Yvessirae Pov
The world was too loud, too bright, and far too perfect.
I stood by the edge of the stone fountain, my breath hitching in my scarred throat. The rhythmic splash of the water sounded like mocking laughter. I looked down at my hand—the bell-shaped burn was a raw, angry crimson, pulsing with a heat that made my entire arm throb. It was the only real thing left in this nightmare.
Then, I saw them.
Maia and Dvora were sitting at our usual table near the cafe entrance. Maia was tucking a stray lock of hair behind her ear, laughing at something in her textbook. Dvora was tapping a highlighter against her chin, her eyes sharp and focused. They looked exactly as they had yesterday. And the day before.
I sprinted toward them, my heart hammering against my ribs. "Maia! Dvora! Thank god," I gasped, nearly tripping over a chair as I reached their table. "We have to move. The school... it cheated. It forced a reset at 7:55. Did you see where the items went? Do we still have the Key?"
Maia stopped laughing. she looked up at me, but her eyes didn't spark with recognition. There was no warmth, no shared trauma, no secret sisterhood. She looked at me the way one looks at a bug that had landed in their soup.
"I'm sorry?" Maia said, her voice polite but ice-cold. "Do we know you?"
The ground felt like it had vanished beneath my sneakers. "Maia, it's me. Yvessirae. Rae! We were in the lab! You held me while I was flickering out of existence. Dvora, you used the tongs to grab the Rusty Key from the acid!"
Dvora set her highlighter down slowly. She didn't look scared; she looked annoyed.
"Listen, 'Rae,' or whoever you are. We know the rules of the campus. We know about the Game—everyone who isn't a total Sleeper knows the basics. But we don't know you. We've never seen you before in our lives."
"That's impossible!" I screamed, my voice cracking. Tears began to blur my vision. "We've died together! I've seen you bleed! I've seen you cry! You can't just forget me!"
I grabbed Maia's hand, trying to show her the burn on my palm. "Look! The Herald marked me! He told me the third item was in the Chapel!"
Maia recoiled as if I had struck her. "Get away from me! You're insane!"
"Dvora, please!" I begged, turning to the girl who had mapped the entire school with me. "Think! Remember the smell of the sulfur! Remember the sound of the Floor Guard's blade!"
Dvora stood up, her face darkening. She didn't reach out to comfort me. Instead, she reached into her pocket and pulled out a small, silver whistle—the kind given to "Model Students" to signal campus security.
"You're a 'Glitch,' aren't you?" Dvora said, her voice devoid of emotion. "You've lost your mind to the loops. You're making a scene and threatening us. We aren't your friends. We're just students trying to survive the day."
She blew the whistle. The sound didn't pierce the air; it shivered through the reality of the quad.
"Wait, no!" I sobbed, reaching out, but they both stepped back, looking at me with pure disgust.
Within seconds, the crowd of students parted. A man in a perfectly tailored charcoal suit walked toward us. He didn't run; he glided. His face was a mask of calm, grandfatherly concern, but his eyes were like two pieces of polished obsidian.
The Principal.
"Is there a problem here, ladies?" he asked, his voice a smooth, deep baritone.
"This girl is harassing us, sir," Maia said, pointing at me. "She's talking about items and labs... she's clearly unstable."
The Principal turned those black-hole eyes on me. A small, chilling smile played at the corners of his mouth. "Ah, Yvessirae. Our newest star pupil. It seems the curriculum has been a bit much for you today."
He placed a hand on my shoulder. It was heavier than lead. "Come, child. Let's have a chat in my office. We wouldn't want to disturb the other students' lunch, would we?"
The Principal's office smelled of old parchment and something metallic—like blood that had been scrubbed away with bleach. He sat behind a massive mahogany desk, gesturing for me to take the velvet chair across from him.
"Why?" I choked out, my head buried in my hands. "Why don't they remember me? We had four items. We were winning."
"Winning?" The Principal chuckled, a sound like dry leaves skittering on a grave.
"Yvessirae, you weren't winning. You were corrupting. St. Jude's is a closed system. It requires balance. When you gathered those items, you shifted the weight. I didn't wipe their memories to be cruel. I wiped them to save them."
I looked up, my eyes red and stinging. "Save them? You turned them back into strangers!"
"I returned them to their default state," he said, leaning forward. The light from the window didn't cast a shadow behind him.
"The 'Maia' and 'Dvora' you knew were versions created by trauma. They were broken. Now, they are whole again. They are happy. They are Sleepers in training. Isn't that what a good friend would want? For them to be at peace?"
"It's a lie," I hissed. "They aren't at peace. They're cattle."
The Principal's smile widened. "Perhaps. But here is the shock, Rae: Their memories aren't gone. They are simply... stored. In the Fifth Item. The First Bell."
My heart stopped. "What?"
"The school feeds on potential, Rae. Every memory of friendship, every spark of hope you shared with them—it was harvested. It's what powers the Reset. If you want those friends back, you have to fight for them. You have to earn the right to exist in their minds again. But be warned: the more you try to 'wake' them, the more the school will try to delete you."
He stood up, signaling the end of our meeting. "Go back to your dorm, Yvessirae. You're excused from classes today. Reflect on what you've lost. The Game starts at 8:00 PM, as always. Let's see if you have anything left to fight for."
I didn't go to my next lecture. I couldn't bear to see Maia and Dvora sitting in the front row, looking at me as if I were a ghost they wanted to exorcise.
I locked myself in my dorm room. The silence was deafening. I sat on my bed, staring at the wall, overthinking every word the Principal had said.
They are stored in the Bell.
To get my friends back, I had to finish the collection. But how could I find the last item when I needed three people to hold the first four? How could I convince them to help me when they thought I was a lunatic?
I looked at the clock. 7:30 PM.
The shadows in the corner of my room began to lengthen, turning into jagged, ink-black claws. The "Safe Zone" was ending.
"They're in there," I whispered to the empty room, clutching my burned palm. "Maia is in there. Dvora is in there. I just have to reach deep enough to find them."
But as the first chime of the 8:00 PM bell echoed through the walls, a terrifying thought crawled into my mind.
What if the versions of them I loved were already dead, and the girls downstairs were just empty shells wearing their faces?
I stood up, grabbing my backpack. I didn't have a plan. I didn't have allies. All I had was a burned hand and a heart full of rage.
"Round ten," I whispered.
The door to my dorm room creaked open on its own. The hallway outside was no longer carpeted and lit; it was a dark, pulsing throat of stone and shadow.
And at the end of the hall, the Floor Guard was waiting, his blade scraping against the floor. Clack. Drag. Clack. Drag.
He wasn't searching for anyone else tonight.
He was looking for me.