"All is a riddle, and the key to a riddle...is another riddle."
- Ralph Waldo Emerson
ACT 2, Scene 7
The exit room was engulfed in complete darkness while a dark feeling crept inside me, my mind hallucinating as if I was able to make out shadowy figures from inside. Ryan pushed open the door slowly with his gloved hands and made his way through while I followed silently. He pulled the flashlight from inside his rucksack and switched it on, revealing a bright beam of light that slightly illuminated the dark flight of stairs buzzing with an abandoned silence.
"Ryan, are you sure about this?" I asked out nervously in a low voice, my eyes scanning the door every now and then, not wanting someone to pass by and catch us in the darkness.
He stepped forward and stood tall, his piercing green eyes looked straight into mine as he pulled closer, our faces only inches apart. "You know Ava," he began, his voice sounding cold and harsh. "Not everyone is going to believe you, especially in times like these. If we want to prove Ms. Campbell's death wasn't a suicide, we've got to make sacrifices. If justice isn't served in time then we've got to bring it, you understand?" his deep voice rung loudly in my ears.
He pulled away from me slowly and bent down towards the old wall with cracks and faded layers of paint. Ryan's grip on the heavy metal mesh was firm as he pulled it out that led to a cold dark vent. He grabbed his rucksack in one hand and held his flashlight from the other, slowly crawling his way ahead and gestured me to follow him.
Everything has sacrifices that have to be made, even illegally breaking into Ms. Campbell's office in search of truth at the dead of night.
* * * * * *
The vent cold and dark almost felt like an endless maze and I crawled for what felt like forever. "What exactly did you mean Ava? That Ms. Campbell wasn't capable of holding a blade from her right hand?" Ryan questioned abruptly that caused me to jerk.
"I felt something strange the last time I met her back in the office, I could feel it in my guts." I narrated as my mind quickly travelled back to the incident. "There was something totally odd about her right hand, something that was recent because it was never this way before. Ms. Campbell's right hand was totally paralyzed, it was as if she couldn't move it at all, not even her fingers. She never mentioned what happened to her hand and it felt weird to ask." I paused to ponder, if I missed out any important bits of information.
"While I left her office I overheard a conversation she had. Couldn't make out who it was but she sounded worried and afraid. She mentioned about some sort of car accident in the middle of the night, people she didn't recognize who threatened to kill her and about something called 'Monoplegia'."
* * * * * *
The path through the vent finally came to an end as Ryan pushed out another metal mesh and jumped out, landing on his feet as I followed. The office was dark and silent, everything preserved exactly how it used to be back when Ms. Campbell was the principal. Her lamp stood on her desk alongside a globe and a shiny metal card that spelled her name.
"I guess I'll look through the wardrobe and maybe you could rummage through her desk but you better be careful," Ryan warned. "Make sure you have your gloves on and don't leave behind any bits of DNA and be quick, we haven't got long,"
I nodded as I went to her desk and slowly pulled out the drawer and began going through her contents while Ryan began rummaging through all the old files and books carefully stored inside the tall wardrobe. There wasn't much I could find, except for a few pens, sheets of paper and.... a leather-bound diary?
YOU ARE READING
THE NOTE { DISCONTINUED }
Mystery / Thriller❝ It's a pity you don't know me. Perhaps you never will ❞ Mount Preston High, the once prestigious boarding school has now become a hellhole and an intense game of survival with a murderer on the loose. Ava Anderson has a ton of suspects on her sus...
