his school uniform, checked the time and it was 9:40 am, had a coffee and left the dorm towards the classroom.

Upon arriving at the A-1 class, he entered the classroom and realized that it was full, with few students missing, he tried to find a vacancy until a girl with long black hair and purple eyes, waved to Thomas, it was Amanda.

(The academy did a mass fill-in of first-year students)

Thomas would walk over to Amanda, sit down next to her, and say,

"Good morning Amanda."

"Good Morning."

Thomas looked at the classroom and noticed that some people were missing and asked Amanda:

"Where are Annabelle, Brian, Elizabeth and Connor?"

"Good question."

Thomas decided to ignore the rest of his friends and asked Amanda:

"Did you see about the increase in mass homicide and suicide that's been going on? Looks like even two 3rd graders killed themselves last week..."

"Yes, and it doesn't seem to be just at our school, two weeks ago, all the residents of a small town of 50,000 were found dead, including women and children..."

"This news left me a little shaken, but why is this happening?"

Annabelle thought for a moment and replied:

"Don't you find the increase in cases after the terrorist attack on Olympus strange?"

Thomas felt shivers down his spine listening to amanda speak, he was still trying to get over that day.

"It has nothing to do with it."

Amanda and Thomas heard a familiar voice coming from the front of them, they looked and saw that Brian was the owner of the voice, behind Brian were Elizabeth, Annabelle and Connor. They sat next to Amande and Thomas.

(Brian sat next to Thomas, Annabelle sat opposite Thomas, Elizabeth sat behind Thomas, and Connor sat next to Elizabeth.)

Amanda was confused and asked Brian:

"How are you sure about that?"

"Good morning to you too Amanda, and…I just know."

Brian would answer Amanda and turn his gaze to Thomas and say:

"Good Morning."

Thomas looked at his friend and replied:

"Good morning, but where have you been?"

"Sigh, we were called by the principal, it seems he wants us to investigate the suicide of the two students, he thinks it wasn't suicide..."

Amanda and Thomas were shocked and when they were going to say something, Annabelle spoke warning:

"Keep it down! This is still confidential."

Thomas and Amanda would be silent for a while, and Brian would break the silence by saying:

"Actually, I wanted help from you two."

He spoke as he looked at Amanda and Thomas.

"Now you need help?"

Amanda spoke in a dissatisfied tone.

Thomas noticed that Amanda and Brian were fighting for some reason and tried to smooth things over:

"Amanda and I will help you."

Amanda shot Thomas a sharp look, but Thomas apologized.

"They need our help, and if the director is right, we're dealing with something big."

Although Amanda doesn't like it, she agrees to help, as she suspects they aren't suicides.

"Okay, I'll help!"

Brian was happy and spoke in a cheerful tone:

"Great! Let's split into pairs, Amanda and I, Thomas and Annabelle and..."

"Not!"

Before he could continue talking, Amanda intervened saying:

"I'm not joining you! I'm going with Thomas."

Everyone was shocked to hear Amanda say, she who was inseparable from Brian, always accompanied him everywhere, and now wanting distance like that, it was strange. So they knew it was serious!

"What happened to you two?"

Annabelle asked the worried duo, but Amanda was the one who answered:

"Why don't you ask him?"

Annabelle looked at him and Brian said in a serious tone:

"No matter our relationship at the moment, let's focus on the problem of suicide cases."

"You always do it..."

Amanda spoke in an irritated tone to Brian.

Thomas tried to intervene in the discussion, but it was too late. When he realized, Brian was talking to Amanda:

"There are things you're better off not knowing!"

"Why don't you trust me?"

"It's not about trust, it's about your safety Amanda!"

The discussion was so loud that even the entire class was watching and gossiping.

"It's always like this... You always think that because you're the strongest, only you should know what's really going on! And when you need our help to solve something, you never tell us the real details, you just give orders! As if we were your dogs!"

After Amanda finished talking, a silence took over the room, an awkward silence with everyone looking at Amanda and Brian, waiting for the outcome of that fight.

Suddenly, Jade came through the door and spoke in a calm tone:

"You can fight with your colleagues later, sit down now, today we're going to have theory."

The tension dropped and everyone started to sit down, Amanda sat very irritated, Brian was already thoughtful.

"Great, let's start talking about the monsters..."

.

.

.

"And with that we end our class, you are dismissed."

Jade spoke and left the room.

The students started talking, the main gossip being Amanda and Brian.

Brian sighed and told his friends:

"It'll be me and Annabelle, Amanda and Thomas and Elizabeth and Connor, okay?"

Everyone nodded and Brian began to explain the plan:

"According to some witnesses, the two girls, days before committing suicide, were strange and very scared, there was even a witness saying that one of the students had been scared by her own reflection in the bathroom."

Thomas heard Brian say and gave his opinion:

"Strange... These symptoms aren't someone wanting to commit suicide, it's more someone wanting help."

"Yes, that's why the director suspects it's something else, but another important point is that the girls were roommates."

"Roommates? That's really weird..."

Annabelle chimed in and asked:

"Did they go somewhere else?"

"They were from the cooking club, not the record of them hanging out somewhere else."

Elizabeth thought for a while and asked Brian:

"What exactly was the relationship between the two girls?"

"I don't know, but the director has given us the authority to investigate, but it has to be confidential!"

Everyone nodded and Brian went back to explaining the plan:

"Thomas and Amanda, you will investigate their room, Annabelle and I will go after new leads and Connor and Elizabeth, you will investigate the cooking club."

"But why are we looking into this? Aren't there better people to do this job?"

Thomas asked Brian, something that everyone was in doubt, there really were people much better than them in the investigation, so it was strange that they had to take care of the case.

Brian sighed and replied to Thomas:

"I asked the director to let us take over the case."

Amanda would get furious again and decide to leave the room to avoid another argument. She would stop at the classroom door and ask Thomas:

"Are you coming?"

Though it was a question, it felt like an order, and Thomas wasted no time getting to his feet and walking over to Amanda.

After the two left the room, Annabelle asked Brian:

"Are you sure you're going to ignore this and concentrate on the case?"

"Sigh, the case is much more important now..."

Brian knew that the death of these two students meant something very big, so he decided to ignore his fight with Amanda and solve the case.

"Let's investigate now, then we'll meet again at my dorm to share what we found, okay?"

Everyone nodded and started to leave the room towards their destinations.