The air inside the main office was still, stale in a way that made it feel like they were the first people to step inside in ages. Papers, once neatly stacked, were scattered across desks, and a few broken pens littered the floor. Despite the mess, the space didn’t feel abandoned, just…trashed.

Yen hesitated at the doorway, shifting his weight between his feet. "We sure we should be in here?" His voice was soft, uncertain.

Hakari flopped into the receptionist’s chair, spinning once before kicking her feet up on the desk. “Alright, what’s the plan, detectives?” she asked, grinning.

Luke was already scanning the room, adjusting his glasses. “We’re looking for staff records. Something, anything, that tells us who worked here before everything shut down.”

Sen poked at a stack of untouched mail. “Wouldn’t this be, like, illegal?”

Luke didn’t even look up. “Would Shady High really care?”

With that, they got to work. Hakari searched through drawers and filing cabinets while Sen rifled through a stack of old schedules. Luke focused on the main computer, tapping the keyboard only to be met with a login screen. “Figures,” he muttered, moving on to the next potential lead.

Yen lingered near the entrance before finally stepping inside. He ran his fingers over the reception counter, brushing off dust that shouldn't have been there. The school had only been shut down for two weeks, so why did this room feel like it’s been abandoned for so much longer?

After about twenty minutes, frustration set in.

“There’s nothing here,” Hakari groaned, hanging upside down from the armrest of a chair.

Luke frowned. “That’s the problem. Even if a school shuts down, there should still be records—resignation letters, transfer requests, or archived emails.” He gestured toward the empty cabinets. “But it’s like someone went out of their way to erase everything.”

Sen, crouched in front of one of those very cabinets, pulled out the bottom drawer and peered inside. It was completely empty, no papers, no old folders, just a few stray paperclips at the bottom. He tapped the label on the front.

STAFF RECORDS

“Well,” he said, deadpan. “That’s not suspicious at all.”

Hakari sat up properly. “Maybe they’re in witness protection.”

Luke shot her a look. “Or someone just didn’t want us to find them.”

Sen closed the drawer with a soft click and leaned against it. “So, we’re back to square one.”

Yen, who had been mostly quiet, finally spoke. "Maybe they moved everything somewhere else?"

Luke shook his head. "If they were following protocol, at least some of the files would be here. But this? This was deliberate."

“Wait,” Hakari mumbled, kicking open a smaller drawer by the receptionist’s desk. “I got something.”

Sen and Luke turned to see her holding up a laminated card. It was an ID badge, slightly bent at the edges, with a photo of a middle-aged woman and the title:

Ms. Vance – Faculty

Luke took the card and examined it. “I don’t recognize her.”

Sen shrugged. “That’s not weird, right? We didn’t know every teacher.”

Luke flipped the card over, but there was nothing on the back except a faded barcode. His brows furrowed. “There’s no record of a Ms. Vance in the yearbooks I checked.”

Hakari raised an eyebrow. “You memorized the yearbooks?”

“I cross-referenced them when we first started looking into the school.”

Sen whistled. “Luke, my guy, that’s either really impressive or really concerning.”

Luke ignored him. “The point is, this woman wasn’t listed anywhere. No mention in class schedules, no teacher appreciation pages, nothing.” He glanced back at the empty filing cabinets. “This is the only staff-related thing left behind. Why?”

The question hung in the air. They didn’t have an answer. As they left the office, the weight of yet another dead end settled over them.

Hakari sighed, stretching her arms behind her head. “So we found a mysterious, possibly nonexistent teacher. That doesn’t exactly scream progress.”

Luke shook his head. “We have more than you think. We now know someone intentionally wiped the staff records. We have confirmation that the school went through serious effort to cover up something. And we have a name—Ms. Vance.”

Hakari hummed. “Right. So all we have to do is, what, hunt down a ghost teacher?”

Sen grinned. “Honestly, that’d be easier than whatever this is.”

Luke pocketed the ID card. “We’ll figure it out. Eventually.”

Hakari huffed. “Will we? It feels like we’re just getting dead end after dead end. These guys got rid of a lot of evidence, but they did a poor enough job that it’s just frustrating.”

“How about, instead of getting frustrated, we go over everything we’ve found so far and see if anything comes up?” Luke suggests.

After a general agreement from everyone, they head to the library where they’ve stored of their evidence. Luke pulls out his notebook and begins.

“I’ll start with what we found in the principal’s office. The journal that repeated ‘something is wrong’ over and over.” Luke states.

Sen glanced at Luke’s notebook. “That wasn’t very helpful, I mean, dude was just stating the obvious.”

“Right. But I think they were one of the brainwashed students, probably trying to fight back and leave some sort of mark for people like us.” He continues.

A pause. Nobody was sure what his point was.

“It’s just supporting evidence for the brainwashing theory.” He moved on. “Next, the lunch program. Shady College.”

“Right, the one with the poison chemicals,” Hakari said. “There was that notebook and the posters around the school.”

“Did you ever find anything about the lunch program on the computers?” Sen asked.

Luke shook his head. “I didn’t. If you remember, there was little trace of it online, and no proof that anyone actually got that scholarship. The most we found was a single article posted by an unpopular author, just enough for Shady High to cover themselves legally.”

“What we did find was that leather notebook.” He tapped his notes. “The lunch program existed to silence students who weren’t fully committed to whatever was going on at Shady High. If they completed it, they were given the option to work for Shady College and receive the antidote. Otherwise, well, they didn’t make it.”

Yen shifted uncomfortably. "That’s messed up."

Sen frowned. “Strange deals? Like what?”

Luke hesitated. “We haven’t found anything conclusive, but we can assume it had to do with the Dreamland Devices, or maybe even drug deals. I wouldn’t be surprised.”

Hakari held her chin. “And what about the Leaders of Tomorrow thing from the yearbook?”

Luke pointed at her. “Right. They’re still just a suspicious group to keep an eye on. The only reason I even wrote them down is because the photo I found of them deleted itself from the destroyed USB.”

Yen’s eyes widened slightly. “It deleted itself?”

Luke nodded. “That’s why they stood out.” He flipped another page. “Now, the main piece of evidence—Project Eidolon. The current theory is that they were brainwashing students to follow their orders. Some were willingly involved, some weren’t. The goal? To spread their influence as far as possible and make as much money as they could.”

Hakari hummed. “That checks out.”

“That’s a lot of information…” Sen complained, holding his head.

Luke closes his notebook. “To you, it may be. I’ve got everything neatly formatted in my notebook.”

A ding broke the discussion. Hakari pulled out her phone and checked the notification.

“It’s my mom. She’s asking where I am?” Hakari pauses. “Oh! It’s 2:30 already! I’m usually home by 2:15… I gotta go!” She texts her mom quickly, already standing up.

“She’s right. I didn’t text mom that we’d be late.” Luke starts packing up. “I’ll see you tomorrow, Sen.”

Yen nodded. “See you, Sen!”

“See ya.”