The Ones Who Remembered

*— Elara Voss's POV —*

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The red envelope Rowan held hadn't belonged to her.

But it *was meant for her.*

She knew that the moment she saw the gold wax — the old family crest melted into the seal. A symbol she'd buried with her past, the same one engraved on the box they lowered into the ground at her funeral.

A symbol **no one alive** was supposed to remember.

She kept her face blank when Rowan asked. Gave him that calm, clipped response she'd perfected by now.

But inside?

She was unraveling.

Not in fear.

In **rage**.

---

That night, her hands trembled as she unlocked the hidden drawer beneath her floorboards — where she kept the documents. Newspaper clippings. Obituaries. Expulsion reports. Disciplinary files. The story of her death rewritten as an "accident."

She flipped to the file with the name:

> **Damien Kline** — Age 19. Vanished three weeks before her fall.

She remembered the night he showed her the truth. About the school. About the people pulling strings. About the reason she was targeted.

And she remembered what they did to him.

They made him disappear.

Now, someone had sent her a message — one that reeked of his paranoia and secrecy.

Could he still be alive?

Or was this someone *else*, someone who remembered her just as well — and wanted her **gone**?

---

**2:08 a.m.**

The dorm hallways were dark. Everyone asleep. The night creaked and breathed like a thing alive.

She didn't want to wake Rowan.

Didn't want to trust him.

But she also didn't want to walk into whatever this was… alone.

So she left a note in his shoe — *three words scribbled in black ink*:

> **"If I vanish."**

And beneath it, a time and location:

> *South Courtyard. 2:30 a.m.*

Then she walked out into the dark.

---

**South Courtyard.**

Wind stirred the trees. The air was thick — like it had secrets soaked into the soil.

She waited by the statue.

Footsteps.

Not Rowan.

Someone else.

A figure emerged from the trees — hoodie, slouched posture, one hand in pocket, the other holding... something.

A phone.

Recording her.

She tensed. "What do you want?"

The figure didn't speak. Just held the phone higher.

Flash.

A photo.

Then it ran.

She chased. Fast. Silent. Darting through wet grass and gravel, her lungs burning.

But when she turned the corner behind the gym building — the figure was **gone**.

Only a scrap of paper remained where it had stood.

She picked it up.

Scrawled in shaky handwriting:

> **"You were never supposed to come back."**

> **"They're watching again."**

---

By the time Rowan found her near the gates, she was sitting on the stone steps, pale and silent.

"What happened?" he asked, breathless.

She didn't look up.

Just whispered:

> "It's starting again."

And in her lap, the paper crumpled in her fist like a warning from a grave.

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