Mist clawed at the school windows, blurring the soccer field into a gray, indistinct smear.
Inside the cafeteria, the usual clamor had dulled to a tense murmur—forks scraped against plates with deliberate care, and voices hovered just below their normal pitch.
Priya's seat at the Circle's table sat empty, a stark void amid the group's familiar corner.
The Circle—five classmates who had claimed this spot since their freshman year—felt her absence like a missing heartbeat. Where her tray once overflowed with samosa crumbs and doodled napkins, only bare Formica remained. The silence rippled outward, tightening shoulders across the room.
Shinikyu sat at the table's edge, his back pressed firmly against the wall. He divided his rice into precise quadrants, his gaze sweeping the cafeteria with steady, methodical calm.
Two tables away, the Class 11-B pranksters hunched over their phones, thumbs scrolling in unnatural quiet. No booming laughter echoed today."Market Street emptied early last night," he said, his voice low and measured, carrying the weight of observation. "Vendors packed up by six. They usually linger until eight."Holly looked up from her sketchpad, her pen freezing mid-swirl.
A dancer's grace shaped the tilt of her wrist. "Patel's Café too," she replied, her tone light and disarming, though her eyes flicked toward the fogged windows. "Lights out before dusk. Walking home felt like crossing through a ghost town."Beneath the table, her foot tapped a subtle, restless rhythm.Mash slammed his water bottle down, the plastic crunching under his grip.
He half-rose from his chair, shoulders knotted tight, his hot-headed energy crackling. "Priya just ghosts us—no texts, no calls. Coach cancels practice with some 'scheduling' excuse. That's bullshit."Kai's hand clamped onto his arm, her grip firm from years of dojo drills. "Sit down, Mash.
Drawing eyes on us won't help." Her posture remained coiled, athletic poise masking the tension beneath, though her free hand hovered near her pocket—keys or phone, always at the ready.The overhead light above their table flickered once, then hummed back to steady life.
A routine glitch, perhaps. Or something watching. Shinikyu filed the detail away, his patience unyielding.Hannah hovered near the table's center, fanning out extra napkins no one had asked for. Her soft gaze lingered on Priya's empty spot. "She left her festival kit in my locker last week," she said gently, her nurturing instinct threading through the words. "Glue sticks, markers—all of it's still there."Her fingers twisted a napkin into shreds below the table's edge.Hori sat tucked in the corner, her notebook open to a grid of scribbled timelines.
She tapped her pen with deliberate rhythm. "The attendance log shows Priya present until 3:15 Friday afternoon," she noted, sarcasm sharpening her tone. "No exit scan after that. Schools never misplace students, do they?"The Circle's usual rhythm had faltered today. Shinikyu observed from his deliberate distance, Holly wove threads of lightness to ease the growing knot, Mash pushed forward with raw heat, Kai held the center with disciplined calm, Hannah mended the fraying edges, and Hori dissected every gap with relentless logic.
But the air felt heavier, charged with unspoken questions.The bell droned faintly through the mist outside. Students shuffled out in tighter packs than usual, avoiding eye contact as they passed the back gate—the narrow alley path that local kids shunned after dark, even on ordinary days. As they stacked their trays, Holly's chair nudged something loose.
A crumpled sheet of plain paper fluttered to the floor, creased as if it had once cradled something small. She palmed it smoothly, her intuitive sense prickling at the faint gleam of eyes from the kitchen window. She said nothing.Outside, the fog swallowed the alley whole. Market Street's lamps buzzed dimly, and Patel's Café loomed dark and uninviting. Whispers trailed the group: Priya's fine—just a family trip. But routines had cracked. Vendors packed early.
A dog barked in the distance. Then Hannah's phone buzzed in her bag—Priya's last text, still unread: Meet at back gate? Weird shadow followed me.Shinikyu paused at the gate, his gaze tracing tendrils of fog curling around his shoes. "This isn't random," he said quietly.Holly unfolded the note in her pocket. Blank paper, but one edge bore smudged ink—a half-loop, like the erased curve of a letter 'P'.Mash cracked his knuckles. "We check her place.
Now."Ripples deepened through the mist. Somewhere within it, something shifted, patient and unseen.