Divided Shadows_2

Part 1

Present day

A year had passed since Angela’s death, but to Lotta, it might as well have been a lifetime. She often found herself adrift in a world that didn’t fit her memories, a place where reality seemed slippery and insubstantial, as though she and the rest of her town lived in different worlds. And it isn't a figure of speech, it's literal.

Lotta’s first inkling that something was terribly wrong came days after Angela's funeral. Mrs. Duvan woke her up early one morning, a strange look in her eyes as she instructed Lotta to get dressed. They were going to her school, Mrs. Duvan explained it's a remembrance ceremony to honor the students who had died in the accident that not only had taken Angela’s life but almost took hers. Lotta sat up, groggy and disoriented, convinced she must’ve misheard. Surely, Mrs. Duvan couldn't be serious. Why would her school, of all places, hold a remembrance for the students who lost their lives no thanks to them, and why now?

But as Lotta followed Mrs. Duvan downstairs, her mind began to race. What did she mean, "accident"? Why was she acting as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened?

The words spilled from Lotta’s mouth before she could stop herself, a torrent of suppressed confusion and fear. She told Mrs. Duvan everything, barely pausing for breath: about their disappearance, the strange app PeerPulse and the insane and inhumane things they had to do for survive, the pattern of student deaths she’d uncovered, the secretive workings of Sentinel Academy, and the fateful night she’d tried to end it all, but ended up losing and that cause Angela tragic death. But as she spoke, a cold realization crept in. Mrs. Duvan's expression wasn’t one of horror or sympathy—it was one of fear. Not fear of what Lotta was saying, but fear of Lotta herself.

This made her think back to when she first noticed PeerPulse was gone from her phone. She then told Mrs. Duvan she rather stay at home and rest than go to the remembrance, she went to her room and stumbled over to her computer, pulling up every message, every article she’d saved, scouring for evidence of the deaths that had haunted her and Angela. But the screen stared back, blank—no records, no files, not a trace of what she’d uncovered. It was as if the entire nightmare had vanished from the world, leaving her standing alone in the void.

Lotta spent the next days obsessively trying to convince her adoptive parents of what she’d uncovered. She even turned her room upside down searching for the file of documents she’d received anonymously—the ones that exposed Sentinel Academy’s history of dark dealings. But the papers were gone, vanished without a trace.

Desperate for proof, Lotta recalled the journalist she had once confided in, a woman known for her unwavering commitment to the truth and her tenacity in uncovering hidden stories. Lotta clung to the hope that the evidence she had shared with her—articles, documents, and everything related to the dark events surrounding the school—was still safe in the journalist's hands.

Tracking down the woman was no easy feat, but Lotta's determination propelled her forward. After what felt like an eternity of phone calls and online searches, she finally found the journalist at a local coffee shop, hunched over her laptop, the glow of the screen illuminating her features. Lotta approached with a mix of anxiety and urgency, her heart racing as she prepared to confront the woman.

“Excuse me,” Lotta said, her voice shaking slightly as she interrupted the journalist’s focused work. “Hi, sorry for the Intrusion but I need to talk to you, it's about the evidence I shared with you regarding the disappearances. It’s important—I think I might be in danger.”

The journalist looked up, her expression shifting from concentration to confusion. “Lotta?” she said slowly, her brow furrowing. “You are the young girl who survived that tragic accident right? But... what evidence are you talking about?”