The school library's archive was a tomb for forgotten things.
It reeked of decaying paper, settled dust, and the quiet despair of stories left unread. The fluorescent lights buzzed like an exhausted insect, bathing the metal shelves in a sterile, uneven glow. Boxes of records, yearbooks with cracked spines, labels faded with time—it was the kind of place time forgot.
For most students, it would've been a punishment.
For Kieran and Elara, it was a place of quiet war.
They sat at a wide, splintered wooden table—an island of tension in the stillness. Elara moved like she belonged there. Her laptop glowed softly, casting a modern sheen over her focused face. She worked fast, her fingers tapping in patterns that mirrored her mind—efficient, relentless. Physical yearbooks towered beside her like monuments to the past she was digging through.
Kieran's job wasn't about data.
He was the antenna.
The Demon inside him had honed his senses into something inhumanly sharp. Every old page he touched buzzed with residual emotion—a dull chorus of teenage laughter, fear, desire, regret. Most of it was background noise. But he'd been learning to filter. To hear the notes that didn't belong.
"Here," Elara whispered, the word loud in the hush.
She turned her screen toward him. A page from the 2019 yearbook.
"This is where the pattern begins to sharpen. Mr. Harrison, faculty advisor for Debate Club. Look at the captain."
The photo showed a girl with bright, sharp eyes and a wide smile.
Amelia Vance.
Elara's voice grew cooler.
"Top of her class. National essay winner. Early acceptance to a top-tier university. Harrison called her his 'pride and joy' in at least three newsletters. And then, in April 2019, she withdraws. Official reason? 'Family health emergency.' But she never enrolled in that college. Never showed up anywhere else."
Kieran stared at Amelia's face. His body tensed.
The Demon's logic hummed: abuse of power, clear motive, disappearance. A high-probability case for retribution. Efficient. Predictable.
But something tugged inside him.
Something human.
Her smile... didn't reach her eyes.
There was a tension around her mouth. A weariness that didn't belong on a high school senior's face. She wasn't just missing. She was unraveling—even then.
"Let me see the yearbook," he said quietly.
Elara slid the heavy book over without hesitation. Kieran opened it to her photo and placed his fingertips against the paper.
He closed his eyes.
And the world cracked open.
It wasn't clean. It never was.
A wave of sensation hit him—thick, rotten, and intimate. The stench of cheap aftershave. The heavy silence of an empty classroom. The faint click of a door locking. A hand on a shoulder. Too familiar. Too slow. Too heavy.
A voice, low and calm but laced with power:
"You're too smart to ruin this for yourself, Amelia. Don't make me remind you what's at stake."
Fear clawed at him—hers, but real.
It was metallic. Suffocating. But beneath it... a flicker. A spark. Not just terror.
Defiance. A frantic whisper of resistance that hadn't died yet.
And with it came a name.
Not a memory. A hope.
Sarah Jenkins.
Kieran pulled his hand back like it burned.
A sharp gasp tore from his throat.
His heart was racing. Too fast. Too alive. The cold clarity of the Demon's grip was gone, replaced by a molten rush of his own fury.
This wasn't strategy.
This was desecration.
"Kieran?"
Elara's voice cut through his haze. He looked up, her face blurry for a second.
She wasn't analyzing him now. She was worried.
"You're pale. Like—really pale. What happened?"
He swallowed. Tried to reassemble himself.
"I'm... I just got a bad feeling," he murmured.
His voice shook, and he didn't fight it.
For the first time, the mask cracked.
And oddly, it felt... freeing.
Elara nodded slowly. "Me too."
She looked back down at Amelia's picture. Her voice softer now.
"So what do we do?"
The Demon offered a plan.
Clean. Brutal. Effective.
Sarah Jenkins.
The next link. The witness. The key.
"Sarah Jenkins," Kieran said aloud.
Elara looked up sharply.
"What did you say?"
He lied. Smoothly, this time.
"I saw her name on the Debate Club list. Might've been close to Amelia."
Elara turned to her screen. Her fingers moved fast again, but something had changed. There was tension in the air now. A thread pulled tight.
"Got her. She's on social. Lives nearby. Works at a coffee shop. There's a photo of them together—Amelia and Sarah. They were friends."
She turned the screen.
And Kieran saw her.
Sarah.
Not a name. Not a clue.
A person.
Smiling gently at a camera years ago. A life rebuilt. A wound bandaged.
The Demon's voice returned:
Contact her. Question her. Use what you saw. Use her pain. It's the only way.
Kieran's stomach turned.
Would it be justice? Or just another violation?
He looked at Elara. She was waiting. Expecting a next step.
She couldn't feel what he felt.
But he did.
He had power. Purpose. A partner.
But in that moment, with everything pointing forward, something in him—the human part—whispered a different question:
Are we saving anyone, or just spreading the damage around?