Mara didn't go back to her dorm. That would have been the "normal" thing to do, to sit on a twin XL mattress, replaying the blood and the tape until it made sense through a filter of shock.
Mara walked the other way. Toward the administration building. The campus was already in the middle of its ugly transformation. News moved faster than the truth here. Clusters of students occupied every corner, their faces lit by the ghoulish blue glow of their phones. Speculation was the only currency they had.
Dead girl in the science building.
Bathroom incident.
Possible suicide.
Mara kept walking. People liked suicide; it was a neat, closed loop. It didn't require looking under the bed.
You're wasting time, the Voice hummed.
Mara pushed open the heavy glass doors of the admin building. "Am I?"
You already know she didn't fall.
"I know she didn't fall the way they think she did."
Then what are you looking for?
Mara stepped into the dim lobby. The air smelled of floor wax and old bureaucracy. "I'm looking for what changed."
The hallway was a tomb. Room 214—Student Records. Locked.
Mara stood before the door, her fingers hovering just above the brass handle. She didn't reach for a lock pick. She didn't look for a key.
"Show me," she whispered.
It wasn't a command. It was an invitation.
The world tilted. The hallway stretched, the edges softening as reality's seams began to fray. When her hand finally closed around the handle, the resistance was gone. The door didn't just unlock, it ceased to be a barrier.
Suddenly, the room was full of ghosts.
"…just leave it there, I'll sort it tomorrow," a distant voice echoed.
Mara stood in a flicker of the past. Two staff members moved through the space like shadows in a film, stacking files and organising the dead. One of them walked straight through her. Mara didn't flinch. She was used to being the ghost in the room.
Find her.
Mara moved toward the grey metal cabinets. Drawers slid open at her touch, silent and effortless. Her fingers danced over hundreds of folders, names, lives, GPAs, until they snagged on a single, misfiled tab.
"Why were you left out?"
The moment the folder slipped free, the world snapped back.
The lights were off. The staff were gone. The handle was cold and solid in her hand. But the folder was real. It had weight. It was a piece of the puzzle she'd dragged back into the light.
She moved to a desk by the window and flipped it open.
Name: Lila Hart
Age: 21
Department: Biochemistry
Status: Active
Mara's eyes lingered on that last word. Active. Not for long.
She flipped the page, skipping past the emergency contacts. At the bottom, scrawled in hurried, handwritten ink, was a note that hadn't made it into the digital system.
Reported unusual behaviour. The student claims she is being watched. No evidence found. Referred to counselling.
"Of course," Mara murmured. "Keep reading."
Attendance logs showed a gap. Three days of unexplained absence, the exact window when Mara's vision had first struck.
What happened here? She thought.
You're asking the wrong question, the Voice countered.
Mara's gaze lifted. "Then what's the right one?"
Silence went loud, then: what did she see?
Mara's breath hitched. It wasn't about what happened to Lila. It was about what Lila had looked at right before the end.
"She was afraid before she died," Mara said, the fact settling in her marrow. "Not because she was falling. She was waiting for something."
Mara stood, the chair legs scraping softly against the linoleum. "She wasn't surprised."
Suddenly, the door to the office swung open. Cold air rushed in from the hallway.
A man stood there. Mid-thirties. Dark coat. Sharp, predatory eyes. He wasn't campus security, he was too composed, his stance too balanced.
He stopped when he saw her. He didn't shout. He didn't reach for a radio. He just watched her.
"You're not supposed to be in here," he said. His voice was a low baritone, smooth and dangerous.
Mara tilted her head. "You're not, either."
A ghost of a smile touched his mouth. "Fair." His eyes flicked to the file under her arm, then back to her face. "You were at the scene. I saw you. You didn't look surprised."
"I don't get surprised easily," Mara said, her voice like ice.
"Is that so?" he asked quietly. He stepped into the room, and as he did, the air shifted again. That familiar awareness, the feeling of a second presence thrummed in the space between them.
His brow furrowed. He looked past her, toward the dark window where her reflection sat. "…Are you alone?"
Mara's lips curved faintly. "Are you?"
The silence stretched, thick with a recognition Mara didn't yet understand. He wasn't just a detective. He was a hunter. And he'd just found a scent.
"Who are you?" he asked.
"Someone who knows she didn't fall."
The man's jaw tightened. "That information hasn't been released."
"I know."
The tension between them wasn't hostile; it was something far more volatile. It was the spark of two people who saw the world for what it actually was—a lie.
The man stepped closer, his voice dropping to a warning. "You should be careful, knowing things you shouldn't."
"That's never stopped me before."
He exhaled a short, dry laugh. "Yeah. I can see that." He glanced at the file one last time. "I'll be seeing you again, Mara Kline."
He turned and walked out, leaving the door standing open.
The Voice finally spoke, its tone sharpened with an edge of alarm. He noticed.
Mara's grip tightened on Lila Hart's file. "I know."
That's a problem.
Mara looked at the name on the folder, then out into the dark hallway where the man had disappeared.
"No," she said softly. "That's useful."
Somewhere, just beyond the veil, the game had finally begun.