Truth doesn't lie still.
It moves.
Through whispers. Through shadows. Through coded names and broken locks.
And tonight, it moved through a dead girl's legacy.
"A.M.," I repeated under my breath as I stared at the file again.
We were back in my dorm, door bolted, curtains drawn. I spread out the contents on my bed, photographs, slips of paper, printed screenshots with half the text blacked out.
One line from the list kept echoing:
NOVA REYES -"TOO LOUD"
"Why are they labeling us like this?" I asked. "What does that even mean?"
Ezra leaned over the desk, brow furrowed. "Because this isn't just a blog. It's a filtration system."
I looked up. "What?"
"They're not just punishing people for random things. They're sorting them. By threat level. By how likely they are to expose something."
"You think the Blogger's working with the school?"
He didn't answer. Which said enough.
Instead, he pointed to a page we hadn't touched yet—a folded printout with a faint watermark: A.M. Archives.
When I turned it over, I found a scribbled note from Isla. Different handwriting. Jagged. Like it had been written in panic:
"THE ARCHIVIST MOVES IN SHADOWS.
IF YOU FIND THIS, RUN."
A.M. = ARCHIVIST MANIFEST.
"Archivist?" I asked.
Ezra looked grim. "It was a codename students whispered about last year. Urban legend. A student, or maybe a teacher, who kept a record of everything: hookups, betrayals, blackmail, fights. They say she didn't speak. Just watched."
"She?"
"That's what Isla thought. She used to call her the ghost of Room B5."
My blood ran cold.
"Then what happened to her?"
"She vanished the week before Isla died."
I was about to reply when Lena burst through the door without knocking.
Her face was pale. Her lips trembled.
"There's something you both need to see."
She handed me her phone. A video.
Someone walking through the school's boiler rooms. Low resolution. Heavy breathing. And then the camera turned toward a wall, spray-painted in black:
"THE NEXT TRUTH BLEEDS. BOILER ROOM. MIDNIGHT."
Underneath:
NOVA REYES
YOU'RE NEXT.
"You're not going," Lena said. "This is a trap."
"I know," I said. "But we've been playing defense too long."
"What if they hurt you?"
"They already are."
Ezra looked at me like I'd grown two heads. "We don't even know who posted that video."
"That's why I need to go."
***
Midnight.
The boiler room door was already cracked open.
It shouldn't have been.
It was a thick steel hatch with a rusted chain, always locked after hours.
But now, it gaped like a mouth.
Lena waited at the top of the stairs. Ezra beside her. I told them to stay. If something happened, I needed them free to act, not trapped with me.
The stairs creaked beneath me.
The air grew hotter with each step. Metallic. Damp. The hum of machines surrounded me like a pulse.
Then, I saw it.
A wall of photos.
Dozens. No, hundreds.
Taped to rusting pipes. Pinned to corkboards. Black-and-white, low-res, grainy.
All students. Some I recognized. Some I didn't.
And every one of them had something red painted over it.
A circle. A target. A question mark.
Then, at the center, I saw a new photo.
Me.
Taken earlier that evening. Walking down the hall alone.
Beneath it: the word "NOW" in bold ink.
Behind me, something moved.
I turned.
A figure.
Full mask. Taller than me. Hands gloved.
No words.
They held something up, a single sheet of paper.
I stepped closer.
It read:
"THE ARCHIVIST NEVER DIES.
ONLY CHANGES FACES."
And below that:
"YOU'VE SEEN HER ALREADY."
The lights cut out.
Complete darkness.
I stumbled back, heart in my throat, hands searching for the exit.
Then, a hand grabbed my arm.
And a voice, not Ezra. Not Lena.
Female. Whispering in my ear:
"You're not ready for what she did to Isla."
"But you're about to be."
***
I didn't remember running back upstairs.
Just the sound of my own pulse in my ears. The feeling of cold sweat down my spine.
Ezra caught me as I collapsed outside the door.
Lena shouted my name. Someone pulled the fire alarm.
But all I could say was one thing.
One name.
"The Archivist is real."