She started noticing a trend in the disappearances, but she didn’t know for sure what was going on. She made her way to the old library in the part of her school that hadn’t yet been renovated, hoping she could find some answers there. She opened the old wooden doors and looked around the empty space filled with shelves beyond shelves of books. A cough escaped her at the smell of dust particles everywhere around the room, making the room seem like nobody has been in there for years.

Truth be told, it’s only been 6 years, 6 long secondary school years and now this was it, her chance of solving a mystery before her graduation. Thoughts filled her head, ‘who could have done it’, ‘why would they do this to students’. Her mind raced with different scenarios where she caught who done this to them, where she became a hero and somehow brought them back from wherever they were banished to.

She made her way to the very back of the library, the part with barely any natural lighting, making it difficult to see unless the sun was bright enough. She remembered finding what she was looking for during 1st year, the only book that didn’t have any dust on it because it was renewed every year, the book with the name and picture of every student to have gone to the school.

She grabbed the book off of one of the shelves and opened the leather cover, showing the yellow tinted pages that was crinkled at the edges. She sighed in relief; glad it was still there. She flipped through the pages until she eventually found exactly the year group she was looking for, her year group. She made her way through the names, seeing 3 of them crossed out, Johnny, Kyle and Sam, their pictures being replaced by a stain from a black marker.

“Sam wasn’t the first” she muttered quietly to herself before she heard the sound of rushed footsteps and quickly went to hide in a corner where she knew she wouldn’t be seen but could see. She seen a distressed Kyle gripping tight onto another silhouette she couldn’t recognize. She covered her mouth with one hand in hope to not attract attention to herself.