The halls of Shady High stretched out before the four of them, the dim afternoon light filtering through the windows. They moved toward the rows of abandoned student lockers.

"Alright," Luke said, glancing at his phone screen before slipping it back into his pocket. "If the faculty room was a bust, our next best bet is seeing if any of the students left behind something useful."

"Because high schoolers are totally known for writing down their involvement in illegal experiments," Hakari scoffed, kicking a loose piece of tile down the hallway.

"Hey, it’s worth a shot," Sen said, stretching. "Worst case scenario, we find someone’s forgotten stash of snacks. Best case scenario, we uncover top-secret government documents hidden between pages of bad poetry."

Luke pointed to the rows of lockers. "We don’t have time to go through all of them. Just check anything unlocked or broken open."

Yen hesitated before asking, "Should we be… going through people’s things?"

Sen shot him a look. "Dude. This school’s been abandoned for, like, weeks. If someone wanted their stuff, they would’ve taken it."

"One week," Luke corrected.

Sen blinked. "What?"

"It’s only been one week," Luke said, moving toward the lockers.

Sen frowned. "Oh. Right." He rubbed the back of his neck, muttering, "Feels like longer."

Hakari stayed silent, but she kind of agreed.

Luke was methodical, checking each locker carefully before moving on. Yen, less eager to dig through strangers’ stuff, stuck close to him, mostly observing. Hakari took the middle section, yanking open whatever doors weren’t locked. Sen, meanwhile, had decided on a more brute-force approach.

With a sharp kick, he knocked a closed locker open, wincing as the metal groaned. "Oof. Uh… whoops?"

Hakari raised an eyebrow. "You do realize that’s vandalism, right?"

Sen shrugged. "No one’s using it."

Ignoring him, Hakari turned her attention back to her own search. She had been hoping for a diary, a note, maybe even a forgotten USB drive, anything that could give them a lead. Instead, all she found were dusty textbooks, old sweaters, and a few math quizzes with concerningly low scores.

"Anything?" Luke called from the other side of the hall.

"Nothing," Hakari answered, frustrated.

"Same here," Yen added.

Sen, however, didn’t respond. Hakari turned toward him, noticing that he was staring at something inside the locker he had just forced open. His usual playful expression had disappeared, replaced with something unreadable.

"Sen?" she asked, stepping closer. "What is it?"

Slowly, he reached inside and pulled out a notebook. It was small, bound in worn-out black leather, its edges frayed. Hakari felt a chill crawl up her spine.

Luke walked over, adjusting his glasses. "What’s that?"

Sen flipped it open. His brow furrowed. "No clue."

Hakari leaned in, expecting to see class notes, messy doodles, or maybe a half-written breakup letter. Instead, the pages were filled with strange symbols—lines, spirals, and shapes that didn’t make any sense. Some looked like letters, but none of them formed any words she recognized. It was nonsense. No, it was coded.

Luke took the notebook from Sen and flipped through it carefully. "I don’t recognize any of this."

Yen peered over his shoulder. "It almost looks like a… language?"

Hakari frowned. "Or a cipher."

Luke nodded. "It could be some kind of encryption method. If this belonged to a student involved with Project Eidolon, they wouldn’t have written things out plainly."

Sen crossed his arms. "Yeah, but who would even write this? And why hide it in a locker?"

Hakari stared at the pages, the symbols twisting and curling in a way that made her uneasy. It reminded her of something—something distant, just on the edge of her memory.

She swallowed. "Maybe they were trying to hide it from whoever erased everything else."

A heavy silence followed.

Luke snapped the notebook shut. "We need to figure out what this says."

"Cool," Sen said. "And how exactly do we do that?"

Luke glanced at the pages again. "I might be able to decode it if we find a pattern. But it’ll take time."

Hakari exhaled. "Great. Another mystery to add to our growing collection of ‘things that make no sense.’"

Sen grinned. "Hey, at least this one comes with a cool, cursed notebook."

Yen glanced at the book, his fingers curling into his sleeves. "...What if it isn’t just a cipher?"

Luke looked up. "What do you mean?"

Yen hesitated. "I mean… what if it’s not meant to be understood? What if it’s a ritual? Or a warning?"

Hakari stared at him. "Dude, don’t say things like that."

Yen shifted uncomfortably. "I’m just saying—if it was important enough to hide, and if someone went through the trouble of using a code, maybe it’s something we shouldn’t be messing with."

For once, no one had a snarky comeback. The quiet weight of his words settled between them, unshakable.

Finally, Luke sighed, slipping the notebook into his bag. "We’ll figure it out later. For now, we keep looking."

Sen stretched, cracking his neck. "Awesome. More rummaging through other people’s junk."

Hakari rolled her eyes, but even as she continued searching, she couldn’t stop thinking about that notebook. The way it had been left behind. She shivered.