“This is the teacher complex,” Andrew began. “Three stories in total. The top floor is residential, the middle holds the offices, and the bottom serves as both the cafeteria and lounge for the staff.”

The building wasn’t adorned with much, but it had a simple, purposeful design. Wide windows lined the middle floor, revealing a series of cubicles formed by false walls. The bottom floor had only two small windows on either side of a central door, too dark within to see anything from where we stood. The top floor featured six evenly spaced windows, likely indicating six separate rooms.

None of the windows showed any sign of life. Every curtain was tightly drawn, as if actively trying to block out the sunlight falling behind us. There was a stillness to the place that didn’t sit right.

“A bit quiet,” I muttered as a plume of smoke slipped from my lungs.

I felt a tug on my sleeve and looked over to find Isaiahh eyeing the cigarette in my hand. With a quiet sigh, I handed it over, watching as the two old men passed it back and forth like a lifeline. This might not seem all that strange to someone like me—thrown into a horror-fantasy mess of a world—but for them, this was reality. As real as bones and breath. As real as the afterlife that weighed heavy in their thoughts.

“Come,” Andrew said, leading us deeper into the compound.

“This here is the teaching hall. Two stories tall, but wide and long—shaped like a U. Both floors are used for classrooms. The division’s simple: younger students below, older ones up top.”

“Is there a janitor's space?” I asked, relighting the smoke Isaiahh handed back to me.

“There is. You don’t think the staff’s involved…? Well, actually—they’re suspect too. We barely know any of them outside of parent-teacher meetings. And I don’t have kids, so… yeah, could be,” Andrew replied as he pointed toward a small structure tucked against the perimeter wall between the faculty building and the school’s right wing.

As I approached the small hut, my attention lingered on the right wing’s upper windows. Once again, not a single pair of eyes stared back—but I couldn’t shake the sensation that I was being watched. Normally I could pinpoint these things, but whatever it was hid itself well.

Nearing the janitor's closet-like building, I crouched by the door and with a few practiced movements, popped the lock. An old habit from my days as an investigator back home that still matched up to my expectations. Thank god for rake picks and shit locks.

Inside, the cramped room was cluttered with cleaning supplies, scattered tools, and a disorganized pile of sports equipment. A lone chair sat beside a workbench, with a coffee tin overflowing with cigarette butts beside it. No immediate signs of struggle or wrongdoing. I inspected what I could but found nothing noteworthy.

With a shake of my head to the others, I locked the door behind me and stepped away.

They nodded silently and waved me over.

“To the left is the student cafeteria,” Andrew continued. “Single story, built to seat around a hundred at a time.”

“How many students attend here?” I asked, surprised he hadn’t mentioned it earlier.

“Over a thousand.” Andrew watched the disbelief stretch across my face before he elaborated. “You never asked. My ‘town,’ as you call it, has tens of thousands of residents. If two parents have two kids, the numbers climb fast even just a single child.”

“I see. Makes more sense why the student disappearances are such a big deal.” I puffed slowly, trying to imagine the buzz and chatter of those many kids swarming these grounds. “Continue.”

“In the center of the teaching hall is a fountain,” he said, gesturing across the courtyard. “Just beyond it is the rear portion of the wall you saw earlier. Oh—and to the right of the cafeteria…”

He turned us toward a large open area.

“…is the playfield,” he said. “Takes up nearly a quarter of the compound. We’ve got multiple fields inside it—football, training rings, even a track circle.”

Nothing seemed particularly out of place here. Flat ground. Trimmed grass. But as we followed the fence line that wrapped the field, I noticed something—glints of geometric glass reflecting at odd angles near the back edge of the school’s left wing.

“What’s that?” I asked, raising my hand to direct Andrew’s gaze to the shining structure.

“If I’m correct, that’s the botany house,” Andrew said, squinting toward the distance. “About forty feet by forty. Students studying biology tend the plants inside. We can go check it out.”

Isaiahh nodded in agreement, and we moved toward it—keeping the school building to our right and the fence to our left.

“Something isn’t right here…” A shiver crept across my neck, like dozens of spider legs crawling toward my spine. It was the same unease I’d felt when I first saw the ghost woman through the watch display. If this was my sixth sense, it was sounding every silent alarm it had. Something was wrong. Deeply wrong.

“What do you mean?” Isaiahh asked, but his question was cut short as he and Andrew quickly pulled talismans from their jackets, gripping them tightly.

Only after a long, silent minute did the sensation start to fade, and I finally let myself breathe. My hands shook slightly as I took a deep drag from my cigarette. I turned to them and they opened up their palms and looked at each other with horror written on their faces. The talismans were cindering.

“I need you two to leave. Stay outside the compound perimeter and don’t return until morning. Is there anyone else still on the grounds?” I asked calmly.

“You want us to what?!” Isaiahh’s voice cracked, incredulous. Andrew, however, studied the goosebumps rising across my arms, then glanced down at the talisman glowing faintly in his palm.

“I understand.”

“You… have a special ability, don’t you?” I asked, as if trying to ease the tension.

“Eidetic memory,” He replied. “Pretty strong, too. I apply it to chess often.”

Andrew nodded and gripped Isaiahh’s arm gently, guiding him away. He turned back once with a quiet warning.

“There were supposed to be three teachers who decided to stay behind. We haven’t seen them. Maybe they’ve already left—maybe they didn’t want their reputations tied to what’s happening here.”

The two old men shuffled away, slower than usual. Despite their feigned calm, I knew they felt the same thing I did. I was left standing alone as a gust of wind curled around the edge of the glass botany house, pulling the scent of blooming flowers out into the open air.

It was sweet.

Too sweet.

Behind that sweetness… there was something else.

Something deeply wrong.

I clutched my arms, grounding myself in the moment as the wind pressed against my back.

‘This feeling… this pit in my stomach… something is here. And it doesn’t want to be seen.'

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With a glance, the "compound" had many aspects to it that were difficult to fathom the use of. Whether buildings, points to hide, or otherwise, the space placed a distinct sense of unease in me as I looked around with a discerning eye.

"Reminds me of back in the day... so was it a murder? With all this, it couldn’t simply have been a suicide unless it was a forced one, so homicide..."

Plop

Frog popped out from a bout of mist that whisked away in the wind. I picked him up and set him on my shoulder. Somehow, just having a companion eased the ill feeling.

"Focus."

The school grounds were composed of several complexes in total, so the most direct solution would be to search them one by one. I let out an exaggerated sigh, frog jostling on my neck as I did, then turned to face the botany house and stepped inside. The smell of soil, flowers, and foliage was intoxicating.

With the clue of the blanket, as well as the compacted impressions of two hands and an hourglass waist, it was obvious what this space had been used for.

"I'll still make note of it... things were overlooked by the staff, that's for sure, and the students weren’t entirely innocent."

A small glimmer caught my eye just to the right. Through a streak of light glittering down from a window panel, a piece of metal gleamed, buried in one of the pots beneath a tulip.

I dug into the soil with a finger and extracted a long, wide key. After replacing the tulip, I stared at the key.

"The main gate, maybe... but why is it hidden here?"

Ding

"Oh fuck no."

My gaze slowly lowered to the watch. With a flick, the screen bloomed to life before me.

Boon of Mystery: As you have traveled to the past, it has now become the present.

Quest: Survive the first night, find the key, and end the repeating of history.

"You son of a bitch, fate," I cursed at the watch.

The streak of light that had once fallen across my shoulder vanished. A cold, creaking sensation filled the dimly lit glass house. My eyes darted across the walls as the day outside turned into pitch-black night.

"First... night?"

*Whoosh*

*Pat* *Pat* *Pat* *Pat*

Rain began striking the glass house like a cacophony of drumbeats, leaving prismatic trails behind that disappeared as others followed. On one side, the glass reflected pale white, catching distant lights. On the other side, it was pitch black, reflecting only shadow.

"It's almost..."

"Come on... quick... it's raining..."

A voice picked itself out from the noise. I watched as two hunched shadows ran by the glass wall toward the door.

With no other exit, I whirled my bracelet. Three lightning runes ignited across my hand, glowing bright blue. Just enough charge in the third rune for a quick push.

Time dilated. My head whipped around as I swiveled my body into a haphazard about-face.

I moved a stack of pots to a corner in a rush, hiding myself behind the tallest plants. The speed caused the dirt to fly across the room.

Click

The glass door opened, letting in a roar from the sky.

"Haha..."

Laughter filled the space. Teenage laughter. The door shut behind them.

Through a thin gap between foliage, I focused on their clothing.

"Students?"

I certainly didn’t get up to ask them why they were there.

"Come on... I made a great spot for us, even checked it myself to see if the place would be comfortable"

A young male voice, confident and playful.

Thin ribbons of lamp light from the field illuminated their faces briefly. One was a seventeen-year-old male. The other, a girl of the same age. She was cute; he was handsome—long black hair pulled back, stone-cut features.

They moved to the table. The male reached behind it, pulling out the same blanket I had found earlier. With a flurry of movement, they toppled onto it, laughing.

I shut my observing eyes but kept my ears open.

*Pat* *Pat* *Pat* *Pat*

"No... listen more... this rain is nothing compared to the city."

*Pat* *Pat* *Splosh* *Pat* *Pat* *Splosh*

"Steps."

The front portion of my body was concealed from the glass house interior, but the rear glass wall left me vulnerable. I turned my head toward the noise and saw them—five shadows, moving slowly through the rain in a low crouch.

Sometimes, one would stop and peer into the glass house, but the rain distorted their vision.

The glass door groaned. A silent cry of warning.

But the couple inside didn’t notice.

Five young males crept closer, crouched beneath the rows of plants, partially concealed by the shadows. Each step was calculated, quiet.

"Do I kill them? Or can I do it silently?"

A grimace replaced the smile that crept onto my face.

An image flickered in my mind. A horror. A humiliation. A death.

"If I let this happen... it might reveal the truth, but at what cost? What if one of them... what if she was the one who took her life or did they kill the kid and that caused her depression or versa? Not enough information."

*Pat* *Pat* *Pat* *Pat*

Mixed with the rain were the subtle sounds of heavy breathing.

I raised my gun and slowly twisted on the silencer with my other hand.

"I can never let that happen. I’d rather die."

*Pat Pat* *Fwhoo* *Pat Pa*t *Fwhoo*

Shots rang out like whispers in the rhythm of the rain. One by one, the bodies dropped, chains and bars clattering from their hands. They had meant to do true harm.

Frog slipped from the shadows of my cape and bounded silently through the room, collecting the chilling bodies sprawled amongst the flowers. The scent of blood faded beneath the overwhelming fragrance of roses and lilies.

One by one, they disappeared.

One by one, I breathed.

One step at a time, fate was changing.

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“I… I think I love you,” a voice rang out just as I brought my hands down from my ears.

“I… I think I love you too,” a feminine voice responded, soft and full of quiet joy.

‘I think… I did the right thing,’ I whispered under my breath to Frog, who had rejoined me. He was turned away, staring out through the glass. What a gentleman.

The couple picked up the blanket and walked off, hand in hand, stepping unknowingly over the crimson earth—over the graves of five hoodlums who might’ve bullied, beaten, or even killed them. They would never know. And they shouldn’t.

As the door closed behind them, I exhaled softly and lit a cigarette, still seated in the same position I’d been in before. A faint crimson glow filtered through the glass, painting a faded red reflection of my face as I stared outwards.

I didn’t know exactly why I’d killed the five. But after living in the kind of city I had, after seeing the kinds of people I’d seen… I just knew. That was my sixth sense.

People had auras. Those five reeked of malice. And another thing—they hadn’t been wearing the same uniforms as the two lovebirds. Which meant either they didn’t go to this school, or they used to and were expelled for one reason or another.

I rose slowly, stretching the stiffness from my back. Frog hopped out from beside a potted aloe, his little limbs bouncing across the floor.

I shifted my cigarette to my left hand and swept Frog into my right arm, cradling him against my chest.

“Come on, little guy… we can dump them somewhere later,” I murmured.

Frog gave a disgruntled pout and leapt out of my hand, vanishing into a swirl of mist that rolled down across a patch of flowers before dissipating completely.

I peeked out both side windows by the door, then cautiously slid it open and stepped through.

What greeted me stopped me cold.

The inside of the botany house.

I was back in the same glass-walled room I had just left.

‘What?...’

pat pat pat pat

The rain struck my shoulders, the wind pushing past me—cold, wet, and very real. But when I turned to face the direction I’d stepped into—the way out—what met my eyes was again the same interior of the greenhouse.

‘No… what did I do wrong? That’s why the quest started, right? To stop it?... right?...’

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