The classroom buzzed like any other first-period class at Bellridge Academy—paper shuffling, chairs scraping, pencils tapping in anxious rhythms.
Harper stepped in with her chin high, heart thudding like a drumline beneath her ribs. She told herself it didn't matter if they looked at her like she was a stranger. She wasn't one.
The teacher glanced up from the attendance sheet. "You're...?"
"Harper Quinn," she answered quickly.
His brow furrowed. "I don't see your name on the list."
She swallowed hard. "I've been here. I had classes in this room last semester."
"Strange. We've never had a Harper Quinn in this class." He tapped his pen against the clipboard. "You must be a transfer."
"I'm not—"
"Take an empty seat. We'll sort it out later."
Harper clenched her jaw and moved toward the back. Her usual desk was already taken by a boy chewing on a pencil and doodling ghosts in the margin of his book. She sat down one row over.
The lesson blurred into background noise. Math formulas she already knew scrawled across the board, but her attention was locked on the classroom itself. On the faces. On the absence of recognition.
Across the room sat Ava Mercer, her old seat partner. The girl who once whispered jokes during tests and passed notes folded like stars. Harper caught her eye. For a second—just a second—there was something there. A flicker.
She raised her hand slowly in a small wave.
Ava blinked.
Then turned away.
Not coldly. Just... blank. Like looking at a stranger.
Harper's throat tightened.
Something crinkled under her hand. She looked down. Her notebook—one she hadn't brought to class—sat open on the desk. The pages looked aged, as if they'd been damp at some point, and her name was written at the top in faded black ink:
Harper Quinn – Room 13A
Her heart jumped.
She flipped the page.
A rough sketch filled the center—her old dorm room. The bed, the cracked window, the half-burnt lamp she never got around to replacing. And scribbled beneath it:
"This place remembers in echoes."
She didn't draw this.
At least, she didn't remember doing it.
Before she could react, the bell rang, slicing through her thoughts. Everyone stood, collecting their things, talking about lunch and clubs and the upcoming student council elections.
No one looked at her.
No one asked where she came from.
No one asked where she'd been.
She was invisible in the middle of everything she used to call hers.
As she packed her bag, she felt it—a soft vibration from under the desk.
Reaching down, her fingers brushed something stuck to the bottom. A note. Torn from the same notebook.
It read:
"If you're reading this, they haven't wiped it all yet. Find the maintenance tunnel. West Hall. Midnight."
Harper's hands trembled.she can't take any kind of risks...
Because beneath the message was a signature she recognized immediately.
It was her own....in end she decides to head to the library to check for any kind of proofs even a small proof will work
The library at Bellridge Academy had always felt like a safe place. Rows of ancient shelves, the scent of yellowed paper, and that eerie kind of silence that felt alive with whispering thoughts.
But now, walking in as a ghost in her own story, Harper wasn't sure the library was on her side anymore.
She moved between the shelves with a purpose that barely masked her shaking hands. She needed something—anything—that proved she'd been here. A record. A yearbook. A list. She didn't know what exactly she was looking for, just that her name had to be somewhere.
The librarian, Mrs. Ember, was hunched at the front desk, glasses low on her nose and a tea mug steaming quietly beside her. Harper kept her head down as she passed. She didn't want another awkward moment of being called "new."
The school archives were kept in the back room, behind a narrow glass door with a faded label:
"Restricted. Staff Use Only."
But Harper remembered the code.
She'd watched Mrs. Ember type it in dozens of times during study periods when she used to sneak a second muffin from the cart. Her fingers hesitated, then quickly pressed the keypad.
1 - 9 - 8 - 7
The lock clicked.
Inside, it was dim and dusty, the air thick with forgotten stories. Files lined the shelves in boxes labeled by year. Harper grabbed the one marked 2024–2025, dragging it onto the table.
Class rosters. Dormitory assignments. Faculty lists.
She flipped through them all.
No mention of her.
No Harper Quinn.
Her name was missing from the dorm rosters. From the class photos. Even the emergency contact sheets—she remembered filling those out on the first day. Gone.
As if someone had snipped her out of the narrative.
She rubbed her temple, a headache blooming behind her eyes. "This doesn't make sense," she whispered.
Then she spotted it.
A folder—oddly placed, at the very bottom of the stack. It wasn't labeled.
She opened it.
Inside were photos. Old ones. Slightly bent and curling at the edges. She flipped through them until one made her freeze.
It was a candid shot of students sitting on the lawn. And there—barely in the frame—was her. Her back, her favorite hoodie, her wild hair tied in a half-bun.
It was unmistakably her.
But someone had scribbled black marker over the face.
Hard. Angry strokes.
She flipped the photo.
In faint, familiar handwriting was one sentence:
"Room 13A. She didn't listen."
Harper stared at the note, her throat tightening. That was her handwriting. She was sure of it. The loops of the H. The way the double e's curved like they were unsure of themselves.
She felt like the floor had tilted under her.
Then she heard it.
The soft sound of footsteps.
She turned, heart racing.
The library was still. No one at the door. No sound from the main room.
But there—on the corner of the file cabinet—sat a book that hadn't been there before. It was thick, bound in dark green cloth. No title.
She reached for it, opening to the first page.
There was one line in the center:
"You're not supposed to remember."
Then the next page—
It was a list.
Of students who had disappeared.
Some names were crossed out. Some had dates next to them. But the last name—
Harper Quinn. April 18th.
Her hand trembled as she touched the ink.
That was the day she disappeared.
But she hadn't disappeared, had she?
She came back.
And now… now the question wasn't why no one remembered her.
It was:
Why was she the only one who remembered herself?