Liminal Lands

By Julian S Parker

Part 1 - Le­ga­cy

7:49 PM be­fore the in­cit­ing in­ci­dent.

“Read it again.”

I tight­ened my grip on the pa­per. “Are you se­ri­ous?”

“Le­ga­cy... come on.”

I shook my head. “‘Come find me there. In our spe­cial place. Signed, Jamyra.’”

A pause.

“Wow.”

“What?”

“I knew it. You’re crazy.” Jago laughed. “And Dave? He liked you. Kept ask­ing, ‘Is

your sis­ter still sin­gle?’ Must be a cop thing- maybe a brotha thing.”

“Jago, can you be se­ri­ous?”

His chuck­le crack­led through. “It’s prob­a­bly just kids mess­ing with you. Peo­ple still

play pranks, even on us. Re­mem­ber ol girl from high school? Al­ways some­thing to say

about Mom’s an­nu­al re­mem­brance. But our spot?” Jago’s voice was more se­ri­ous.

“That’s a lit­tle creepy.”

“That’s what I’m try­ing to say.” I ex­haled, the snow blur­ring my wind­shield. “Only

we would know about... What hap­pened that night.”

Si­lence hung be­tween us.

“...Doesn’t sound like her, right?” he mur­mured. “In my line of work, any­one can

make some­thing sound like some­one else. Can I see the “note”?”

I sent it, wait­ing as sta­t­ic buzzed.

Sec­onds passed.

“...Lega­cy, we need to talk. You feel­ing okay? You’ve been... off. Are you tak­ing

your meds?”

My heart sank. “You sound like Mom. That’s why I didn’t tell her. I trust you.”

“Leg—”

“I’m not crazy, Jago! I’ve been sit­ting on this for days not be­ing able to sleep. I try

to re­mem­ber what hap­pened back then... but it’s fog­gy.”

“Fog­gy?”

“Yeah.” I rubbed my tem­ples. “Pieces are miss­ing. My ther­a­pist says I’ll re­mem­ber

when I’m ready.” Yeah right,” I mut­tered un­der my breath.

I heard Jago sigh. “And the spe­cial place?”

I whis­pered, “Where else?” As if I could be heard.

“...Al­right. I’m check­ing in with Dave. His shift should be end­ing soon. Not sure ...

Dave will. He’s—”

“Jago? You’re cut­ting out.”

“Leg...cy? You... there?”

The line went silent. I glared at the flick­er­ing bars be­fore toss­ing the phone aside,

frus­tra­tion claw­ing at my chest. The snow fell heav­ier now, my vis­i­bil­i­ty nar­row­ing as a

cop sud­den­ly waved me off the main road. Mut­ter­ing un­der my breath, I turned the

wheel, veer­ing onto the short­cut to­ward Pen­cosky Ave.

As my heat­ed box trudged along the lake­side, the city sky­line flick­ered through

the bliz­zard—a faint re­flec­tion shim­mer­ing on the frozen lake, where fac­to­ry fumes bil-

lowed from the In­di­ana side. Jamyra and I used to pre­tend the sky­line was our king-

dom, play­ing house. De­spite the wors­en­ing snow, a hand­ful of diehards gath­ered, set-

ting up cam­eras and snap­ping pic­tures, de­fy­ing the weath­er for a view of the Fes­ti­vals

an­nu­al fire­works. The rest of the city had stopped ven­tur­ing here—not since the in­ci-

dent. Now, only hooli­gans, kids, and us roamed these parts.

My old street sign emerged from the white haze, with­ered and fad­ed: 130th Dr,

where our child­hood had been etched into the cracked pave­ment.

As the ru­ins of our di­lap­i­dat­ed neigh­bor­hood crawled into view, mem­o­ries

tugged at me, buried be­neath the years. Af­ter grad­u­at­ing last year and mov­ing out of

the city, I start­ed my phar­ma­col­o­gy de­gree and found a part-time job shad­ow­ing at a

clin­ic in the sub­urbs. Now, though, it felt as if those years apart had nev­er hap­pened.

Flick­er­ing mem­o­ries of the four of us re­turned. Mom was work­ing long hours, and

Dad ro­tat­ed be­tween de­ploy­ments in the Air Force—al­ways pre­oc­cu­pied with re-

search. Mema most­ly raised us; she was the one who brought Jamyra home. I didn’t

think we’d get along at first; her mom, Aunt Sadie, was in and out of re­hab. But af­ter

Mema passed... things shift­ed. Our bond deep­ened, like real sis­ters. The play­ground—

the L—was our es­cape from home life. Just slides and loops, noth­ing else. It felt like

hours would go by when we were in there. It re­mind­ed me of the sto­ries Mema told

about the ser­pent eat­ing its tail, meant to sym­bol­ize pro­tec­tion. We spent our days

there, me, Jago, and Jamyra be­fore every­thing fell apart. Be­fore it hap­pened.

..._It_?

Sud­den­ly, the phone rang again, jolt­ing me back to re­al­i­ty. It was Jago.

“Hey, sis. Lost you there for a sec. How are you hold­ing up?”

“I’m okay. I just took the old short­cut by our house. Might take longer than I

thought. You’re cut­ting out.”

“Dave want­ed to check if you’re still com­ing to the fes­ti­val tonight. He’s still plan-

ning to take you out.”

I hes­i­tat­ed. The fes­ti­val used to be the high­light of the year. But af­ter... I paused,

some­thing gnaw­ing at the edges of my mind. Af­ter the dis­ap­pear­ance—Jamyra’s dis-

ap­pear­ance. I ex­haled, the mem­o­ry set­tling in like a weight. It felt dif­fer­ent now,

wrong. Few­er peo­ple come here each year. Those who did were just chas­ing some-

thing that wasn’t there any­more. At least, that’s how it felt when I came back.

“Maybe,” I said, though I didn’t mean it. “It just nev­er feels right be­ing back. It’s...

strange. Foreign.”

“Yeah, I get it. Since Jams—noth­ing’s been the same.” There was a pause. That nick-

name tugged at buried mem­o­ries. “You’ve been rem­i­nisc­ing more late­ly, huh? The an-

nu­al get-to­geth­er will do that to you, I should know.”

“Yeah, mom’s way of show­ing she cares, as if.” I scoffed, glanc­ing at the snow-cov-

ered ru­ins. “Pass­ing by our old town­homes... It feels sur­re­al. Like we nev­er re­al­ly left.

Or maybe we left too quick­ly. Every­one just for­got, just like that. Just an­oth­er sta­tis­tic...

“ My voice trailed off.

Jago’s voice soft­ened. “Look, if it’s too much, just say the word. I’ll tell Dave you’re

not up for it tonight. He’ll un­der­stand. You don’t have to push your­self.”

I want­ed to say yes, it was too much. But the pull of that old mem­o­ry—of Jamyra—

was stronger. It wasn’t that her mem­o­ry was fad­ing; it was haunt­ing me, hov­er­ing just

out of reach.

“No, I’ll be okay. It’s just the snow... every­thing feels off. I’ll meet you there,” I said,

try­ing to sound con­vinc­ing.

There was a pause, and then Jago added, “Prom­ise me you won’t do any­thing

rash. I mean it, Leg. Don’t go dig­ging into things... es­pe­cial­ly not tonight.”

I hes­i­tat­ed, feel­ing that same tug pulling me deep­er, but I pushed it aside. “Yeah,

okay.”

“Promise?”

“I prom­ise.”

“Al­right, sis. Just be care­ful. This side of Ham­mond’s been a ghost town since we

left. You nev­er know what could hap­pen.”

The call end­ed. I turned onto the fi­nal stretch to­ward the main road. The sky had

dark­ened, late evening swal­low­ing the No­vember light, and the snow hadn’t let up. I

was the only car on the road, and the si­lence felt heavy, op­pres­sive even.

I drove past and glanced back one last time, search­ing for where the slides used

to be, where the play­ground—the L—had once stood. But all I saw was rub­ble. The

fence still stood, rust­ed and bare­ly up­right, as if no one had checked on this place in

years. A wave of aban­don­ment hit me. No sign of life—just the howl­ing wind rat­tling

through the bro­ken win­dows of the near­by apart­ment maze.

For a mo­ment, I sat in the car, star­ing at the ru­ins, wait­ing for some­thing to hap-

pen. But noth­ing did. No fa­mil­iar fig­ure from my child­hood stepped out of the snow.

No warmth. No joy. Just that over­whelm­ing sense of be­ing left be­hind, for­got­ten.

Could she re­al­ly be here? Am I go­ing crazy?

I sighed, grip­ping the steer­ing wheel tighter. Some­where in that mess of mem­o-

ries, Jamyra was still out there, elu­sive and haunt­ing. I’d thought about vis­it­ing her

shrine count­less times, but it nev­er felt right with­out Jago. We’d planned to go like

usu­al af­ter the an­nu­al get-to­geth­er, but the storm had stopped us.

As I made the turn back to­ward the main road, some­thing caught my eye in the

rearview mir­ror—a sil­hou­ette right be­hind the fence, where the "L" used to sit. My heart

skipped. Slow­ing the car to a crawl, I tried to ra­tio­nal­ize what I was see­ing, cran­ing my

neck for a bet­ter look. Was it re­al­ly there, or just some for­got­ten piece of in­frastructure

lean­ing into the snow?

I leaned in clos­er, eyes nar­row­ing, when the ra­dio sud­den­ly burst to life. "Rox-

anne" by Sta­cy Q blast­ed from the disc play­er, jolt­ing me out of my thoughts.

"Shit!" I fum­bled to eject the disc, but the sta­t­ic grew, swal­low­ing the song and

dis­tort­ing it. My fin­gers slipped, and be­fore I knew it, I’d ac­ci­den­tal­ly ripped the vol-

ume knob clean off. Now, only the muf­fled thud of my heart­beat filled the si­lence. I

dart­ed my eyes back to the fenced area, but the fig­ure was gone—if it had even been

there. Snow thick­ened into a dense fog, turn­ing the world out­side my car into a

swirling abyss. I swal­lowed hard, grip­ping the wheel tighter.

Slam­ming on the brakes, the car skid­ded be­fore com­ing to a shaky halt. My

breath­ing was ragged, eyes rac­ing around the emp­ty road. My head­lights were the

only source of light for miles, cut­ting through the eerie dark­ness, their beams swal-

lowed by the snow.

“What am I do­ing? What if some­one re­al­ly was out there and need­ed help?” I mut-

tered to my­self. Each breath seemed loud­er, the si­lence press­ing in. “Get it to­geth­er,

Lega­cy. Just some stu­pid kids tres­pass­ing. Who­ev­er’s out there is on their own.” I tried

to shake off the un­ease crawl­ing up my spine.

But then, in the rearview mir­ror, I caught sight of some­thing else—a shad­owy fig­ure

stand­ing still right be­hind my car. Bare­ly vis­i­ble through the fog, black curls framed a

face, light brown skin con­trast­ing with the snow. My pulse quick­ened, and I blinked.

Gone. Just like that. What the hell was go­ing on? Why did she look so fa­mil­iar?

A sud­den thought hit me. If any­one was out there, they could mess with Jamyra’s

memo­r­i­al shrine. My stom­ach twist­ed. I hat­ed go­ing there alone; the un­ease it

brought was suf­fo­cat­ing. But I had to be sure. Even in­side the heat­ed co­coon of my

car, a chill crept over me that had noth­ing to do with the snow.

Was I los­ing it? No. I just need­ed to check on it. In and out. Jago’s words ran

through my mind. The sil­hou­ette of the girl flashed be­fore me. The head­lights pro­vid-

ed just enough light to make it quick. The shrine was only about twen­ty feet in. What

could it hurt?

I re­versed the car, shift­ed it into park, and grabbed my can of mace and cell

phone for light. Noth­ing was go­ing to take me by sur­prise. As soon as I cracked open

the door, the cold hit me hard, bit­ing at the ex­posed skin on my neck and face.

Snowflakes land­ed on my eye­lids, sting­ing be­fore melt­ing away. I emerged, swathed

in my par­ka-zip­ping my coat high­er and pulling my scarf tight around my face. The

door clicked shut be­hind me, but that small sound seemed too loud in the thick qui­et.

My boots crunched slow­ly through the fresh snow as I di­vid­ed my at­ten­tion be­tween

the fence ahead and the ground be­neath my feet.

There was a hole in the fence. Of course there was. Where there’s a fence, there’s

al­ways a hole. It worked in our fa­vor, though—giv­ing us the quick­est route to the

memo­r­i­al spot.

As I neared, I no­ticed the tat­tered miss­ing posters dot­ted along the fence, rem-

nants from the last twen­ty or thir­ty years. This was no-man’s-land, where peo­ple dis­ap-

peared, slip­ping be­tween state lines. Every­one knew it, but no­body cared. Just an­oth-

er sta­tis­tic, an­oth­er run­away or bad kid. Just an­oth­er face.

One poster stood out, adorned with hand­writ­ten notes and sig­na­tures—scrawled

wish­es for some­one to come home soon. Sur­round­ing it were pho­tographs from fam­i-

ly events, school pic­tures, and mem­o­ries of peo­ple who loved them. My gaze land­ed

on a par­tic­u­lar one—me, Jago, and Jamyra, beam­ing at the lake­front. It was the day we

cel­e­brat­ed when Jago fi­nal­ly cracked the cheat code for Kid Chameleon. We had

been so hap­py, caught in a mo­ment of pure child­hood bliss.

I smiled at the mem­o­ry, warmth spread­ing through me de­spite the cold. With

new­found vig­or, I braced my­self, push­ing for­ward as the wind whipped more vi­o­lent­ly.

I took one more quick look around. The coast seemed clear. Un­able to fit through

in my par­ka, I re­moved it, op­ti­miz­ing my at­tire as I wrig­gled through the fence, cell

phone and mace in hand, ready for any­one who thought mess­ing with me was a good

idea. My flip phone screen flick­ered as I waved it around, try­ing to make out any­thing

through the de­bris cast­ing shad­ows. My breath was my only com­pan­ion, and the fad-

ing light from the cloud­ed sky bare­ly helped.

As I crawled un­der the fence, a small mound of chico­ry flow­ers caught my eye,

their blue petals peek­ing through the snow. I paused and picked one up as I stood.

The col­or seemed jar­ring against the bar­ren, snow-cov­ered land­scape—al­most like a

re­minder of some­thing soft­er. I clutched the flower in my hand and con­tin­ued for-

ward.

I flashed my light around, search­ing for any vis­i­ble foot­prints, but every­thing was

buried un­der a fresh lay­er of snow. Ahead, her shrine came into view, bare­ly vis­i­ble

through the fog and swirling snow—a small mound stick­ing out just enough to be no-

ticed if some­one knew where to look. Each step crunched be­neath me as I scanned

for any sign of the fig­ure I thought I’d seen ear­li­er.

As I got clos­er, the wind stilled un­til I could only hear my breath, each ex­hale turn-

ing to mist in the freez­ing air. I took a deep breath, try­ing to piece to­geth­er what hap-

pened be­fore she went miss­ing. Were we ar­gu­ing? Fight­ing? I re­mem­bered some-

thing... and then noth­ing. She left, and af­ter that—blank. I couldn’t even process it

when they told me. But what was I try­ing to re­mem­ber?

I put my mace away as I crouched down, my hands shak­ing slight­ly as I brushed

the snow off the can­dles and totem, Grand­ma’s charm. Some pro­tec­tion that of­fered. I

told Jago what I saw that day she went miss­ing. But was that re­al­ly every­thing?

A sharp noise broke the si­lence, mak­ing me whip around. The wind was mak­ing

The hole in the fence open slow­ly with a low screech. I shook my head and ex­haled a

sigh of re­lief, chuck­ling at my jumpi­ness. I gen­tly placed the chico­ry flower next to her

site.

“Un­til next time... I hope to see you again soon.” The air shift­ed, as though na­ture

it­self paused to lis­ten.

Just then, my eye caught some­thing—a foot­print in the snow. Not a shoe print, but

the dis­tinct shape of a bare foot. My body tensed, a cold numb­ness creep­ing in as

thoughts raced through my head. I rose slow­ly, re­treat­ing, my eyes locked on the

strange steps.

The fence loomed ahead. With­out a sec­ond thought, I won­dered: Why did the

prints start at her shrine? Who would walk bare­foot in this cold? Too many ques­tions

swirled in my mind as my pace quick­ened—I just need­ed to leave. Now. Sud­den­ly, I felt

a trem­ble be­neath my feet. I paused, think­ing the snow had shift­ed un­der me, but the

rum­ble grew stronger, like some­thing was bur­row­ing be­low. Pan­ic seized me. Be­fore I

could re­act, the ground col­lapsed be­neath me. I sank, waist-deep, as the snow caved

in­ward around me.

As I strug­gled, I sank deep­er into the snow, which act­ed like quick­sand, my ef­forts

fu­tile. Chest deep, I screamed for help, thrash­ing against the snow that swal­lowed me

whole. My hands clawed through the cold, find­ing noth­ing sol­id. If I went un­der, no

one would ever find my body. My cry echoed, unan­swered.

As the snow crept up to my shoul­ders, I forced my­self to think clear­ly. My car was

still run­ning. Some­one would find it. I snapped my flip phone shut, try­ing to con­serve

bat­tery, and tossed it to­ward the fence with the lit­tle strength I had left. Jago would

come when I didn’t show up. He had to.

I fought to calm down, but the snow rose over my face, and my breath­ing quick-

ened. The more I strug­gled, the tighter the suf­fo­ca­tion be­came. If I could find an air

pocket, I could sur­vive a few hours—but wouldn’t I freeze to death first? The snow

swirled around me, draw­ing and suck­ing like it was breath­ing, as if it led some­where.

Wasn’t I above... the L?

The last thing I saw be­fore be­ing com­plete­ly buried was the totem, a red dye

seep­ing from its carved face. I didn’t have time to process it be­fore I was un­der.

8:07 PM - Lega­cy is thought to have left her car and dis­ap­peared; her phone was

found close to the aban­doned Lovelace town­homes.

...

“Well, what did she say? Do you think your sis­ter’s still com­ing, man?”

Jago placed his phone down, star­ing ab­sent­ly at the screen. The blare of cel­e­bra-

to­ry cheers and the clink­ing of glass­es echoed around him, but he felt shut out from it

all. He snapped back to re­al­i­ty, say­ing, “Is that all you can ever talk about?”

“Hey, come on, don’t be like that. To­day’s sup­posed to be a good day.” Dave, short

and stocky with a neat­ly groomed han­dle­bar mus­tache, took an­oth­er swig of his

whiskey, the glass clink­ing soft­ly against the bar.

Jago, tall and lean, his dark, clean-shaven face tight with frus­tra­tion, scoffed.

“Drink­ing in front of a sub­or­di­nate? Aren’t you still on duty? Does the CPD have no

stan­dards any­more?”

The two men were in their usu­al af­ter-shift spot—a dim­ly lit bar with worn wood­en

booths and a per­pet­u­al haze of cig­arette smoke. The World Se­ries re­runs of the

Chica­go Sox win­ners played on the screen, keep­ing the city abuzz with ex­cite­ment.

Jago didn’t drink, though his col­leagues al­ways urged him to join them. He had in his

younger years, but now he came more for the ca­ma­raderie than any­thing else.

“Hey, can you light­en up? Get a load of this guy. I’m not dri­ving any­where. I’m at

my place of duty,” Dave said, war­rant­i­ng snick­ers from the sur­round­ing pa­trons,

prompt­ing him to lift his glass.

“They meant the block of Jef­fer­son St, not the bar,” Jago scoffed.

“All I’m say­ing,” Dave leaned back, tip­ping his chair slight­ly as he waved the bar-

tender for an­oth­er drink, “is that you’re too up­tight. You need to re­lax some­times.

Nights like these are for guys like you and me, bust­ing our ass­es to keep peo­ple safe.

We’re do­ing all we can, but some­times we’re not al­ways lucky—I’ll ad­mit that much.”

He took a swig.

“Yeah. Al­ways seems to be a prob­lem when a cer­tain de­mo­graph­ic is in­volved,”

Jago replied. “Then it’s not a pri­or­i­ty. The Chief could have al­lowed that search for the

miss­ing broth­er and sis­ter to go on a bit longer. Now it’s like it didn’t even hap­pen.

Their files are al­ready in the store­room, along­side the rest of the un­solved cas­es.”

Dave swal­lowed un­com­fort­ably, tak­ing an­oth­er swig. “I’m not go­ing to say you’re

wrong. The cracks in the sys­tem have been big enough for too many to slip through.

I’ll give you that. But what about last month?”

“The... miss­ing cat?”

“Yes! And that helped us find where old Ben­zi­no was hid­ing that drug stash.” He

looked quite proud of him­self.

Jago paused, fix­ing his gaze on Dave. “De­hu­man­iz­ing lives by com­par­ing them to

an­i­mals and drugs isn’t why I joined the force. I want to solve the crimes that tru­ly mat-

ter—not just those that fit a nar­row nar­ra­tive, but those that im­pact real peo­ple in our

com­mu­ni­ty.”

Dave nod­ded, more mind­ful and re­served now.

“...Care for a shot?”

Jago gla­red.

“Sheesh. Just thought I’d try. Well, back to what I was say­ing...” His mind­ful­ness

last­ing only a frac­tion of a sec­ond.

Jago rolled his eyes, at­tempt­ing to block out Dave’s repet­i­tive drunk­en ram­blings.

His gaze drift­ed from the TV to his glass of wa­ter as the hum of the pa­trons fad­ed into

the back­ground. He couldn’t shake the feel­ing about Lega­cy and some­thing she’d

said. It gnawed at him, a per­sis­tent un­ease that wouldn’t let go. Jago’s fin­gers

drummed light­ly on his glass, try­ing to drown out the bar’s noise—the cries of drunk­en

pa­trons cheer­ing as now the Bears be­gan to play on the TV screen above.

And the note she sent... He re­played her words over and over in his mind. Did she

not re­al­ize?

Dave’s voice broke through his thoughts. “I mean, it’s been years, man. When peo-

ple aren’t found in our line of work... you know what that means.”

Jago snapped back to re­al­i­ty. His barstool clat­tered to the floor as he surged for-

ward, grab­bing Dave by the col­lar and slam­ming him against the bar. “Say it again.”

The bar went dead silent. Pa­trons froze; the clink­ing of glass­es and mut­ter­ing of

cheers halt­ed as they all turned to watch the scene un­fold.

“Je­sus, what’s your prob­lem?” Dave gasped, his hands raised in sur­ren­der. “Look,

I’m sor­ry. I shouldn’t have said that. That was wrong of me.”

Jago’s jaw clenched, his knuck­les white as he slow­ly re­leased his grip. He picked

up his stool and sat down, try­ing to steady his breath­ing.

“Again, you guys? How about you two get a room for once?” Mis­sy called out,

prompt­ing snick­ers and laugh­ter from the sur­round­ing pa­trons.

Jago waved his hand in a half-heart­ed apol­o­gy, and the mer­ri­ment re­sumed. “Sor-

ry, Mis­sy, you know I’ve been work­ing on it.”

Dave straight­ened his shirt, his pulse still rac­ing, sweat bead­ing un­der his arms.

He gave Jago a re­as­sur­ing pat on the shoul­der. “It’s al­right. I should’ve known bet­ter.

I’m sorry.”

He turned to the bar­tender, rais­ing his emp­ty glass. “Missy? An­oth­er round. I don’t

want to feel the ass whoop­ing I’m prob­a­bly go­ing to get lat­er.” Dave raised his glass in

the air again, giv­ing salu­ta­tions to the oth­er pa­trons, who laughed and toast­ed him

back.

Jago fi­nal­ly cracked a small smile, much to Dave’s re­lief. The ten­sion in the bar

eased slight­ly, and con­ver­sa­tions and sports com­men­tary be­gan to fill the room again.

“I guess I’ve just been on edge late­ly,” Jago mut­tered, glanc­ing at the TV. The

Bears were los­ing, and the crowd was roar­ing, but his mind was else­where. “It’s al­ways

like this around this time of year. Le­ga­cy... I don’t know, man. Some­times I just can’t fig-

ure out what hap­pened be­tween us. I nev­er liked the idea of my mom do­ing an an­nu-

al re­mem­brance. I nev­er felt it was need­ed. To think it’s been four years...”

Dave nod­ded, tak­ing a thought­ful sip of his drink. “It must’ve been hard on you

guys, es­pe­cial­ly with how your mom is. I heard that out of the three Jack­sons, she was

the brains. And look­ing at you two, I can see it.” He chuck­led. “Is she on her way here?”

“Yeah, I told her to meet us here. She’s by old Lovelace.”

“Your old stomp­ing grounds, right? I heard about that place. Lega­cy nev­er speaks

about it much.” Dave said Wasn’t that in­ci­dent what caused them to bull­doze it down?

Isn’t that around the time the teacher also went miss­ing and those weird ru­mors be-

gan of peo­ple see­ing things?

Jago shud­dered at the thought, old mem­o­ries flood­ing back. “Yeah, it’s true. A

teacher did go miss­ing too, or so I’m told.” His mind wan­dered as he tried to fo­cus,

clear­ing his throat. “From ’91 to ’01. Ten years. But that last year... ” His eyes drif­ted.

“That was a crazy year.” He took a slow, de­lib­er­ate sip of wa­ter, set­ting the cup down

as if it helped him process. “The tear­down was or­dered right af­ter—al­most on cue,

forc­ing a lot of peo­ple out. It was rough. Leav­ing for the city didn’t change any­thing.”

He chuck­led to him­self. “Leav­ing prob­lems be­hind doesn’t make them go away.”

“You got that right. I re­mem­ber my dad work­ing dur­ing that time. It was a rough

tran­si­tion for a lot of peo­ple.”

Af­ter a brief si­lence, Jago at­tempt­ed to change the sub­ject. “Leg said she got

turned around by one of our of­fi­cers. There’s a road­block on the main road.”

Dave’s lips touched his glass, and then he paused, set­ting it down with a fur­rowed

brow. “Officers? Where?”

Jago shrugged, still star­ing at the game. “Right out at the turn­pike, I guess. Be­fore

you turn into the de­mol­ished com­plex where the town­homes and school used to be.”

Dave’s de­meanor shift­ed. He grabbed Jago’s shoul­der, ur­gency in his voice. “Li-

sten to me, Jago. I need you to prom­ise me you’ll stay calm.”

“Well, of course.”

“No. Say it.”

“I’ll be calm.”

“Okay. Well...”

As soon as Dave fin­ished, Jago was al­ready up, pulling on his jacket and ig­nor­ing

the fran­tic tone in Dave’s voice. He rushed out the door be­fore Dave could stop him,

his po­lice cruis­er al­ready in mo­tion, lights flash­ing as he sped off into the bliz­zard.

“Wait!” Dave yelled af­ter him, run­ning into the snow. His voice was muf­fled by the

howl­ing wind. He stood amidst the swirling storm, the snow bit­ing at his skin as Jago’s

tail­lights van­ished into the white­out. Dave shook his head, mut­ter­ing un­der his breath,

“That id­iot could’ve at least turned off his lights...”

Of­fi­cer Jack­son rush­es to the scene at 7:58 PM.

...

As I sank, the weight of the snow pressed down on me, and my scarf slipped from

my face. Cold, bit­ing snow filled my mouth, chok­ing me as I coughed and clawed for

air. My body tum­bled through what felt like a tube, twist­ing and con­tort­ing with each

des­per­ate at­tempt to slow my fall. I reached out to grasp any­thing sol­id, but my hands

passed through emp­ty air, leav­ing me help­less in the void.

Pan­ic set in as the re­al­iza­tion hit—once I reached the bot­tom, it would be over. The

snow would ei­ther crush or suf­fo­cate me, and no one would find me in time. I couldn’t

see any­thing, but I felt the dis­ori­ent­ing pull as my hair snagged and yanked in odd di-

rec­tions, mak­ing it im­pos­si­ble to tell which way was up or down. Some­times, it felt like

I was fall­ing faster; oth­er times, like I was be­ing pulled up­ward by some in­vis­i­ble force.

The de­scent seemed end­less, a spi­ral­ing night­mare with no end in sight. My chest

burned as I strug­gled for air, the cold seep­ing into my bones and mak­ing each breath

feel like shards of ice cut­ting through my lungs.

Mem­o­ries flashed in slow mo­tion—frag­ments of the night Jamyra van­ished. I had

just re­turned home af­ter break­ing up with my boyfriend, al­ready in a bad mood, my

thoughts tan­gled with frus­tra­tion and ex­haus­tion. We’d fought for hours be­fore she

stormed out. Jamyra and I were sup­posed to go to the fes­ti­val that evening, but every-

thing felt wrong the mo­ment I walked in.

Even Jamyra was act­ing strange. We had just got­ten out of re­hab be­fore high

school, and she hadn’t been her­self for months. The night of the fes­ti­val, her en­er­gy

was off. I should’ve no­ticed soon­er, should’ve pressed her to talk, but I was too

wrapped up in my own prob­lems. I was an­gry—an­gry at my mom, an­gry at... but most­ly

an­gry with my­self. Now, I’d nev­er get the chance to make it right.

An­gry at... who? My vi­sion blurred as the cold tight­ened its grip. Tears froze on my

cheeks, mix­ing with the snow as I tum­bled, my body twist­ing in every di­rec­tion. The

weight of guilt felt heav­ier than the snow as I be­gan to fade away.

As my vi­sion blurred, the tube-like struc­ture made the snow glim­mer and shim-

mer. In this dark blur of sub­tle light, I felt as if I were in an end­less ocean, my size mi-

nus­cule in its vast­ness. Sud­den­ly, it felt as if eyes were dig­ging into me, pen­e­trat­ing

my very soul. I couldn’t make out a shape, but a faint, dis­tort­ed sound sur­round­ed me,

al­most guid­ing me.

Light seeped in from what seemed like a twist­ing tube, gain­ing bright­ness with

each bend. The snow fad­ed to noth­ing, leav­ing only a strange draft of wind—star­tling

yet odd­ly re­fresh­ing. My body warmed as the chill re­ced­ed. For a mo­ment, I couldn’t

tell if I was un­der­ground or sus­pend­ed in thin air; it felt like I had tran­si­tioned to an-

oth­er plane en­tire­ly.

The op­pres­sive weight of the snow van­ished, but the sen­sa­tion of slid­ing re-

mained. My body thawed as oxy­gen filled my lungs. How? Was I dead? No—def­i­nite­ly

still slid­ing. I felt the snow thin­ning around me, no longer suf­fo­cat­ing.

I’d been de­scend­ing at a slow rate for what felt like min­utes, maybe hours—maybe

longer. I tried to scream for help, but my voice was swal­lowed by the vast empti­ness,

van­ish­ing into a vac­u­um where no sound ex­ist­ed. The thought that I might be dead

gnawed at me. Was this death? Was I be­ing trans­port­ed to a place be­yond my com-

pre­hen­sion? Pan­ic crept in, shak­ing my last grip on re­al­i­ty. Was this it? Would I stay

here, end­less­ly fall­ing?

My breaths came in ragged gasps, my chest tight­en­ing as I tried to ground my­self.

I could breathe, blink, and feel my jacket around me. Could dead peo­ple feel things?

That didn’t seem right. Un­less there was an af­ter­life—a pur­ga­to­ry where this sen­sa­tion

lin­gered. This thought ground­ed me, forc­ing some ra­tio­nal­i­ty back. The light near my

boots grew, and I could make out my shape again—I was near­ing the end of what­ev­er

this was.

As ra­tio­nal­i­ty re­turned, I at­tempt­ed to slow my breath­ing, re­gain­ing con­trol. A light

ap­peared ahead, grow­ing brighter. I could see now, but the sight quick­ly dark­ened as

I sud­den­ly spat out of the tube struc­ture, top­pling onto my butt in a heap of snow. A

sense of re­lief of be­ing alive washed over me, though the con­fu­sion of my sit­u­a­tion

lin­gered.

I called out, my voice trem­bling as it echoed in the qui­et space, but no re­sponse

came. The si­lence was thick, the kind that makes you want to check over your shoul-

der. I wiped my arms, notic­ing snow drip­ping from my coat and mak­ing my hair frizz.

The sud­den warmth of the build­ing jarred me com­pared to the freez­ing storm I’d just

left be­hind. My body felt thawed, yet my mind re­mained frozen in con­fu­sion.

Slow­ly, I pushed my­self to my feet, tak­ing in my sur­round­ings. Was this some kind

of prank Jago and Dave were pulling? Maybe there were props—there’s no way the

school could still be stand­ing. I re­mem­bered the day it was bull­dozed, the walls crum-

bling along­side the town­homes. Yet here I was, star­ing at fa­mil­iar tiles and fad­ed lock-

ers that sparked frag­ment­ed mem­o­ries. De­spite my ef­forts to be ra­tio­nal, what I saw

and what I knew clashed vi­o­lent­ly in my mind.

The school looked com­plete­ly or­di­nary—alive, even. The lights flick­ered soft­ly, the

AC hummed in the back­ground, and the floors were sur­pris­ing­ly clean, as if some­one

still main­tained it. But it was emp­ty—eeri­ly so. I turned back to the hole I’d fall­en

through. What once felt like a chaot­ic tum­ble into the abyss now ap­peared as a reg­u-

lar air vent, the void in­side dark and end­less, swal­low­ing any sense of re­al­i­ty I had left,

caus­ing me to shud­der. Hadn’t I been fall­ing?

Next to the strange vent sat some kind of key that pic­tured strange over­lap­ping

sym­bols. I shook my head and glanced around. Noth­ing made sense. Did I slip into an

old fire chute? That wouldn’t ex­plain why the build­ing looked as if it had just been

used hours ago. I took a ten­ta­tive step for­ward, the sound of my foot­falls echo­ing in

the si­lence. Posters of school events lined the walls, their pa­per brit­tle yet un­touched.

As the wa­ter con­tin­ued to drip from my coat, it be­gan to pool at my feet as I moved

clos­er to one of the posters. I was hop­ing to search for a date that might con­firm

whether this was my school or a twist­ed re­flec­tion of it.

My breath hitched as I spot­ted one—an an­nounce­ment for the class of 2001, the

year every­thing changed. The sight sent a jolt through me, min­gling nos­tal­gia with an

un­set­tling sense of dread.

As I scanned the list of stu­dents, my heart tight­ened. Many faces were dis­tort­ed,

blurred be­yond recog­ni­tion. Then my eyes land­ed on my name—Jack­son, Lega­cy. The

pho­to be­side it was un­mis­tak­able: me with my bangs cut short to look like Lisa left eye

Lopez, a style I’d begged my mom for at grad­u­a­tion. It felt like a life­time ago. Be­side

me was Jack­son... Isis? The im­age, like the oth­ers, was smudged and al­tered, but that

name—Isis—echoed in my mind. I knew this per­son.

Sud­den­ly, the si­lence shat­tered with a loud sta­t­ic noise blar­ing from the end of the

hall. The emer­gency lights flick­ered on, cast­ing an eerie glow that dimmed the hall­way

fur­ther. I spot­ted a small black rec­tangular box sit­ting off to the side right in front of

one of the lock­ers, a pow­er cord run­ning out of sight.

Gath­er­ing my courage, I ap­proached the black box, which turned out to be an old

TV—one that ac­cept­ed a cas­sette tape. The screen dis­played sta­t­ic, flick­er­ing in and

out of fo­cus. I bent down and eject­ed the tape, which shot out with a soft thud. In

crude hand­writ­ing, it read: Flag Foot­ball April 21, 2001.

Cu­ri­ous, I slid off my win­ter coat to use as a cush­ion and rein­sert­ed the tape. I hit

rewind, lis­ten­ing as it raced through mem­o­ries in pic­ture form, hop­ing to reignite

some clue about my where­abouts. If only life could be as easy as rewind­ing a tape I

thought, watch­ing the im­ages fly by. I stopped the tape to let it play, ob­serv­ing kids

en­gaged in var­i­ous sports.

This day felt vague­ly fa­mil­iar, blend­ing with count­less oth­er school days. A line of

fac­ul­ty mem­bers faced off against stu­dents in a vol­ley­ball game—girls ver­sus teach­ers.

That was me and Jamyra’s sport. Bin­go. We should be around here. I scanned the stu-

dents and spot­ted my dark com­plex­ion at the front cen­ter, my po­si­tion on the court.

Dur­ing sea­son, I al­ways cut my hair ex­tra short to keep it out of my face—my slim, ath-

let­ic build didn’t help with the ridicule I faced, look­ing and play­ing like a boy. Mem­o-

ries surged as I watched my­self spike the ball over the net, scor­ing a point while oth-

ers looked on dis­dain­ful­ly.

“_It’s not that se­ri­ous.”

“It’s just a game.”

“Haha... some­thing she’s good at.”_

I could hear the girls snick­er­ing, their lips mov­ing through the sta­t­ic-filled screen. I

saw the ex­pres­sion on my younger face try­ing to ig­nore the com­ments, while the pain

for that girl surged in­side me. Sud­den­ly, in the video, I turned around as if I’d heard

some­thing. A lighter-skinned girl with co­coa-col­ored curls ran up be­side me, her back

to the cam­era, her face ob­scured. I no­ticed how her pres­ence made my face light up

as I spoke to her. She turned her head slight­ly, look­ing at some­thing and snap­ping her

fin­gers. Of course, I knew who that was.

**Jamyra.

I reached out to turn up the vol­ume, then re­wound that part.

“_You got this, Lega­cy—fuck yeah!”

“Thanks, Jams,” I re­spond­ed in­stinc­tive­ly.

“Hey now! That’s not nice!”

“Isis Jackson!”_

Voic­es echoed from the side as the cam­era panned to the dis­ap­prov­ing teach­ers,

re­act­ing to her foul lan­guage.

“_It’s JA­MY­RA, THANK YOU!” she snapped back. “And re­mem­ber it!”_

I smiled and chuck­led at the sight of Jamyra; warmth filled my heart with con­fi-

dence. Now, she felt clos­er than ever. For some rea­son or an­oth­er, I knew in my heart I

could find her. As the scene played out and the game end­ed, we all lined up to say

“Good game.”

My mind, still re­cov­er­ing from my re­cent ven­ture, tried to process what she had

said in the video. Jamyra went by some­thing else? Had I for­got­ten? How? With more

ques­tions than an­swers, I stood back up, drip­ping with con­fu­sion.

I was about to con­tin­ue ex­plor­ing un­til a fa­mil­iar fig­ure struck a nerve on the old

box, mak­ing my body tense. A cer­tain fac­ul­ty mem­ber was speak­ing to me in a dot­ing

way. Jamyra stood off to the side, wait­ing for their con­ver­sa­tion to end, dis­ap­proval

etched on her face. Sud­den­ly, in the video, Jamyra ap­peared, grab­bing me as we

talked, our bags in hand as we walked off.

Why don’t I re­mem­ber him? From my view, the teacher’s tall side pro­file loomed,

sun­glass­es rest­ing on his bald head, which gleamed in the sun­light. He watched us

leave, not mov­ing—just stand­ing there, fix­at­ed. Even as stu­dents and teach­ers be­gan

to pack up, he re­mained locked in po­si­tion, his eyes seem­ing­ly fol­low­ing us.

For a mo­ment, a group of kids blocked his view, and I squint­ed, get­ting on my

knees to see him bet­ter. But when he reap­peared on screen, the im­age froze, and a

chill ran down my spine. His face stared di­rect­ly into the cam­era, un­mov­ing and stone-

faced, as if he were watch­ing me. I let out a yelp as I stum­bled onto my jacket.

Now at a dif­fer­ent an­gle, I could see be­hind the TV—the out­let was emp­ty, the cord

un­plugged on the ground.

A shriek of frus­tra­tion from be­hind star­tled me, drag­ging my at­ten­tion away from

the frozen screen. My pulse raced as I turned, scan­ning the emp­ty hall­way. The sound

had come from the class­room be­hind me. Ig­nor­ing the un­set­tling fig­ure on the TV, I

called out, “Who’s there?” Silence. Ner­vous but de­ter­mined to find an­swers, I left my

coat be­hind and ap­proached the class­room door.

As I reached for the han­dle, a faint, rhyth­mic hum­ming drift­ed through the cracks—

a melody tug­ging at the edges of my mem­o­ry. My heart quick­ened. It was a tune from

an old video game OST we all used to play as a kid. The hum­ming grew loud­er, blend-

ing with the low, al­most in­audi­ble mut­ters of some­one scrib­bling away. I cracked the

door open slow­ly, peer­ing in­side.

Light from the win­dows cast long shad­ows across the floor, re­veal­ing a girl with

her hair braid­ed in messy plaits, sit­ting at a desk and fu­ri­ous­ly sketch­ing on a piece of

pa­per. She crum­pled it up and start­ed over, hum­ming the same tune, lost in her task.

A mo­ti­va­tion­al poster hung be­side her: Don’t be a fool-stay in school! fea­tur­ing a cat

in a pro­fes­sor's uni­form and glass­es cross­ing its arms.

I stepped cau­tious­ly into the light­ly dec­o­rat­ed class­room, my eyes dart­ing around

for any signs of oth­ers—just emp­ty desks. The girl con­tin­ued sketch­ing, undis­turbed by

my pres­ence. “Hello?” I called out again, my voice trem­bling. “Where is every­body?

I’m try­ing to find some­one. Can you help me?”

The girl paused, her pen­cil hov­er­ing above the pa­per, be­fore slow­ly turn­ing her

head to­ward me. As her face caught the last rays of the set­ting sun, her light skin

glowed soft­ly. Her braid­ed hair shim­mered in the light, al­most like it had back then. It

was un­mis­tak­able. Ja­my­ra. At least, she looked just like her. My heart skipped, warmth

wash­ing over me. She looked up with a sharp, dis­mis­sive glance, her eyes nar­row­ing

as if to cut through me.

“Help? Does this look like an of­fice to you? This ain’t a char­i­ty cen­ter, girlie. How

could I help?” The im­pa­ti­en­ce echoed in her voi­ce.

“You look a bit old. You been held back a lot?” the girl said, tilt­ing her head slight-

ly. “Well, what­ev­er. I’m not stay­ing af­ter be­cause peo­ple want to show up late. I al-

ready did my part.” She point­ed at a chalk­board lined with rep­ri­mands, names of pun-

ished stu­dents scrawled across it. My breath caught as I read: Isis and Lega­cy Jack­son.

So you’re... Isis? I gasped slight­ly, dis­be­lief wash­ing over me. Was this some kind of

trick?

“Yup, that’s my name... weirdo,” she mum­bled, shak­ing her head as if try­ing to

process the sit­u­a­tion. “Did you hap­pen to see a girl my age out there? She’s sup­posed

to be here. Can’t be­lieve Leg would ditch me like this.”

As she droned on, I nod­ded slow­ly, her non­stop speech pat­terns re­mind­ing me of

some­one I knew all too well.

I strug­gled to come up with an an­swer, thrown by the men­tion of her sis­ter’s sim­i-

lar nick­name. “Your... sister?” I echoed, my mind rac­ing. Was this some kind of trick?

The thing about Jamyra is she nev­er had a blood-re­lat­ed sis­ter—but since we grew up

like sis­ters our­selves, we nev­er cor­rect­ed any­one who asked. So what she said did line

up-even if it was by a stretch. My gut told me she was play­ing a game, but the doubt

gnawed at me. It was hard to tell if this was re­al­ly Jamyra, Isis, or some­one else en­tire-

ly. “I un­der­stand. You and your sis­ter are both serv­ing de­ten­tion.”

“Yup... Aren’t you ob­ser­vant?” Her eyes nar­rowed as she looked me up and down.

“You on drugs or some­thing? And why are you drip­ping wet?” The im­pa­tience in her

voice thick­ened as she shift­ed in her seat, clear­ly an­noyed by my con­fu­sion.

I stared at her, try­ing to rec­on­cile the girl in front of me with the mem­o­ry of

Jamyra. The de­meanor, the laid-back at­ti­tude, the braids, even her sharp tone—it all

felt so fa­mil­iar, but some­thing was off. She didn’t seem to rec­og­nize me at all; her de-

meanor was sharp and de­tached.

“Oh... I had an ac­ci­dent in the bath­room. You... don’t rec­og­nize me?” I asked, my

voice fal­ter­ing slight­ly as I stepped clos­er, search­ing her face for any flick­er of recog­ni-

tion. But she just fur­rowed her brow, as if I’d asked some­thing ridicu­lous.

“Should I?” she replied cool­ly, tilt­ing her head as if ex­am­in­ing me for the first time.

“Think I’d re­mem­ber some­one as weird as you—the per­son dressed out of sea­son.”

She picked up the pen­cil again, her gaze drift­ing back to her sketch as if the con­ver­sa-

tion was al­ready over.

“I... haven’t seen any­one else,” I ad­mit­ted, my throat tight­en­ing as I tried to make

sense of her words and the name echo­ing in my mind. “I’m here be­cause... well, I

thought... you look an aw­ful lot like some­one I’m look­ing for, but—” I hes­i­tat­ed, un­sure

if say­ing her name would help. How could she look the same age as four years ago?

She hadn’t changed a bit.

“You gonna keep leav­ing me in sus­pense? Just spit it out,” she cut in, her voice

cold and flat, as if dar­ing me to fin­ish.

I swal­lowed hard. “You look like my sis­ter, Ja... Jamyra.”

For a mo­ment, her ex­pres­sion re­mained un­read­able. Then, with a cold laugh, she

leaned back in her chair, shak­ing her head. “Nev­er heard of her. You said it ear­li­er. I’m

Isis.” She turned her at­ten­tion back to the pa­per on the desk, her hand mov­ing in

small, an­gry strokes.

That name kept hit­ting me like a cold splash of wa­ter. Of course. The tape made

sense. I hadn’t heard any­one call her that in years—not since she re­ject­ed it. She used

to hate it when Meema called her by her mid­dle name, Jamyra. It wasn't un­til af­ter she

passed that she be­gan to dis­as­so­ci­ate from her name, Isis—hence, Jamyra. Why did it

take so long for me to re­mem­ber? My stom­ach knot­ted as I stood there, caught be-

tween the eerie fa­mil­iar­i­ty of her fea­tures and the dis­tance in her tone.

The air in the room sud­den­ly felt heavy, as if re­mem­ber­ing had lift­ed a fog ob­scur-

ing a part of my mind. I need­ed an­swers, but every­thing about this place—this mo­ment

—felt off-kil­ter, as if I were stand­ing on the edge of some­thing I couldn’t quite grasp.

The cat on the poster looked at me quizzi­cal­ly, as if ob­serv­ing my very thoughts. Just

then, a strange no­tion struck me. I could con­firm every­thing with one ques­tion.

“Hey, Isis, I know this is a weird ques­tion, but—what year is it?”

For a mo­ment, she paused, slow­ly look­ing up, her pen­cil hov­er­ing mid-air be­fore

she re­sumed draw­ing, say­ing noth­ing in re­sponse. My skin prick­led with un­ease, my

mind spin­ning as I tried to make sense of what was hap­pen­ing. It had to be her—every-

thing about this girl screamed Jamyra. Her man­ner­isms, every­thing fit. So why did it

feel off? My head twist­ed with un­cer­tain­ty. Could I re­al­ly be mis­tak­ing her?

“That is a weird ques­tion—like a re­al­ly weird ques­tion. Who wouldn't know that?” A

bell rang, star­tling me and caus­ing Isis to stand up. She be­gan to gath­er her things to

leave, my last clue slip­ping away.

“You should re­al­ly find help some­where else. Like the psych ward,” she said, mov-

ing to­ward the door.

Pan­ic start­ed to swell as sweat bead­ed on my fore­head. I blurt­ed out the only

thing I could think of. “I’m Lega­cy,” hop­ing my name would spark some glim­mer of ac-

knowl­edg­ment. But her face re­mained im­pas­sive, her fo­cus en­tire­ly on the head-

phones she was putting on.

“...Okay. Good for you,” she said lift­ing the ear­muff, her voice laced with in­dif­fer-

ence as she walked past me into the hall­way.

Her scent waft­ed into my nos­trils, caus­ing my eyes to wa­ter. Her Con­verse tapped

against the hall­way tiles, a fa­mil­iar sound res­onat­ing with my mem­o­ry. “Yo, who left

their stuff ly­ing out here? There’s a bin for this, you know!” Isis said in a mock­ing tone,

mum­bling some­thing un­in­tel­li­gi­ble un­der her breath.

Could it re­al­ly be co­in­ci­den­tal? I cupped my head in frus­tra­tion, try­ing to process

what I knew. The school and Isis were both prom­inent in my mind, ap­pear­ing at the

same time. Then it dawned on me: I had one last clue to go off of—my let­ter.

I hur­ried into the dim­ly lit hall­way, only to find my jacket miss­ing—just a trail of wa-

ter lead­ing down the hall. Isis had my jacket in her hand, open­ing some type of con-

tain­er. “Wait!” I called out, quick­en­ing my steps—the stag­nant hall­way bounc­ing my

words back at me.

But I was al­ready too late. She had dropped my jacket in. When I caught up to her,

I tried to blink away the tears that be­gan to form ear­li­er in the cor­ners of my eyes, the

dim­ming light smudg­ing every­thing around me into blurred shapes. I stared at what

she dropped it in; it read "Lost and Found," look­ing more like a laun­dry chute than a

bin. I no­ticed the strange keymap I had seen ear­li­er near the vents, but I didn’t have

time to re­act as I caught my breath and asked, “Why did you do that?”

“Why are you still fol­low­ing me, lady?” Isis ig­nored my ques­tion and turned

abrupt­ly, her ex­pres­sion twist­ed with ir­ri­ta­tion. “Didn’t I say I couldn’t help?”

Her words stung, but I man­aged a weak smile. “I’m sor­ry... I’m just a lit­tle dis­ori­ent-

ed,” I said, forc­ing a shaky breath. I wasn’t get­ting any­where like this. I need­ed to re-

mem­ber I was the adult in the sit­u­a­tion and re­gain con­trol. “Isis, my sis­ter has been

miss­ing for a few years now, and I knew she used to go to this school. I re­ceived a let-

ter from her, and by fol­low­ing that lead, I some­how end­ed up here.” I paused, read­ing

her ex­pres­sion, which urged me to hur­ry and fin­ish.

“You’re the only per­son I’ve run into, so if you could point me to where that chute

leads or maybe a fac­ul­ty mem­ber, I can leave you alone.” I paused, try­ing to re­gain my

con­fi­dence. “Be­ing back here re­mind­ed me of see­ing my sis­ter, and I guess I let that

take over. I apol­o­gize for creep­ing you out.”

Isis nod­ded slight­ly, ac­knowl­edg­ing my words. “Seems to me we both have sim­i­lar

is­sues. I can’t find my sis­ter ei­ther, and she was sup­posed to meet me here. Sis­ters,

though—what can you do?”

For the first time, Isis smiled. I was fi­nal­ly get­ting some­where. “Would you like to

look for them to­geth­er? At least un­til we run into some­one else I can ask and creep

out?”

Isis gig­gled, mak­ing me elat­ed. “All right, all right...fine. But let’s get a move on.

The doors will au­to­mat­i­cal­ly lock at a cer­tain time.” She grabbed her shoul­der straps,

and we walked down the hall­way to­geth­er, nos­tal­gia and déjà vu flood­ing my mind in

waves. I need­ed to stop rem­i­nisc­ing and fo­cus on the present.

As we ap­proached the cor­ner, I no­ticed the TV that had been in the hall­way was

miss­ing. Pre­oc­cu­pied with my new goal, I brushed it off as noth­ing and con­tin­ued with

Isis.

...

Le­ga­cy - Part 2

“Is this the quick­est way?” I glanced at the emer­gency exit near the stair­well. The

light from a high win­dow at­tempt­ed to cas­cade over it, dim­ming by the minute.

“Lis­ten, do you want the quick­est way, or do you want to find the front of­fice to ask

for help?”

“Half the build­ing is un­der con­struc­tion,” Isis said ir­ri­ta­bly. “We should be care­ful,

or we could get stuck some­where.”

She stopped on the stair­case to push the emer­gency exit latch, but it stayed shut

de­spite her ef­forts. We re­al­ly were trapped in here. An eerie feel­ing ran up my spine

as I nod­ded, at­tempt­ing to ig­nore it and move for­ward with my ques­tion­ing.

As we nav­i­gat­ed down the stair­case hop­ing to run into any­one- she played with

her straps, look­ing me up and down while I tried to fo­cus on what was ahead, pre-

tend­ing not to no­tice. I at­tempt­ed to pay at­ten­tion to any clues on the walls that might

in­di­cate where I re­al­ly was. Pho­tos adorned the stair­well, every­thing dat­ing back to

’97, ’98, ’99, and 2000. The 2001 grad­u­a­tion pho­tos were the lat­est ad­di­tions.

“So is it just your sis­ter who goes here? If you come too, I won’t judge. You don’t

strike me as the short bus type.”

I laughed and nod­ded, try­ing to gath­er my thoughts. “Used to. Me, my broth­er,

and... my sis­ter all went here.” A strange warmth washed over me as dis­tant mem­o­ries

of these halls sur­faced. If I kept talk­ing, maybe the pieces would come to­geth­er. Per-

haps I’d re­mem­ber more clear­ly—or at least enough to un­der­stand where I was—or

who I was deal­ing with.

Isis gave me a cap­ti­vat­ed look but said noth­ing. We reached the bot­tom of the

stair­case and turned down a hall with a sign that read “Fac­ul­ty and stu­dent wing 1-A”

“So your sis­ter left you a let­ter to meet her here?” she asked skep­ti­cal­ly.

“Well, not ex­act­ly here; she men­tioned our spe­cial place.” She looked fas­ci­nat­ed

but showed no out­ward re­ac­tion. The late evening light glint­ed off her hair, bring­ing

out her sharp, con­trast­ing tones against my dark­er, mel­low ones.

“In­ter­est­ing. And we look a lot alike?”

Pan­ick­ing and un­sure what to say, I tried to come up with an an­swer quick­ly. I

wasn’t go­ing to lie to her—not now.

“I mean... to be hon­est, you guys could pass for sis­ters. I guess that’s what caused

me to re­act the way I did.” The words came out more un­cer­tain than I in­tend­ed. I no-

ticed Isis slow­ly nod­ding, her first real re­ac­tion to what I was say­ing.

Fi­nal­ly, she said, “I com­plete­ly un­der­stand that. If she’s been gone for a few years, I

would have been in shock too af­ter see­ing who I thought was my sis­ter. No hard feel-

ings.” I no­ticed her tone shift from snarky to em­pa­thet­ic.

“Walk­ing through these hall­ways with you feels like I’m re­liv­ing old mem­o­ries with

her.” I chuck­led, sur­prised by my own words. Why would I lie when it was true? I con-

tin­ued, “I thought this place was long aban­doned, so be­ing here now is sur­re­al, al­most

jar­ring. It feels like I’ve been tele­port­ed to a place and time that hasn’t aged or

changed. I don’t know if I’m mak­ing any sense.” I shook my head, feel­ing I had said

too much.

Deep in thought, Isis's eye­brows lift­ed. “Oh, I 100% un­der­stand.” En­thu­si­asm rose

in her voice. “You feel like you’ve been trans­port­ed to an­oth­er time by vis­it­ing your old

school. So, kind of like an isekai!”

I blin­ked. “Huh?”

She tugged at the straps of her back­pack, her pace slow­ing a bit. “An isekai. You

know, like in ani­me, where some­one gets trans­port­ed to an­oth­er world or the past or

fu­ture or some­thing. Like Inuyasha.”

My heart stut­tered at the name. Inuyasha. Jamyra and I had watched that show re-

li­gious­ly—every Sat­ur­day night on Toon­a­mi, curled up on the couch to­geth­er. The

mem­o­ry hit me hard, sharp­er than I’d ex­pect­ed. Could it re­al­ly be her? Could this be

an­oth­er shared mem­o­ry, an­oth­er piece of the puz­zle?

“Yeah... I re­mem­ber,” I said soft­ly, look­ing at her. “That was our fa­vorite show, too.”

Isis glanced at me, her ex­pres­sion briefly soft­en­ing be­fore shift­ing to the im­pos­ing

dou­ble doors in front of us. “Great, now what? Is this a prank or some­thing?” Her voice

held a mix of skep­ti­cism and un­ease, chal­leng­ing the ab­sur­di­ty of our sit­u­a­tion.

I turned to fol­low her gaze, my heart rac­ing as I took in the sight be­fore us. A jum-

ble of chains and odd trin­kets hung from the door han­dle, each piece clink­ing soft­ly in

the still­ness, a cho­rus of for­got­ten echoes. The lock was an enig­ma—an in­tri­cate mech-

a­nism that seemed an­cient, like a rel­ic from a time when se­crets were zeal­ous­ly guard-

ed. It felt as if some­one had draped a Hal­loween dec­o­ra­tion over the door, yet the at-

mosphere sur­round­ing it was thick with grav­i­ty.

Four chains formed a cross, their metal­lic sur­faces dulled with age, loop­ing

through the door and re­in­forc­ing it from the oth­er side. But it was the small, bare­ly

leg­i­ble words scrawled near the lock that cap­tured my at­ten­tion. Lean­ing clos­er, I

squint­ed to de­ci­pher the fad­ed ink.

“‘The four doves, no one. The third, come home. The fourth is there to find the

one,’” I read aloud, my voice bare­ly above a whis­per. The rid­dle twist­ed in my mind,

each line a puz­zle beg­ging to be un­rav­eled. Next to the rid­dle was a name scrawled in

a hur­ried hand: Mr. Har­grove—the as­sistant prin­ci­pal’s sig­na­ture.

“I won­der what it could mean,” Isis said, her brow fur­row­ing. “It could be some

kind of clue or hint about where the key is. Some­times the staff likes to leave notes like

that.” What were they go­ing for. Is it Hal­loween?”

“Maybe,” I replied, feel­ing a rush of in­trigue. Maybe it’s just meant to scare peo­ple

away.“ But why go through all this trou­ble? To stop some tres­pass­ing kids?” I chuck­led.

I peaked through the win­dow slit the hall­way was dark and nar­row save a few emer-

gency lights. Win­dows and doors alike were seem­ing­ly sealed board­ed up.

“Or maybe it’s to keep some­thing in.” Her tone turned fore­bod­ing, but she gig-

gled and nod­ded. “Just kid­ding. This wing is un­der re­mod­el­ing still.” Af­ter a mo­ment,

she turned her gaze back to me. “Now that I think about it, how did you even get in

here?”

A flick­er of mem­o­ry ig­nit­ed in my mind. “Well,” I said jok­ing­ly, “I fell in a tube-like

struc­ture.” I hes­i­tat­ed, feel­ing the heat of her gaze. Ly­ing would’ve made more sense,

but it would get me nowhere.

Isis gave me a puz­zled look. “You fell in a tube-like struc­ture that took you to the

school? Can you de­scribe it a bit more?”

I hes­i­tat­ed, search­ing for the right words. “I thought it was some type of fire or

emer­gency chute—that was the only plau­si­ble thing I could imag­ine lead­ing me here.”

Her ex­pres­sion shift­ed as she pro­cessed my words. “Wait, a chu­te? Like the one I

dropped your coat in?”

I nod­ded. “But much big­ger.” I felt re­lieved she was start­ing to un­der­stand. “It was

strange, like I was float­ing. When I looked through, I couldn’t see any­thing but a void.

If there was one, there may be oth­ers around,” I added, though I lacked con­fi­dence.

“Well, that’s all you had to say.” Isis seemed in­trigued now, look­ing around and

peer­ing into dif­fer­ent class­rooms through the win­dow slits. “It’s all start­ing to make

sense. There are these two sci­ence teach­ers—you’ve prob­a­bly heard of them. They’re

sup­pos­ed­ly re­searchers who spon­sor the school. They teach the­o­ret­i­cal stuff—some-

thing about black holes and por­tals. Ap­par­ent­ly, they’re con­struct­ing ex­per­i­men­tal de-

vices around the build­ing. They al­ways get made fun of. Any­way, I’m guess­ing you fell

through some­thing like that. I heard of a stu­dent who fell through some­thing sim­i­lar

and end­ed up in a com­plete­ly dif­fer­ent spot. She was dis­ori­ent­ed and felt like she’d

been miss­ing for days, but only an hour had passed. Weird, huh? Those are just ru-

mors, but from what you said, it sounds sim­i­lar. “ can you help me find some­thing sim­i-

lar to that, like ear­li­er?”

I nod­ded in agree­ment, at­tempt­ing to ab­sorb every­thing she said. Isis looked

around and un­der wall lock­ers, giv­ing me the im­pres­sion these tube struc­tures could

be any­thing. I did know who she men­tioned, Every­body knew who those re­searchers

were. They found­ed the firm and school that I was work­ing at cur­rent­ly and went to.

my fa­ther would in­vite them over when I was real young, but no one knew that.not

even Jamyra since she came af­ter. I looked over to no­tice the shad­ow of light grow­ing

ever less­er. Then some­thing caught my eye in the shad­ow of the dark. “ What is that?”

I stoped down to pick it up. Some kind of fa­mil­iar locket. Wasn’t this..?

“That’s my sis­ter’s! She has to be here some­where. She showed me her match­ing

locket around her neck. “I told you she wouldn’t for­get.”

Isis’s ex­pres­sion changed as she no­ticed how dark it was as well, her brow fur­row-

ing deep­er as she glanced at the set­ting sun, tuck­ing her neck­lace back in.“ its get­ting

dark fast. what­ev­er we’re gonna do need to hur­ry. I’m not sure if The doors will lock

au­to­mat­i­cal­ly at a cer­tain time,” she said, ur­gency creep­ing into her voice. “And We

got sis­ters to find.” As she spoke, her tone shift­ed, be­com­ing more se­ri­ous. “I’m done

mess­ing around. Some­thing feels off.” She be­gan look­ing around again.

I couldn’t help but agree though. Time isn’t what we had. While she looked

around I re­moved a few bob­by pins from my hair and start­ed form­ing them in my

hand. It was un­like­ly to lo­cate a key in this clue wasn’t enough to go on. Ill do this my

way.

I be­gan to work at the lock with the two bob­by pins. Pick­ing locks was an odd skill

if you weren’t from where we lived, but it came in handy when ex­plor­ing aban­doned

places. Some­times we ex­plored old hous­es to sal­vage what we could sell. We had to

be cau­tious; you nev­er knew who might be us­ing them as some kind of den. But typ­i-

cal­ly, it was fun, and there was low risk in­volved.

Clos­er to the door, I no­ticed it was slight­ly ajar, al­low­ing me to peek through. The

hall­way lead­ing to the west en­trance, next to the front of­fice, was par­tic­u­lar­ly dark,

save for the emer­gency lights. Shad­ows seemed to shift slow­ly, mak­ing it hard to tell

what was mov­ing. I thought I could bare­ly make out a low, slith­er­ing noise.

“Hey! What are you do­ing? My idea wasn’t cool enough, huh?”

I was star­tled out of my fix­a­tion. “I don’t know. I thought I heard some­thing...” I

shook my head, try­ing to make sense of a sense­less sit­u­a­tion.

“The rid­dle has to cor­re­spond to the class­room num­bers where the staff keep

their keys. It’s just nar­row­ing down which one it could be, but some of these class-

rooms are locked.” She point­ed, im­press­ing me as much as star­tling me. Her de­duc-

tion skills re­mind­ed me so much of Jamyra. She could fig­ure out com­plex prob­lems in

mo­ments and come up with so­lu­tions on the fly. That quick-wit­ted na­ture al­ways

served us well, and I con­stant­ly came to her for any type of in­tel­lec­tu­al help.

“Wow. I’m im­pres­sed. Any way in?” I stat­ed as I start­ed work­ing on the lock again.

“I com­plete­ly guessed,” she ad­mit­ted. “I re­al­ly am not sure.” She shift­ed around,

look­ing in the class­room, lost in thought. “Leg would just agree with me too.”

The pis­tons in­side the lock at­tempt­ed to turn but wouldn’t budge; the bob­by pin

lacked the strength to sup­port it.

“Shit. This isn’t go­ing any­where.” I looked up at the dim light out­side. “What about

the win­dow?”

“You wan­na break a win­dow? Are you crazy?” she replied, frus­tra­tion creep­ing into

her voice. “If only I could get into this class...”

I scanned the dim hall­way and no­ticed an air vent lead­ing to the class­room on the

oth­er side of the wall. I looked back at the class­room she had point­ed out. “You think

you can squeeze into that to get in there?”

Isis peered down and rolled her eyes. “If it’ll get us out of here faster, I’ll do any-

thing. Could you hold onto this?” She hand­ed me the locket, and I tucked it into my

front pocket.

I sat on my butt and kicked the vent as hard as I could, push­ing it in­side with a

loud clat­ter. In quick suc­ces­sion, Isis got down on her knees and squeezed through

the air vent, her hips snug as she wig­gled for­ward.

“A lit­tle help?”

I pushed her from be­hind, and in one fell swoop, she popped through. “Thanks.”

I heard her soft steps on the oth­er side, scroung­ing around. “What time is it?” she

asked.

I had com­plete­ly for­got­ten I’d dis­posed of my cell phone, but I still had my watch.

“Sure, no pro­blem. It’s...”

Here’s the re­vised pas­sage, fo­cus­ing on clar­i­ty, flow, and emo­tion­al depth while

main­tain­ing the orig­i­nal in­tent:

The time read 8:19. That couldn’t be right. That was the time when I had left my

car. Was my watch bro­ken?

“Hello?”

“I think my watch must be bro­ken. What time does de­ten­tion end?”

“Well, 5 o’clock, of course.” Isis called out.

I sat and thought for a minute. “Don’t you think it’s a lit­tle strange? Why is it al-

ready so dark? It’s bare­ly the af­ter­noon.”

I looked at the glass-paned win­dow, try­ing to see if I could catch a glimpse of any-

thing out­side as I stood up. The view led to a court­yard area, com­plete­ly emp­ty. The

sea­sons looked dis­tinct­ly dif­fer­ent from where I came from. What ex­act­ly is go­ing on? I

wouldn’t know more un­til I could leave this build­ing, ground my­self, and as­cer­tain if

any of this was even real. I could just be hav­ing a re­al­ly strange, nos­tal­gic dream.

Isis’s im­pa­tient voice broke through my train of thought.

“So­rry. It says it’s al­most 8:20. Sup­pos­ed­ly. It also... I hes­i­tat­ed. It says it’s No-

vember too,” I added soft­ly.

“What?? Maybe it’s some­thing with day­light sav­ings? Maybe it got re­set,” she

called out from the oth­er side of the class­room. “Your wardrobe is in sync with your

date, though. That’s One thing about that makes sense! .” Isis laughed out through the

wall. I heard her soft foot­steps; that sound was ir­re­place­able.

I smiled, even though she couldn’t see me. I could fig­ure a few more things out if I

could just get out­side and re­ori­ent my­self, I thought.

I heard wheels squeak across the floor, fol­lowed by a jan­gle.

“I got the key! Well, it’s a key ring, to be ex­act.”

I heard her walk up to the wall, and sec­onds lat­er, her smil­ing face popped out.

Nos­tal­gia washed over me as I held back my feel­ings. I grabbed her and helped pull

her out, and we looked back at the door. My body moved al­most me­chan­i­cal­ly, as if it

al­ready knew what to do. This all see­med so fa­mi­liar—al­most like déjà vu. She hand­ed

me the key ring. “Let’s hur­ry. I think I heard some­one in an of­fice.”

Con­fused about why that was a bad thing, I fo­cused on try­ing each of the keys

while Isis looked around ur­gent­ly, seem­ing fright­ened. She stared into the dis­tance, as

if wait­ing for some­thing. I tried to keep the con­ver­sa­tion go­ing to dis­tract her and

gath­er as much in­for­ma­tion as I could be­fore we part­ed ways. If we left the school and

sep­a­rat­ed, I might nev­er get an­oth­er chance at this again.

As I thought she said sud­den­ly “What do you think they’re think­ing about?”“Our

sisters.” I thought for a mo­ment. “I have a feel­ing theyre just try­ing to look for us too. I

looked to­wards her. You re­al­ly think she’s here still? Your sis­ter I mean. I’m not sure if If

mine... my voice trailed off as a tried an­oth­er key. “Damn. Not this one ei­ther.”

She no­ticed and seem­ing­ly tried to re­as­sure me, to my sur­prise. “ Hey, I know

they’re both here.” Isis said. “I have a feel­ing they’re alot clos­er than we might think.”

She said nod­ding. “ Al­though.. “she be­gan reach­ing into her pocket. “ is a lit­tle weird

she hasn’t tried send­ing me a mes­sage.”

She pulled out a cell­phone. “Know­ing her she left her cell some­where.”

I thought a mo­ment- My cell­phone wasn’t with me. Could she be al­lud­ing to..

maybe I was think­ing too much. I tried an­oth­er key. “Just some­thing doesn’t seem

right. She kept look­ing at a par­tic­u­lar fac­ul­ty of­fice. The door was closed, but why did it

seem the light was on? My pulse quick­ened as I tried to slow my breath­ing.

“I hope she didn’t run into him.” She said Tur­ing back to me. A key fit nice and

snug into the an­cient lock. I heard a faint slith­er­ing sound from be­hind me- the sound I

heard on the oth­er side of the door.

Click.

The large bolt opened. Rather than fall­ing, the chains on the door slow­ly be­gan to

un­rav­el, loos­en­ing just enough to al­low a per­son to squeeze through. My head

throbbed as I watched the chains loosen on the door frame. Frag­ments clawed at my

mind. A teacher? Why did that wor­ry her? Why would I be with him? The teacher from

the tape flashed in my mind, in­ten­si­fy­ing the ache.

The pad­lock un­latched from the door han­dles, al­low­ing it to swing open.

“Sweet!” Isis looked over. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” I grabbed the han­dle. “Let’s just get out­ta here.” I asked ur­gent­ly, “You re­al-

ly didn’t hear that?” I said.

She shook her head, look­ing at me quizzi­cal­ly. “Don’t start go­ing crazy on me

now.”

The door opened just enough for a per­son to squeeze through, like­ly for se­cu­ri­ty

pur­pos­es. I peered through the gap, in­stinc­tive­ly check­ing the coast as I mo­tioned for

her to en­ter. The hall­way was void of life, com­plete­ly pitch black ex­cept for a few flick-

er­ing emer­gency lights. The smell of saw­dust and old paint waft­ed into my nos­trils. I

no­ticed tarps and var­i­ous win­dow panes cov­ered or board­ed up as Isis pushed past

me.

“I was just jok­ing, by the way. I re­al­ly didn’t hear any­thing. Are you sure?” she said

as she slid through. Her bag got caught, forc­ing me to mus­cle it through, much to her

dis­plea­sure.

I turned back; the door from ear­li­er was now ajar. The light was def­i­nite­ly on, and I

could faint­ly make out the shad­ows of what looked like two fig­ures. The dim­ming twi-

light didn’t help my vis­i­bil­i­ty, and I was too pre­oc­cu­pied shov­ing my body and her

bag through the dou­ble doors be­fore be­ing seen. A snag was heard, but we were too

fo­cused on get­ting through as we turned to see if we were no­ticed, bom­bard­ed by an

un­known in­halant. Why was I so afraid to get caught? I thought, cough­ing, which only

fogged my mind more.

“Well, if they didn’t hear us, they def­i­nite­ly heard these loud-ass chains. Who

thought of this?” she said through coughs, her hand over her mouth. We dis­turbed

the set­tling dust, send­ing it fly­ing every­where. “This was a bad idea,” Isis added. “I see

why they locked it up now. Straight-up chem­i­cal war­fare in here.”

“You mean we could have just asked some­one in an of­fice this whole time?” I said

im­pa­tient­ly through my raspy breaths. “I thought you said—”

“I said there prob­a­bly weren’t stu­dents here, but we went down the fac­ul­ty hall!

You want­ed to go to the front of­fice for help, not a teacher—_re­mem­ber?_”she hissed,

leav­ing the door slight­ly ajar as to not make any more noise or com­mo­tion.

In the dark­ness of the out­er hall­way, I could make out two sil­hou­ettes stand­ing

out­side the door­way through the win­dow. “That was close,” Isis said in a low voice.

“Let’s wait un­til they leave.”

We both peeked through the door win­dow and held our breath. The two sil­hou-

ettes stood close, en­gaged in a rather in­tense con­ver­sa­tion. The larg­er fig­ure kept

reach­ing out, al­most to com­fort the small­er one, but it seemed to have the op­po­site

ef­fect.

With Isis so close, her scent reignit­ed a wave of re­mem­brance. I was here. I did do

this. I’m sure I re­mem­ber it now—wait­ing for Jamyra to pick me up,mir­ror­ing our cur­rent

sit­u­a­tion.­so that would mean that shad­ow could only be...My head shift­ed as I tried to

fo­cus from the shad­ows to the teacher's name sign hang­ing out­side the door, but it

was ob­scured.

“What’s tak­ing so long?” Isis said im­pa­tient­ly. “You think some­thing’s wrong?

Some­thing’s telling me to go check.” She craned her neck. “Shit. The sun’s set be­low

the school. We’re out­ta-.”

The door swung shut with its han­dle still up, forc­ing her to re­tract her hand be­fore

tak­ing it with it. The two fig­ures stopped and turned to our di­rec­tion.

“That was close. So much for sub­tle­ty,” Isis chuck­led ner­vous­ly, her eyes fix­at­ed on

the still shad­ows. “You think..they heard? Maybe we should just make a break for it.”

Sud­den­ly, a phone rang from be­hind, mak­ing me whip my head around. In the

dim emer­gency lights, a haze of dust be­gan to set­tle, mak­ing the aban­doned wing

more vis­i­ble. I spot­ted a phone slight­ly down the hall­way near what looked like an old

nurse’s of­fice. The tight space made me feel con­gest­ed as I took a small step for­ward,

glanc­ing at Isis, who was still glued to the win­dow. Did she not hear it? The ring­ing

echoed in my head, draw­ing my at­ten­tion to the source of the snag sound.

Her bag was torn open, and her note­book had fall­en out. We must not have heard

it dur­ing the com­mo­tion of get­ting through the door. The phone rang again, mak­ing

my head throb. I crouched down to pick up the note­book and no­ticed some­thing that

made me freeze—repet­i­tive sen­tences scrib­bled over and over across the page:

This place isn’t what it seems

This place isnt what it seems

This place isn’t what it seems

This place isn’t what it seems

“Leg!” Isis pressed her face to the glass. “That’s her! It has to be!”

“How can you be sure in the dark?” I rubbed my tem­ples, turn­ing my at­ten­tion

away from the note­book. “Maybe—” I shot a glance back at the phone booth and wait-

ed... noth­ing.

Silence.

Maybe I am go­ing crazy, I thought as I ig­nored the note stood up and ap­proached

her slow­ly, al­most in a trance, try­ing to dis­tin­guish mem­o­ry from re­al­i­ty. *What was I

re­al­ly here to do?

“Earth to lady! Didn’t you hear what I said?” Isis shook the door ag­gres­sive­ly. “Hur-

ry up and help me get this door open!”

But her voice felt miles away; my mind was else­where. All I can do is keep mov­ing

for­ward. I can’t turn back now, I re­mind­ed my­self again and again. I need to see this

through. Maybe im re­liv­ing this to change some­thing. I’m so close. I can feel it. My tem-

ples pul­sat­ed, and my vi­sion swam with nos­tal­gia as Isis came back into fo­cus.

“Well? Get the key out,” she said ur­gent­ly. “I get this is your vibe and all, but I’m

out.”

“Right, right,” I replied, try­ing to snap out of it as I pat­ted down my wind­break­er.

“It’s...” We both looked at each oth­er, then to­ward the door win­dow. The key ring sat

pa­tient­ly out­side, mock­ing us.

She shot me a death glare. I smiled sheep­ish­ly and be­gan fix­ing my hair, breath-

ing to re­fo­cus my­self. “Hear me out first. I’m not say­ing it’s not your sis­ter. If it is, she

can just let us l out, right?.” I said care­ful­ly.

“Right...” her foot tapped the ground. “Then what are we wait­ing for?” Isis said ur-

gent­ly, tak­ing her back­pack off.

“Hold on. I’m not sure yet.” I glanced at her pock­et. “First, I want to con­firm my hy-

poth­e­sis. You have your phone, right? Call her. Right now.” I held my head, try­ing to

shake the weird feel­ing grop­ing around my skull. “Let’s not waste any more time.

“Who­ev­er that is...” Mem­o­ries came to the sur­face forc­ing me to pause. “..They may

still need our help.”

She pulled out her flip phone, il­lu­mi­nat­ing her face in the mi­as­ma of the hall as

she be­gan press­ing but­tons. “I have her on speed dial, ob­vi­ous­ly.” She winked.

The sight of her cell phone re­mind­ed me of where I’d left mine and the wor­ry

Jago must be feel­ing. He had no idea where I was, and I could only imag­ine how wor-

ried he’d be. When he got up­set, he had a habit of act­ing ir­ra­tional­ly.

Isis showed me her phone, her fin­ger hov­er­ing above the call but­ton. My name

glowed across the screen. I took a deep breath and shook my head. “Call it.”

...

Jago ar­rives on scene. 8:11 Pm

“God­damn it, Leg, don’t make me do some­thing ir­ra­tional.” Jago’s fin­ger hov­ered

over his comm. She wasn’t im­me­di­ate­ly in the vicin­i­ty; the fresh­ly fall­en snow ob-

scured any tracks. She could be wan­der­ing around, or she might be... he quick­ly dis-

card­ed that idea from his mind, his heart rate now el­e­vat­ed.

He stood next to her car, hear­ing the hum of her en­gine as he scanned the road

for tire marks. Noth­ing. It seemed he was the first per­son in the area. Thoughts raced

through Jago's mind as he con­tem­plat­ed whether to call it in or in­ves­ti­gate on his

own. His fin­ger low­ered as he de­cid­ed on the lat­ter. Pulling out his flip phone and

check­ing the sig­nal on his phone, he found none. There goes that idea.

Jago sur­veyed the im­me­di­ate area with his flash­light. The snow fell light­ly now,

and all his calls went unan­swered, un­nerv­ing him fur­ther. No sound ac­com­pa­nied him

ex­cept for the run­ning whine of Lega­cy’s and his ve­hi­cle. His breath his only com­pan-

ion in this aban­doned part of the world. The city’s sky­line; en­veloped in white, glit-

tered in the dis­tance—he was noth­ing but a dot on the hori­zon.

She had a habit of vis­it­ing when he told her not to. Usu­al­ly, one of the guys on pa-

trol would rat her out if they passed by this place. It was just a safe­ty thing; they didn’t

mean any­thing by it. They un­der­stood why she went. But they also knew Jago would

be more fu­ri­ous with them if he didn’t know.

De­spite his pleas, she al­ways seemed to go off on her own, ig­nor­ing his ob­jec-

tions. She nev­er used to be like that. Jamyra was the reck­less one, de­spite be­ing the

brains. Lega­cy would usu­al­ly play the me­di­a­tor, too shy or timid to as­sert her­self.

Where was that lit­tle girl now? he thought as he looked in­side her car.

Her car was messy—if not more so than his. Her purse lay on the seat, in­di­cat­ing

that wher­ev­er she had gone, she hadn’t planned on stay­ing long. She prob­a­bly did go

see the shrine. But where...? His flash­light wan­dered to the floor, land­ing on some

med­ica­tion bot­tles. Hes­i­tat­ing, he grabbed one, then sighed and tossed it aside.

He knew it was wrong to med­dle in her af­fairs; she was an adult now. Still, he felt

the need to keep an eye on her. He was aware of Lega­cy’s need for cer­tain things,

though he nev­er tru­ly un­der­stood the ex­tent of her strug­gles. He nev­er mind­ed shar-

ing his is­sues with her, but look­ing around now, he felt lost. Af­ter search­ing through

the car and find­ing noth­ing out of place or stolen, he thought, Okay, so no one went

into her car.

Be­fore leav­ing her car, he glanced at one bot­tle, and some­thing caught his at­ten-

tion: Warn­ing: Do not op­er­ate a mo­tor ve­hi­cle while tak­ing this med­ica­tion. Jago

sighed and closed the dri­ver’s door.

The snow ea­ger­ly greet­ed him again, as if hop­ing to suck him in as well. With the

snow on her wind­shield bare­ly formed, it al­most seemed like he had just missed her.

She had to have been just been here. So where could she have pos­si­bly dis­ap­peared

to that fast? The area be­yond the fence was de­void of life, but if she was any­where, it

would be there he thought.

Jago made his way to the fence, his boots crunch­ing with every step. The only

sounds for miles were the faint hum of the car en­gine, slow­ly fad­ing as he neared the

fence adorned with miss­ing posters. He al­ways hat­ed look­ing at those posters—just

an­oth­er re­minder of so­ci­ety’s in­com­pe­tence. For­get­ting I guess was just eas­i­er for

some peo­ple. He hadn’t felt that way un­til some­one he was close to went miss­ing. His

mind be­gan to wan­der back...

He shook his head, fo­cus­ing on the task—every sec­ond count­ed. Com­plete­ly by-

pass­ing the hole in the fence, Jago took two big steps on the link fence and then

hurled him­self over the top, land­ing in the snow on the oth­er side. “Le­ga­cy!” he called

out, his voice echo­ing among the ru­ins. But only the howl­ing wind an­swered him. He

shud­dered, quick­ly scan­ning the area with his flash­light.

The last light fad­ed from the sky, leav­ing only the muf­fled rays of the moon. Jago

was greet­ed by the same chaot­ic labyrinth of de­bris cov­ered in snow, cre­at­ing un­nat-

ur­al mounds that lit­tered the land­scape. We usu­al­ly had a set path, but with the snow

and con­di­tions, that could vary. One wrong step could trig­ger an un­sta­ble ob­ject to

col­lapse or fall. But Leg knew that.“_ S­tub­born as al­ways_,” Jago chuck­led to him­self.

He’d have to get her a new coat when he saw her again, he thought.

Out of cu­rios­i­ty, he brushed away the re­cent­ly fall­en snow. There was def­i­nite­ly an

in­den­ta­tion where a body had slid through. If I fol­low this, I can trace her old tracks.

There was still time to catch up with her. As he brushed away the snow, he no­ticed a

bushel of chico­ry flow­ers. It struck him as odd that they could grow at this time of year.

Just then, his cell phone rang.

“Can I call you back?”

“Did you find Lega­cy?” Dave asked, his con­cern ev­i­dent.

“It’s hard to ex­plain,” Jago replied, glanc­ing around as if some­one might hear him

out here. “But she’s def­i­nite­ly here. I just can’t find her right away. That’s not un­like her;

she al­ways likes to go off wan­der­ing. So I’m try­ing my best not to pan­ic...” Even Dave

could hear the hes­i­tan­cy in his voice.

“If that’s the case, you’d be an­noyed, but you sound a bit more tense than that,”

Dave said, try­ing to probe Jago. “Do you want me to ra­dio in some guys to help you

search?”

Jago's mind raced. He hat­ed think­ing and talk­ing at the same time; it was dif­fi­cult

to con­cen­trate on one task while jug­gling the oth­er. Frus­tra­tion of­ten led him to make

rash de­ci­sions. Lost in thought, sec­onds passed. “No, not yet... just give me a few

more min­utes to con­firm,” I’ll call you back.” he said as he got up and cut off Dave

mud speak. he need­ed to con­cen­trate. And he was sure that Dave could hear the ten-

sion in his voice.

Un­be­knownst to Jago, he was only feet away from Lega­cy’s cell phone, now

buried un­der a thin lay­er of snow.

De­spite the fresh lay­er of snow, im­prints could be seen. Whether they were hers

re­mained to be de­ter­mined. I just have to fol­low them, Jago thought. He weaved

around the crum­bled, snow-cov­ered de­bris and made his way through the dark, wind-

ing land­scape. The po­lice ra­dio crack­led soft­ly, his only com­pan­ion. He turned it off

and be­gan to zone out.

His anx­i­ety got the bet­ter of him, mak­ing him rem­i­nisce. His mind wan­dered as

the de­bris took shape in his thoughts. Grand­ma’s scent waft­ed into his nos­trils, and

the warmth of spring air sur­round­ed him once again. The L stood be­fore him, and the

cold left his body, reignit­ed by a long­ing for his sis­ters.

Re­fo­cus­ing his thoughts, Jago scanned the wind­ing path of de­bris in the dark,

paus­ing to take a look around. Why did the struc­tures lit­tered here feel some­how dif-

fer­ent? It was as if they were more like blockades of de­bris. It was strange—more than

off-putting, he thought, as he tried to main­tain what he as­sumed was a trail. These

struc­tures weren’t here like this be­fore. Maybe some struc­tures had col­lapsed, cre­at­ing

more ob­struc­tions but even still. He guessed he had to be about 20 feet in by now, as

he saw what seemed to be a clear­ing.

Sud­den­ly, he braced him­self, gaz­ing into a chasm that gaped be­fore him. Hold­ing

his breath, he slow­ly gained his foot­ing and backed away.

“That’s new...”

Leav­ing the chasm be­hind and head­ing in­ward, Jago couldn’t re­call any safe­ty

haz­ards like that in this dor­mant labyrinth. If there had ever been some­thing like that,

we wouldn’t have ven­tured here, he thought, quick­en­ing his pace as he called out to

Lega­cy once again. He tried to breathe deeply to calm down, to no avail. It felt al­most

as if old Lovelace was try­ing to keep him out, a cyn­i­cal at­tempt to ra­tio­nal­ize what lay

be­fore him.

“I re­al­ly think I might be los­ing my mind here...” he chuck­led to him­self while rub-

bing the scruff on his face. “Get a hold of your­self, man.” His flash­light shone back and

forth through the glit­ter of flakes. “Dad, what would you do right now? I could re­al­ly

use your help.”

Jago couldn’t process how the earth could just open up like that on its own.

Wasn’t this place bull­dozed down? There was no det­o­na­tion used in clear­ing the

town­homes and school. His voice strained as it an­swered him back in the dark­ness.

Leg could be in se­ri­ous dan­ger if I didn’t find her now, Jago thought.

Jago was at­tempt­ing to piece to­geth­er Lega­cy’s ac­tions up un­til this point. He

thought back to their call ear­li­er and re­mem­bered the let­ter she sent. There was no

way she could have thought Jams had sent that—it didn’t even seem like her hand­writ-

ing. But Leg knew that. So what was this re­al­ly all about? Why wouldn’t she ask me to

come along?

He re­called the pill bot­tles on her dri­ver’s seat and be­gan to fear the worst as he

tried to re­ori­ent him­self. Sud­den­ly, he tripped and stum­bled over a hard sur­face.

The makeshift brick mound tak­en from ran­dom old bricks that we formed to cre-

ate the memo­r­i­al when grand­ma passed away. sat neat­ly on top of the stacked small

square pile were grand­moth­er’s totem with a few small framed pho­tos, cov­ered un­der

a sheet of snow. A sin­gle flower laid across it, cov­ered in snow. leg was here, Jago

thought to him­self. I’m sure of it now. Tak­ing a clos­er look at the totem, and it looked

as if some­body had dropped some type of red liq­uid or juice over it.

Sud­den­ly, Jago’s ra­dio crack­led to life de­spite be­ing off.

“...ja...

Lp...me...

Pl...Ja...Jago...”

Jago grabbed the re­ceiv­er, try­ing to make sense of the sta­t­ic. It sound­ed like... but

it couldn’t be.

“Hello? Do you copy? How do you have this fre­quen­cy?”

“...I’m... ght... he...”

He played with the knob to ad­just the fre­quen­cy to clear the sta­t­ic.

“...Don’t... stop look­ing... Ja...go.”

“I’m... here...”

The ra­dio cut off as abrupt­ly as it had start­ed. Jago stood star­ing at the re­ceiv­er,

try­ing to process what had just tran­spired. Sud­den­ly, he thought to take out his phone

and check his sig­nal. One bar.

He clicked on speed dial, hov­er­ing over Lega­cy’s name. The snow seemed to

pause around him as he clicked call.

Sud­den­ly, the mounds of de­bris be­gan to shake and rum­ble. Pieces loos­ened and

flew past Jago’s face, bare­ly miss­ing him. He crouched down, tak­ing a low pos­ture,

aware that there was no sta­ble struc­ture to hide be­hind. Did I trig­ger some­thing to col-

lapse? If every­thing caved in, he’d be caught in the mid­dle of it. The snow picked up,

whip­ping around his face and forc­ing him to cover him­self.

Think­ing this was the end, his mind re­turned to his sis­ters. He re­mem­bered the

first event that trig­gered every­thing. He picked them up from school, and Jams told

him about a teacher putting their hands on Lega­cy. That same evening, he took them

back to the school to con­front the teacher. Jams had talked him out of his stu­por, but

she wasn’t op­posed to what he want­ed to do.

Rather, she want­ed to plan out how we would car­ry out our re­venge. She felt the

same way I did. We were young and naive, but we would nev­er let any­one dis­re­spect

our fam­i­ly. We knew the school wouldn’t care. It an­gered us even more when she told

us some teach­ers were al­ready aware. Fu­eled by our rage, we con­coct­ed a plan to

make it seem like it was self-de­fense on her part. Lega­cy was the bait, and she

agreed.And then... Jago’s mind wan­dered.

De­bris and heavy stones pum­meled Jago's back and head as he cov­ered him­self,

but it was no real de­fense—one stone man­aged to pen­e­trate, de­liv­er­ing a sharp crack

to his dome that left him dazed. What the hell is hap­pen­ing? The chaos around him

blurred his thoughts, mak­ing it hard to fo­cus on any­thing but the pain as liq­uid

poured from his scalp.

And then, as sud­den­ly as it had be­gun, the rum­bling and shak­ing stopped. The

only sound that broke the si­lence was a faint ring­ing. The song "I Love My Ra­dio"

played some­where in the dis­tance—Lega­cy's ring­tone.

The im­me­di­ate area around him was shroud­ed in haze, but to his shock, all the ob-

struc­tions and mounds were nowhere to be seen. As the haze dis­si­pat­ed, I it was the

usu­al clear­ing where the L stood, sur­round­ed by the memo­r­i­al.

The car head­lights were bare­ly vis­i­ble through the mounds of snow and de­bris

from the fall­en homes that once sur­round­ed him, now back where they were sup-

posed to be. The sound came from the fence, ob­scured from view. Breath­ing a sigh of

re­lief, he brushed the snow in de­bris that cov­ered him. he at­tempt­ed to stand but

wob­bled. He wiped his face and checked his phone as soon as the call end­ed. Re­call-

ing her phone he bound­ed to­ward the sound, his head still spin­ning.

Jago called out ex­cit­ed­ly, won­der­ing why she wasn’t pick­ing up. His ex­cite­ment

turned to sud­den fear as he ap­proached the fence open­ing and saw the glow of a cell

phone be­neath the snow, with Lega­cy nowhere to be seen.

With seem­ing­ly no op­tions left, Jago reached down still dazed, and picked up the

phone, brush­ing off the snow. The time was stuck at 8:09, just mo­ments be­fore he ar-

rived. He opened it up to in­spect whether it had been tam­pered with some­how.

At first, a weird sta­t­ic emit­ted from the phone, fol­lowed by soft whis­per­ings—small

voic­es com­ing through the re­ceiv­er. Jago couldn’t be­lieve it. Cran­ing his neck clos­er,

he brought the phone to his ear.

“...you’re call­ing it, right?”

“...ob­vi­ous­ly. What do you think I’m do­ing?”

It sound­ed like... Lega­cy and... it couldn’t be.

“Le­ga­cy! Hel­lo! Can you hear me? Where are you?” To his shock, his voice did not

echo from his own cell phone. Con­fused, Jago thought, Her phone re­ceived a call, but

it wasn’t from mine.

“...Jago? How did... where are y... the old mid­dle school.”

Jago wiped his face again, try­ing to piece to­geth­er what she could be re­fer­ring to.

Is my mind play­ing tricks on me?

“Lega­cy, where are you? You’re break­ing up. Le­ga­cy!”

....t.....h...

His mind raced. Could she re­al­ly be with... it’s im­pos­si­ble. There’s no way.

Sta­t­ic over­took the phone call. A mes­sage ap­peared on Lega­cy’s phone, in­di­cat-

ing the call had dropped.

Jago reached down to his comm and took a deep breath, fight­ing back tears of

frus­tra­tion. Right now, he need­ed to fo­cus. My sis­ter is alive and out there. Hell, both of

them could be. He thought about the oth­er voice he’d heard on the phone call with

her. He ex­haled. I need to be strong for both of them. His re­solve slow­ly re­turned as he

spoke into the comm.

“...Dave, I can’t ful­ly ex­plain it, but I need you here.” He wiped his face again. “You

wouldn’t hap­pen to have a med kit with you, would you?”

He looked down at his sis­ter’s phone, her key­chain hang­ing off of it. Please be

okay un­til I’m there, Leg. I’ll find you, I prom­ise. I’ll bring both of you home.

8:32 PM - 10/57: Lega­cy Jack­son re­port­ed miss­ing. An­oth­er of­fi­cer ar­rived

on scene and called for an am­bu­lance for Of­fi­cer Jago.

Af­ter

At­tempt­ing to re­gain con­trol of my thoughts and the sit­u­a­tion I asked her “ whose

of­fice is that?” Didn’t they no­tice us? Why would she be there? The win­dow clear again

I peaked through, chill­inly dark­er than it was be­fore. It was de­void of light save the of-

fice the shad­ows moved and flick­ered. The emer­gency lights weren’t enough to il­lu­mi-

nate the teach­ers sign. The dark­ness of the fig­ures of where it stood- still now, felt as if

it were suck­ing me in.

“Well. The Eng­lish teacher Mrs Tra­cy just moved in there.”

“Oh. Okay.” I said re­lieved.

But that’s clear­ly a man voice.” She said omi­nous­ly. “So that could only mean.. its’

she tight­ened her grip on the door. “He’s back in his of­fice.” He’s the one that I

men­tioned . She looked at me. Fear was in her eyes. “The one who’s al­ways mess­ing

with my sis­ter. Mr..-”

The sound of the name jolt­ed me as I grabbed my head as every­thing around me

be­gan to move and shift as ver­ti­go took a ahold of me. My vi­sion blurred my vis­age,

re­al­i­ty and mem­o­ries frag­ment­ing to­geth­er. She glanced over at me.

“You're sweat­ing. She turned to me in a con­cerned mat­ter, to my sur­prise. “Are

you feel­ing al­right?” She asked as her curls danced in front of her face.

“Mr.. Robinson..” I said faint­ly. I..re­mem­ber this day.” Isis looked at me skep­ti­cal­ly.

“Im just see­ing it from your view now. I get it. I’m here to save... I looked through the

win­dow. “ your sis­ter.”

“ so you agree? Then let’s go! We still have the key-

But I wasn’t look­ing at her here. I was back in this hall­way 4 years ago when we ran

into each oth­er. I re­mem­ber now. How could I for­get?

No­tices, tells her to call phone, think of Jago found hers yet.

Past mem­o­ry

Mr. Ra-clink!

The chains have fell to the ground, and I main­ly swiv­el my head to the di­rec­tion of

the sound. It was a re­la­tion to the oth­er teacher of­fice that she couldn’t get into now

there seem to be a low light in com­ing from the win­dow as if there was some­body

there so you need to tell me there could’ve been some­body here this whole time and

we didn’t check

I nev­er said that they couldn’t be as­sumed.

An­oth­er sound could be her­ald as shuf­fling sound was made.

The chain fell to the ground And I ripped opened the doors as quick­ly as pos­si­ble.

since the change, we’re still par­tial­ly on the door was a jar, but just enough to fit us

through Ice slip through grab­bing onto Isis in­stinc­tu­al­ly, clos­ing the door be­hind us. I

peek through the win­dow glass as I saw shad­ows mov­ing be­neath the of­fice knee

ban­ner to dark to see from the hall­way.

Who’s of­fice is that?

Well, it’s the gym teacher. Mrs Pe­rry.

.. okay. I said with some re­lief.

.. but Mr. Robin­son has been us­ing it ever since she left.

.. Robinson? Why was that so fa­mil­iar.. did I know him? A pit of fear grew in my

stom­ach.

The noise grew loud­er and loud­er from the of­fice and it seemed like there was a

fight hap­pen­ing. Sud­den­ly the door flew open, and a small girl like fig­ure seemed to

scram­ble out

I can’t make out her face lega­cy said.

that’s my sis­ter! I said!

How can you be sure? It’s too dark to-

She be­gan open­ing the door, alert­ing the fig­ure emerg­ing.

Wait... I grasped at words that weren’t there. Isis was al­ready shim­my­ing her way

through the door.

I reached out but she snatched from my reach.

Isis wait! The fig­ure, now aware of our pres­ence, slow­ly turned around and locked

eyes with me. I couldn’t make out any fea­tures, but I knew it was eyes dig­ging deep

into me. My breath went cold, and my voice was silent as isis scur­ried away from my

grasp.

I tried to renter, but my sweater was caught in the door frame, help­less I watched

as she ap­proached the fig­ures.

I plead­ed with her, and she stopped in the mid­dle of the hall­way, the last bit of

light lay­ing on her. Un­able to think of any­thing else, I shout­ed I’m your sis­ter! She

paused, stopped, and turned around. There was a still­ness.

A sound broke through the si­lence as a sound en­joyed through the air. Isis dart­ed

back to the door, strug­gling with me as we both strug­gled to free me. The fig­ure be-

gan to make its de­cent to us. I could bare­ly see passed Isis body, I saw it in bouts.

Screw it! Brave your­self Isis shout­ed. Be­fore I could protest, a foot send my chest

fly­ing back, tear­ing my coat in the process. As I scram­bled up, Isis tore her­self through

the door.

Down here, there should lead to where that chute is well but hope­ful­ly. Isis said.

The build­ing it­self seem to creek and grown as we progress through it al­most as if it

hat­ed our ad­vance­ment.

I could hear a loud slith­er above us. We need go find safe­ty. I said. Why could it be

chas­ing us.

Do you want it stop and ask it she hissed, pant­i­ng. We made down­stairs the light

all but ab­sent. This floor seem much dif­fer­ent than the one above. It seemed di­lap­i­dat-

ed and not tak­en care of al­most as if we were un­der con­struc­tion. The win­dows were

sealed up in the lights were emer­gency dim lights at both and bare­ly let away. I just

flicked out her pager to il­lu­mi­nate what path we had left.

Run­ning won’t do good. We need to find some­where to to hide. She said as the

noise dragged down the stairs be­hind us.

We reached the end of an­oth­er hall­way, and Isis yanked on the exit door. It didn’t

budge. Pan­ic filled her eyes as she pulled hard­er, but the door wouldn’t give. “Shit!”

she hissed, her voice tinged with fear.

The pierc­ing sound echoed again, clos­er this time. What­ev­er was fol­low­ing us was

re­lent­less, and we were trapped, and all we were do­ing was head­ing deep­er and

deep­er into the school.

A strange, drag­ging sound echoed down the stairs—a slow, de­lib­er­ate scrape that

sent a cold wave of fear through me. My heart raced as I scanned the in­creas­ing­ly dim

cor­ri­dor. A cus­to­di­an clos­et was cracked open near­by. With­out a sec­ond thought, I

grabbed Isis’s arm and point­ed. “In there!”

We shoved our­selves into the tiny, cramped space, squeez­ing be­tween shelves of

dusty sup­plies and lean­ing against the stale-smelling walls. I could feel her tense be-

side me, her breath quick and shal­low.

“But Isn’t this just a dead end?” she snick­ered ner­vous­ly, the tremor in her voice

be­tray­ing her fear.

My fin­gers brushed against a bot­tle of chem­i­cals on one of the shelves. With­out

think­ing, I grabbed it, hold­ing it tight like a life­line. If what­ev­er was out there came for

us, I was ready to throw it.

“Are you sure you want to do that?” Isis whis­pered, her voice shak­ing.

Déjà vu hit me like a freight train—so strong that for a mo­ment, I froze. Why would

she say that? It was like I had been here be­fore, crouched in a sim­i­lar clos­et, fac­ing

some­thing ter­ri­ble. Some­thing worse than just fear.

We were be­ing chased by... some­thing. But the weird thing was, it felt like we had

been through this ex­act sce­nario. This space, this fear, these words. The mem­o­ries

clung to me, but they were slip­pery, vague. I couldn’t quite grasp them. The only thing

I knew for sure was that I wasn’t go­ing to let any­thing hap­pen to her. Not again.

...again?

In the back of my mind, I could al­most hear Ja­gos voice, like a dis­tant echo, re-

peat­ing the same phrase over and over, but I couldn’t make out the words.

“I don’t care,” I whis­pered fierce­ly, clutch­ing the bot­tle tighter. “I’m not gonna let

any­thing hap­pen to you.”

We both fell silent, our breath­ing shal­low, as we strained to hear any­thing be­yond

the door. The drag­ging noise was clos­er now, a hair’s breadth away. My pulse thun-

dered in my ears, cold sweat trick­ling down my back as we wait­ed, hearts pound­ing in

sync.

And then—si­lence.

I couldn’t tell if it had heard us or if it was mere­ly wait­ing.

The door creaked as it swung open. My body moved on in­stinct. I threw the bot­tle

with all the strength I had. It shat­tered against the loom­ing fig­ure in the door­way, glass

scat­ter­ing like dead­ly rain. The crea­ture let out an in­hu­man, ear-split­ting screech as the

chem­i­cals splashed across it. The thing re­coiled, its body shift­ing, writhing as though

the liq­uid had burned it.

The sil­hou­ette, im­pos­si­ble to make out beindthe door, crashed into the lock­ers

across the hall with a sick­en­ing thud. It stum­bled, its limbs drag­ging and flail­ing as it

stag­gered away , leav­ing be­hind a grotesque trail of wet smears along the floor and

screech­ing echo­ing on in the dis­tance.

For a brief mo­ment, we were alone in the si­lence.

But in­stead of re­lief, Isis’s face twist­ed in hor­ror. “Oh shit,” she whis­pered, her

voice shak­ing with dread. “We’re so fucked”

“What?” I breathed, con­fu­sion and fear twist­ing in­side me, knot­ting my thoughts

into an anx­ious spi­ral.

Her pres­ence seemed to wa­ver, her voice trail­ing off like it was be­ing car­ried by a

whis­per­ing wind. But be­fore she could fade com­plete­ly, I grabbed her arm. “ we need

to go!” I peaked out the hall­way and check to see if the coast was clear.

Her eyes snapped wide in sur­prise. “What—”

“Let’s book it,” I urged, grab­bing her hand. Pan­ic was clos­ing in on me. Some­thing

in­side was scream­ing that we didn’t have much time. “There’s some­thing we need to

talk about.”

She looked at me like I had com­plete­ly lost it. She hes­i­tat­ed, re­sist­ing.“And where?

, my mind kept think­ing of the chute—the one that brought me here. There had to

an­oth­er con­nect­ing it. But where? I felt my thoughts race, con­nect­ing dots that hadn’t

quite lined up be­fore. We both gazed into the deep­en­ing dark­ness, scan­ning for any

type of move­ment, the light from the set­ting sun fi­nal­ly fad­ing into ob­scu­ri­ty be­hind

us, leav­ing us with an emer­gency light as com­pa­ny.The stair­case was a dead end, the

el­e­va­tor non op­er­a­tional. Some­thing didn’t feel right about go­ing back up.

“Yeah, I don’t know about head­ing back up there.” Isis chuck­led ner­vous­ly, but her

eyes dart­ed to­ward the stair­well. But what else can we do? The win­dows are all cov-

ered on this floor from con­struc­tion.”

My mind was spin­ning. "Where are some oth­er like­ly spots the teach­ers Like the

laun­dry chute? The one I came in al­most looks like we’re an air vent should be..” I start-

ed glanc­ing high and low still with Isis’s pager in my hand. Isisnod­ded slow­ly, think­ing

for a mo­ment. “ now that you men­tioned it, They were al­ways on their hands and

knees look­ing in cracks and crevices, places that seem like they didn’t re­al­ly seem to

go any­where un­til you got clos­er.”

I racked my brain, try­ing to make sense of every­thing, scan­ning the wall and ceil-

ing above me. If im cor­rect, we should be di­rect­ly above where we were at, rough­ly.

So right sound Where the first hole- or chute like thing was.”

“Okay okay.. ” Isis said, nod­ding as she ab­sorbed what I had told her. I looked at

her and thought like I was speak­ing a dif­fer­ent lan­guage, but her face said that it

made sense sur­pris­ing­ly. So again I start­ed to spew how I felt as I looked.

“I be­gan to pace, turn­ing around every now and then. I need­ed to talk fast We

should be be­low our floor, right? Maybe those air duct holes keep go­ing down and

up, the­o­ret­i­cal­ly con­nect­ing the lev­els.” Have you ever played kid Chameleon? You’re

trans­port­ed to these stages called else­where which can some­times loop you to an­oth-

er lo­ca­tion. As Lu­dacris, as the idea sounds, it may ap­ply to this one sce­nario at least in

a gen­er­al term. If only I can get out­side the school, I may be able to ex­plain it. And

maybe ex­plain why or how or how the school is even here.” I mut­tered to my­self.I

peaked at the lock­ers, see­ing that there was space be­hind them and be­gan feel­ing

around.

“You’re se­ri­ous, aren’t you? We’re look­ing for a mag­i­cal air duct? In the dark? And

here I was start­ing to take it se­ri­ous­ly. Isis chuck­led. De­spite her quipped I saw her

shake in the dark still , she still search­ing. mut­tered. “I’m stuck in this damn school with

this looney lady, pok­ing at walls like an id­iot. I did not ex­pect it to turn out like this. She

start­ed mod­el­ing to her­self. I could bare­ly hear from on the oth­er side of the lock­er,

but I tried to lean­ing clos­er to what she was say­ing.. “ stu­pid.. I can’t be­lieve you

would.. do that to to a teacher..so screwed. “ fes­ti­val..

I wracked my brain. did she say that be­fore or was hav­ing an­oth­er episode? Did

some­thing to a teacher? Did I? Isn’t that how we got sent some­where? But.. this was? I

clasped my head.

No more games. First, let’s build clar­i­ty and try to con­nect dots and see if it’s sim­i­lar to

what I can re­mem­ber.

Isis, what were your sis­ter and you plan­ning to do to­day?

..well noth­ing much... I think we were just talk about the fes­ti­val.

I thought back of course I re­mem­bered this ear­li­er. Mak­ing our plans. Okay one

more. The emer­gency light flick­ered above as anx­ious as I was as I lick my lips.

What were you guys in de­ten­tion for?

Why does that mat­ter?

Can you please? It might help us find our sis­ters.

... he got in trou­ble the day we grad­u­at­ed. That’s why we’re here in the sum­mer.

My breath quick­ened as the re­al­iza­tion start­ed to slow­ly sink in this has to be

there’s no ques­tion but I can’t deny what’s in front of me and what I’m hear­ing. I

moved from be­hind the lock­ers and ap­proached to her. She was bent over, look­ing at

some­thing mum­bling un­der her breath still.

Did you re­mem­ber what I said be­fore you went in the hall­way?

She paused her body tensed. Let’s just fo­cus on get­ting out of here first. It could

be come back.

Why search for the truth ig­nored any oth­er fear? I had. You knew and I think you’ve

known this whole en­tire time. No move­ment from her.

“You feel that?” She point­ed to the lock­er’s edge.

Don’t change the sub­ject!

I’m be­ing serisou though!

“A bree­ze. This could be it.its prob­a­bly be­hind it. That or its a reg­u­lar air duct...”

She looked at me, half-amused, half-ex­as­per­at­ed. “Oh, great. And then what?” Her

voice rose in hys­te­ria. “We just... go down it? You got­ta cou­ple screws loose, Leg,

that’s for sure.”

I turned to face her, my heart rac­ing. “You did it again.”

“Did what?” she snapped.

“No mis­tak­ing it. You know who I am, don’t you?” My voice was low, filled with the

weight of a re­al­iza­tion I hadn’t ful­ly pro­cessed un­til now. I could see it in her eyes, the

way they flick­ered with recog­ni­tion, some­thing she’d been try­ing to hide.

Isis froze, her ex­pres­sion wa­ver­ing be­tween de­nial and fear. "What are you talk­ing

about?"

“You know,” I said, step­ping clos­er, “and you’ve known this whole time.”

I pushed my way into the lock­er, arms first, try­ing to wrig­gle through. Jamyra’s

hands shoved at my feet, help­ing to pro­pel me for­ward, but half­way in, I re­al­ized

some­thing—it was tighter than I thought, and I couldn’t eas­i­ly pull the rest of my body

through.

“Damn it,” I mut­tered, my arms reach­ing out into the dark­ness, but my legs were

still out­side, stuck. I re­gret­ted go­ing head­first; my stom­ach twist­ed with pan­ic as I tried

to push my­self for­ward.

Jamyra kept push­ing, her grunts of ef­fort mix­ing with the faint screech­ing and

slith­er­ing sound clos­ing in be­hind us. “Come on, Lega­cy! I don’t wan­na die in this stu-

pid hall­way!”

“I’m try­ing!” I gasped, but my shoul­ders were jammed in place. The met­al of the

lock­er scraped against my skin as I tried to yank my­self in fur­ther. The tight space

pressed against my chest, mak­ing it hard­er to breathe, and I couldn’t help the ris­ing

wave of re­gret. Why did I think this was a good idea?

“Shit,” I hissed. My legs flailed as I kicked, try­ing to gain some lever­age. The

screech from the hall­way seemed loud­er now, more ur­gent.

Jamyra's voice cracked. "I think it's get­ting clos­er, hur­ry!"

As I strug­gled, stuck half­way in the nar­row lock­er, pan­ic surged through me. I had

gone in head­first, a mis­take that left me com­plete­ly vul­ner­a­ble. My arms strained, try-

ing to pull my­self for­ward, but the an­gle was all wrong. I heard it—slow, de­lib­er­ate

steps echo­ing be­hind me, heavy and drag­ging.

What is it? My mind raced, imag­in­ing all the hor­rors the dark­ness could be hid­ing.

The sound was get­ting clos­er, and I could feel the weight of some­thing, some­thing

wrong, press­ing down on the air. My heart pound­ed in my chest as I twist­ed slight­ly,

try­ing to see be­hind me, but I was trapped. My fin­gers slipped against the cold met­al

of the lock­er.

"Isis?" I whis­pered, bare­ly able to catch my breath.

From my lim­it­ed view, I could see her, bare­ly vis­i­ble in the dim light. The ter­ror in

her eyes was un­mis­tak­able. She was star­ing at some­thing just be­hind me, some­thing I

couldn’t see. She sees it. My sto­mach drop­ped.

“What is it? What do you see?” My voice trem­bled. I tried pulling my­self through

faster, but I couldn’t move. The pan­ic rose in me like a wave.

Isis didn’t an­swer. Her eyes were locked on the dark, her face frozen in fear. I twist-

ed again, try­ing to get a glimpse, but the lock­er blocked my view. All I could make out

were long, twist­ed arms—grotesque, grop­ing limbs stretch­ing to­ward us. One of them

brushed my leg, cold and wet, send­ing a shud­der through me.

No, no, no, no— I tried to push for­ward, pan­ic flood­ing every inch of me, but I was

stuck. I could feel the crea­ture’s fin­gers tug­ging at me, pulling me back to­ward the

dark, its pres­ence wrap­ping around me like a suf­fo­cat­ing weight.

And then, with­out warn­ing, Isis shoved me with all her might. I gasped as I was

pushed for­ward, slid­ing head­first through the lock­er open­ing. My body tum­bled

down a nar­row chute, my hands fran­ti­cal­ly grab­bing at the smooth sur­face, try­ing to

slow my de­scent.

I fi­nal­ly caught my­self, my fin­gers scrap­ing against the slide. Pant­i­ng, I looked up.

My heart near­ly stopped.

Isis was still there, fac­ing the crea­ture head-on. I couldn’t see its face—only its mon-

strous, writhing arms reach­ing for her. My voice caught in my throat. Run! I want­ed to

scream, but no words came out.

Then it hap­pened.

One of the crea­ture’s jagged limbs shot for­ward, pierc­ing through Isis’s body as

though she weighed noth­ing. She was lift­ed into the air, her scream cut­ting through

the si­lence, sharp and ag­o­nized. The sound tore through me, freez­ing me in place.

“NO!” I fi­nal­ly screamed, claw­ing at the slide, des­per­ate to go back. But it was too

late.

I slid down the chute, each twist and turn a mad­den­ing spi­ral, frus­tra­tion build­ing

with every sec­ond. What is hap­pen­ing? My mind raced, try­ing to piece to­geth­er the

strange events. If this was some twist­ed ver­sion of re­al­i­ty—if I was re­liv­ing some­thing—

was I sup­posed to un­der­stand it? Was it a warn­ing? A les­son? What did Isis mean by

be­fore?

She had dropped hints, sub­tle mo­ments where she seemed to know more than

she let on. But why hadn’t she told me? Could she not? Or was it some­thing else en-

tire­ly, some­thing be­yond my un­der­stand­ing?

The last bit of light van­ished as I spun down into the dark, my breath hitch­ing as I

sobbed, the sounds echo­ing end­less­ly around me. The way my cries bounced off the

walls, fold­ing in on them­selves—it was mad­den­ing. I pressed my hands to my ears, try-

ing to block it out, but noth­ing helped.

I’m los­ing it. I knew it. The thought cir­cled my mind like a preda­tor. I hadn’t tak­en

my meds, that must be it. This was all some twist­ed, pro­longed night­mare—a hal­lu­ci­na-

tion spi­ral­ing out of con­trol. But why did it feel so real? Why did the pain in my chest,

this crush­ing, un­re­lent­ing ache, feel so un­mis­tak­ably real?

This can’t just be a dream, can it?