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September 22nd, 10:15 AM - Veridion University Campus

Ash had spent the night turning the problem over in his mind, trying to break it down into something logical. A missing student. A name erased. A pattern forming beneath the surface. If Vincent Darren had been removed from existence, then something or someone had done it deliberately. That meant there had to be traces left behind. Gaps where he used to be.

And Ash was going to find them.

His first step was the people. If Vincent had truly existed, there had to be someone, anyone, who might still remember him, even faintly. He started with older students, ones who had been around long enough to have shared a class or a campus event. The responses were... unsettling.

"Vincent Darren?" A girl from the psychology department tilted her head. "That doesn't sound familiar."

"Never heard of him," a guy from the library committee said with a shrug.

Each answer was the same. Not hesitation, not confusion. Just an absolute void where recognition should be. And yet, every time Ash asked, there was a strange flicker in their expressions like the briefest static in a broadcast before they returned to normal.

When he finally pressed a professor Dr. Mathwell , who had been teaching for decades the man frowned slightly, as if something in his mind wasn't quite right.

"No, I don't recall a student by that name," Mathwell said after a long pause. "Are you sure you're not mistaken?"

Ash's gut twisted. That pause. It had been there, just for a second. Like something deep inside Mathwell's mind had resisted, but then fell back into place.

He pushed further. "Did any students go missing around recently?"

Dr. Mathwell's lips pressed into a thin line. "I wouldn't know. People leave. People transfer. That's how it's always been."

"So no records of missing students? No one who disappeared under strange circumstances?"

A moment of hesitation. Then Mathwell's shoulders loosened. "None that I can remember."

None that I can remember.

Not "no," not "impossible." Just… an absence of memory.

Ash left the office without another word. His heartbeat was steady, but his mind wasn't. Someone had altered these people's memories. But not perfectly. There were still cracks in the façade. Hesitations. Instinctive gaps that no amount of erasure could fully smooth over.

And Ash was going to pry those cracks wide open.

12:30 PM - Veridion University Archives

If verbal accounts failed, then physical records were next. Ash returned to the archives, this time with a sharper focus. Student records, event flyers, yearbooks anything that should have contained Vincent's name.

What he found was worse than a missing entry. It was a complete void.

Yearbooks from last year had perfect layouts, students neatly labeled but the sections where Vincent should have been felt wrong. Gaps between images where spacing didn't quite make sense. Lists of names where the numbering skipped a digit.

In the faculty office, he checked the list of enrolled students. The formatting was pristine, no apparent missing entries.

Except

The numbers didn't add up. The list ended at 499 students. But a faculty report from that same year stated 500 students were enrolled.

Someone had been removed, but the world still carried the faint imprint of their absence. A ghost in the system.

Ash took a slow breath, gripping the paper. This wasn't just Vincent Darren. He had been one of many.

A thought curled at the edges of his mind how many other names had been erased before him?

And more importantly why?

3:45 PM - The Library

As he returned to the library, he noticed something strange. On the notice board outside the main entrance, a set of symbols had been drawn in chalk. Rough, jagged lines. The same symbol that had been in the book.

It hadn't been there this morning.

Inside, he approached the librarian again. "Has anyone asked about old student records? "

She didn't respond at first. Her fingers hovered over the keyboard, frozen mid-typing. Then, in a slow, mechanical voice, she said, "Records are confidential."

"That's not what I asked."

A long pause. Then she looked at him too directly, too focused. "You should stop looking."

Ash tensed. "Why?"

"Because what is erased should stay forgotten."

A chill coiled around his spine. "You said something similar last time. But here I am. Still looking."

The librarian blinked once, twice. Then her fingers resumed typing, as if nothing had happened.

The weight in Ash's chest grew heavier. Something was watching. And now, it knew he wasn't stopping.

5:10 PM - Ash's Apartment

Back home, Ash spread out everything he had gathered on his desk. Newspaper clippings. The falsified student records. The yearbook pages with missing names.

A pattern. A deliberate erasure.

And the fact that something someone was ensuring it stayed buried.

His phone buzzed.

Unknown Number.

Ash stared at the screen. He didn't answer.

Instead, he pulled out his journal and wrote two sentences.

Vincent Darren was erased. He was not the first.

Then, beneath it, he underlined a single thought.

I am not going to be next.

His mind flicked back again to something he had once read Nietzsche's words about gazing into the abyss.

"If you stare long enough into the abyss, the abyss stares back."

For the first time in his life, Ash wasn't sure if he was staring into something dark or if something was staring at him.

Then, a noise.

A faint, deliberate knock at his apartment door.

Three slow taps. Rhythmic. Calculated.

Ash went still, his grip tightening around the pen in his hand.

He hadn't told anyone where he lived.

The knock came again.

His phone screen lit up another call from Unknown Number.

This time, he didn't ignore it.

He let it ring once. Twice. Then, just as he reached for the answer button, the call ended.

And from the other side of the door, a voice low, familiar, but distorted spoke two words:

"Stop searching."

A chill coiled at the base of Ash's spine.

His fingers hovered over the lock.

Then, silence.

Ash exhaled slowly, glancing at his journal one last time before closing it.

He wasn't stopping.

If someone had come this far to warn him, it only meant one thing

He was finally on the right track.

And now, he needed a plan.

He took another piece of paper and started writing names of professors, older students, places he hadn't checked yet. If the direct approach wasn't working, he'd have to go deeper, find the weak spots in whatever had erased Vincent Darren.

Ash tapped his pen against the desk, considering.

There was another place he hadn't checked yet the abandoned records room in the basement of the university.

If something had been erased, that might be where the remnants still remained.

And if something was waiting for him there

At least he'd be ready.