For several moments, none of them spoke. The old student ID card remained in Elena's trembling hand while the sentence written on its back seemed to grow heavier with every passing second.
"The person you trust the most has been lying since the beginning." The silence inside Room 117 became almost unbearable. Outside, the wind brushed against the old windows, producing a faint whistle that echoed through the forgotten classroom. Ethan slowly looked around the room once again.
Every dusty shelf, every broken desk, and every faded photograph felt like a piece of a story someone had desperately tried to erase.
"We should leave," Olivia whispered. "If someone came here once, they can come back."
Noah nodded immediately. "For the first time in my life, I actually agree with leaving a mystery unsolved."
Ethan closed the black notebook and carefully slipped it into his backpack. "No," he said quietly. "We leave... but this notebook comes with us."
No one argued.
They stepped out of Room 117 one by one. As soon as Ethan pulled the door shut, the hidden wall slowly slid back into place, disappearing so perfectly that it looked as though no door had ever existed there. Within seconds, the corridor returned to its ordinary appearance. Anyone walking past would never imagine that an entire room was concealed behind those cold concrete walls.
The four friends walked silently until they reached the school courtyard. The cheerful decorations for the Autumn Festival looked strangely out of place after everything they had just witnessed. Students laughed while hanging colorful lanterns from the trees, music drifted across the campus, and teachers discussed tomorrow's rehearsal schedule. It felt like two completely different worlds existed inside Sakura Blossom High.
Noah finally broke the silence. "Does anyone else think we're living inside a mystery novel?"
Olivia sighed. "At this point, I'd rather be preparing for exams."
That earned a small smile from Ethan.
It wasn't much, but Elena noticed it.
"You smiled again," she said softly.
Ethan looked away, slightly embarrassed. "Did I?"
"You did."
"I guess Noah says strange enough things."
"I'll take that as a compliment," Noah replied proudly.
For a brief moment, everything felt normal again.
That evening, rain began falling over the city once more. Ethan sat alone in his room with Daniel's journal lying beside the newly discovered black notebook. He compared every page carefully, hoping to find a connection. Most of the notebook contained attendance records, sketches of the old school building, and names he had never heard before. Then, tucked between two pages, he discovered something folded carefully into a small square.
It was an old map.
Unlike the official blueprint they had seen earlier, this map showed a network of narrow passages beneath Sakura Blossom High. Red ink connected different parts of the building, almost like secret tunnels. At the center of the map, someone had circled one location.
The Old Clock Tower.
Beneath it, a sentence had been written in hurried handwriting.
"The second key is hidden where time stopped."
Ethan stared at the words.
"Second key?"
He immediately remembered the brass key still resting in his pocket.
If there was a second key...
Then Room 117 wasn't the final destination.
It was only the beginning.
The next morning, Ethan reached school earlier than usual. Thick clouds covered the sky, and the campus was unusually quiet. As he crossed the courtyard, he noticed someone standing beneath the cherry blossom tree.
Lucas Reed.
He wasn't looking at the school.
He was looking at the old clock tower.
His expression was completely different from the calm smile he usually wore. For the first time, he looked... worried.
Before Ethan could call out to him, Lucas sensed someone watching. He turned around, their eyes met for only a second, and then Lucas walked away without saying a word.
Ethan followed his gaze toward the clock tower.
The giant clock had stopped.
Its hands were frozen at 10:17.
A strange chill ran through him.
The sentence from the map echoed in his mind once again.
"The second key is hidden where time stopped."
He had a feeling their next clue wasn't waiting inside Room 117 anymore.
It was waiting inside the oldest part of Sakura Blossom High.
And whatever had happened there twenty years ago...
Had never truly ended.