Underneath The Hidden Stars

Chapter VIII

It had been 7 days since Ava disappeared when she finally returned back to the dormitory. She seemed different. She looked more pale than ever, and she looked jittery - no matter what minor thing happened, she would immediately flinch or even jump. Although both Mira and Lucy tried getting something out of her, like finding out where she was all that time, the only words that Ava said to them after coming back being 'did you go to the safety office yet?' and after receiving a negative answer, the word 'don't'. No one else seemed to notice the way that Ava changed, from the bubbling, loud and the one in the leadership position at all times, to the quietest of the bunch, who even avoided sitting in front of the table with everyone and would just sneak food into her room. She was a mere fraction of the person she used to be just a short week ago, leaving her friends wondering what in the world must've happened that would leave her that way.

Days and weeks passed in what felt as a dream and the newcomers were already getting future jobs announced, one by one. The one that didn't surprise anyone, was Thomas, who immediately got the job as the head chef in one of the restaurants on Level 9. Jerome, the boy who noticed the emergency button back on the trolley was to be a maths teacher on Level 7. Lucy got the job as the secretary in one of the best known electronics companies on Level 8 and Mira, interestingly enough, got the job in the law enforcement, where she would train and later become a detective. However, when it was time to announce Ava's future career, the governor skipped her over and continued talking about how great the newcomers were.

After months of training, Mira was finally ready to become a full fledged detective. In the months she spent training though, she felt extremely bad about what had been happening with her friend Ava. Ever since her week-long disappearance, she looked like she had gone insane. In the end, the only job she was allowed to get was that of a janitor on level 6. While the rest of the newcomers spent time adapting, Ava was supposed to clean public bathrooms. Mira felt incredibly bad for her, but in the end, she couldn't do anything about it, so she just tried moving on.

One day, while Mira was waiting for a case to show up, a young boy, around 12 years old, ran into the safety office and started screaming for help, as his school had disappeared while he went home on a break. A few officers immediately stood up and sighed 'not again' before running out to look for survivors. Mira, who was incredibly confused as to what had happened, went up to one of the receptionists at the station to ask for details.

"Oh honey, I'm sure you've heard about this. It's that terrorist group again, the one that blew up most of the primary schools back in... March I suppose? It happened on your home level too!" answered a rather old woman and continued to type.

"March? What was I doing in March?" she thought to herself when it suddenly clicked. "Right! I was at the hospital during that time, and that's when Terra went on that trip to-" she froze. "No fucking way-" she said outloud and the woman glared at her for swearing. Mira ran out of the office and went straight to the middle school where the explosion had just happened. When she finally reached the place, completely out of breath, she noticed that the whole site looked extremely familiar. It looked just like the site of the, as her father put it, 'torn down school' back on her home level. She walked into the rubble and looked around. She felt a weird sensation of deja vu and tripped over some debris. Just as she was about to stand up, she could've sworn she head Terra's voice call her out from underneath the rocks. Mira froze in place and turned back around. She left the scene and ran straight to the safety office. She immediately started rummaging through case files from March. Moments later, she saw a case named "the primary school attacks" and flipped it open. She skimmed through the pages until she saw the words "Level 4". She stopped and stared at the casualty list, hoping that she wouldn't see the name she was looking for.

"Rose Ayers, Kyle Shedden, Karena Gunn... Wait, Kyle Shedden? The Kyle Shedden? David's brother??" she stopped reading and the scene where she asked his mother for help popped into her head. "That's why he acted that way when I mentioned the trip..." she shook her head and went back to the case file. "Nicole Bunker..." she moved her finger along the list with every name she read out, but at that point she stopped. Tears started rolling out of her eyes as she could barely say the name. "T- Terra." Everything suddenly made sense to her. Why she didn't see her sister after that day, why her dad had started drinking again... She made a promise to herself that she would solve this case once and for all. No more children should have to die.