The cursor blinked on the screen, a tiny, insistent heartbeat against the black.
Password Required.
Damon stared at it, the weight of the decision settling heavier than iron chains around his chest.
"Maybe... maybe we don't need to know," Marcus said, but his voice was weak, almost hopeful. He already knew they wouldn't stop. Not now.
Jasmine didn't even hesitate. She grabbed the spare keyboard, her fingers a blur. "Every lock has a key."
The room was silent but for the furious tapping of keys and the quiet, rattling hum of Marcus's Frankenstein machine.
Outside, the night deepened, a velvet cloth swallowing the town whole. No stars. No light. Just darkness, thick and watching.
It took Jasmine fifteen minutes to bypass the first firewall.
Another five to break through the second.
By the time the third one fell, sweat trickled down Damon's back, cold as ice.
The folder cracked open like a coffin lid.
Inside were three files.
AURORA_PROTOCOL.pdf
Subject_Redacted.mov
Emergency_Contact_List.docx
Damon's fingers hovered above the mouse.
Jasmine whispered, "Open the video first."
Marcus didn't argue.
He clicked.
---
The screen flickered to life, revealing a sterile white room.
Fluorescent lights buzzed overhead. A table. A chair. And in the center — a boy.
Handcuffed to the chair.
Head down.
Blood dripping from his fingers.
Eyes swollen nearly shut.
The camera zoomed in.
Damon's heart stuttered.
He recognized the boy.
It was himself.
But twisted.
Broken.
The timestamp was dated six months into the future.
A future that hadn't happened yet.
He stumbled back from the monitor, bile rising in his throat.
"What the hell is this?" Marcus whispered.
Jasmine was frozen, her face pale as snow.
On the video, future-Damon lifted his head.
His mouth moved.
No sound.
Jasmine scrambled for the volume control.
The boy's words came out broken, shuddering.
"They know... they always knew... it's not about the school... it's about all of us... they chose us... we're not mistakes... we're experiments..."
The screen went black.
---
For a long, shivering moment, none of them spoke.
Marcus finally broke the silence. "I... I want to go back to being dumb and happy."
Damon wiped his palms on his jeans, his head spinning.
An experiment?
Chosen?
He clicked open the second file — AURORA_PROTOCOL.pdf.
Lines of clinical text spilled across the screen.
> Aurora Project: Subject pool selection criteria based on genetic anomaly markers. Subjects to be placed in controlled educational environments for monitoring.
Phase One: Observation.
Phase Two: Trigger Events.
Phase Three: Activation.
Jasmine choked out a laugh, high and brittle. "We're not students. We're... lab rats."
Marcus stumbled backward, knocking over a stack of empty Monster cans.
"Holy crap, we're in a goddamn X-Files episode."
Damon didn't move.
His mind raced.
Questions stabbed him from every direction — but the worst wasn't the why.
It was the who.
Who knew?
Who orchestrated this?
Who was watching right now?
He opened the last file — Emergency_Contact_List.docx.
It was a list of names.
Most were government agents, agencies he'd only heard whispered about in conspiracy forums.
But buried near the bottom were names they all knew:
Principal Simms
Coach Reynolds
Ms. Beckett, the counselor
Mr. Holloway, the history teacher
Trusted adults.
Authority figures.
All agents.
The betrayal burned.
Marcus sank into a chair, his head in his hands. "We're so screwed."
Jasmine's voice cracked when she spoke. "We have to tell people. Expose everything."
Damon shook his head violently. "No. If they find out we know, we're dead."
Marcus paled. "Correction: we're already dead."
---
The following morning was an exercise in pretending.
Damon walked the hallways of Midnight High with a stone face, the secret gnawing at his insides like rats. Jasmine stayed close, radiating fury barely hidden under her denim jacket. Marcus slouched along behind, twitchy and pale.
Everything looked normal.
Laughing students. Gossiping cliques. Teachers handing out quizzes.
But Damon knew better now.
The walls had eyes.
The floors had ears.
And somewhere, beyond the cameras, beyond the casual smiles, puppet strings pulled every move they made.
When Principal Simms passed him in the hallway, his beady eyes glinting, Damon felt his fists clench so tightly his nails cut into his palms.
Smile, he told himself. Smile and pretend you're stupid.
He forced his mouth into something that felt like a grin.
Simms patted him on the shoulder. "Good to see you, son. Keep working hard."
Every nerve in Damon's body screamed.
---
Lunch was worse.
The cafeteria was a zoo of noise and smells — greasy pizza, burnt fries, cheap perfume — but Damon could feel the tension under it all, invisible currents crackling between tables.
He caught Brielle watching him from across the room.
Not the usual bored, superior look she gave everyone.
This was different.
Wary.
Fearful.
Their eyes locked for a fraction of a second before she looked away.
Damon's stomach turned.
She knows something too.
Maybe she always had.
Maybe she'd just been better at playing dumb.
Jasmine dropped her tray with a clatter, sitting opposite him. Marcus flopped down next to her, already devouring an entire plate of nachos like his life depended on it.
"We need to move fast," Jasmine hissed, keeping her head low.
Damon nodded. "But careful. No mistakes."
Marcus licked cheese off his fingers. "Any brilliant ideas, boss man?"
Damon thought about it. Hard.
They couldn't trust teachers.
They couldn't trust parents.
Hell, they couldn't even trust their own phones.
They had to go analog.
"Tonight," he said. "We meet at the old library. After closing."
Jasmine frowned. "The place with the raccoons?"
Marcus perked up. "I love raccoons."
"Focus," Damon snapped.
Marcus saluted with a greasy grin.
---
That night, the library sat abandoned under a gibbous moon. Its windows were broken; its steps cracked.
Inside, the air smelled of mold and old paper, thick enough to choke on.
Damon, Jasmine, and Marcus gathered around a rotting oak table with a flashlight between them.
The plan was simple.
Gather evidence.
Stay hidden.
Find allies.
Figure out who else was marked like them.
And whatever Project Aurora had planned — stop it.
Easy, right?
Wrong.
Because they weren't the only ones there.
As Damon sketched out their ideas on a stolen whiteboard, a board creaked upstairs.
Footsteps.
Heavy.
Deliberate.
Marcus froze mid-sentence.
Jasmine drew a knife from her boot — a wicked little thing Damon didn't even know she carried.
The footsteps grew closer.
Closer.
Closer.
Until the shadows at the edge of the light shifted — and someone stepped into view.
It wasn't a teacher.
It wasn't a cop.
It wasn't even an adult.
It was another student.
A girl.
Short, messy black hair.
Ripped jeans.
A leather jacket two sizes too big.
She looked like she hadn't slept in days.
Her voice was low, urgent.
"You don't know what you're playing with," she said.
"They'll kill you."
Damon's pulse thundered in his ears.
Jasmine raised her knife slightly. "Who the hell are you?"
The girl hesitated — then stepped into the light.
The world tilted sideways.
Because Damon knew her.
Everyone did.
Even if they pretended otherwise.
She was the ghost of Midnight High — a girl who disappeared months ago without a trace.
A girl who'd been declared legally dead.
Savannah Cole.
Alive.
Breathing.
Broken — but burning with something fierce.
She fixed her wild eyes on Damon and said three words that changed everything:
"They already started."
---