The digital clock on the nightstand splashed a faint light across the room, just enough to see her phone sitting there. Seventeen missed voicemails. Seriously? Who even bothers with that these days? Still half-asleep, she figured it was probably junk, or some wrong number deal. But this nagging feeling kept poking at her, something she couldn’t quite shake off. Plus, the number looked like it was from around here. Against her better judgment, she hit play. A gravelly voice, all rough and anxious, filled the room. “Stay away from the library archives, got it? Don’t go back. It’s not safe, not one bit.” She scrunched up her face. The library archives? That place felt like a maze, all those old books and dusty shelves. She was just down there last week, looking up some stuff in the old newspapers. The place was always empty. But this warning, it made her stomach flip a bit. She tapped the screen, playing the next message. This time, the guy sounded even more panicked. “You don’t know what you’re messing with. They’ll see you… just drop it, okay? Let it stay forgotten.” Her heart started to race. The third voicemail made her drop the phone like it was hot. His voice was a shaky mix of terror and twisted laughter. “You’re just like her. Always poking your nose where it doesn’t belong. She didn’t listen either, and look what happened.” Her chest felt tight, like someone squeezed it. Then, a short pause, and one word… “Anita,” she whispered, the name catching in her throat. Anita Langley, her best friend since they were kids. Gone. Missing for five years now. Last time anyone saw her, she was headed to the very same library archives for some research project. Everyone just assumed she’d run off. But her parents, they never bought it. And neither did she. Anita was way too smart, way too driven to just vanish. Message number four: “They know everything, all the time. Don’t go looking. Just let it go. You’re not ready.” All of a sudden, the room felt way too small. Like the walls were closing in. She replayed the messages, trying to make sense of the jumbled warnings. Each one sounded more desperate than the last. By the seventh message, the guy was practically whispering, like he was hiding in a closet somewhere. “She thought she was smarter than them… thought she was safe... don’t make the same mistake.” Her hands were shaking now. She slid out of bed, clutching the phone like a lifeline. Her reflection in the darkened window looked pale, eyes wide and uncertain. The archives. Even with the warnings screaming in her head, she couldn’t shake the feeling, an itch she had to scratch. She thought of Anita’s smile, the way she always scribbled notes in the margins of books, the night she disappeared. As soon as night fell, she found herself standing at the basement door of the university library, her keycard in hand. The air down here was damp and cold, smelling like dust, old paper, and something else… something like mold and old rainwater. Her footsteps echoed way too loud in the quiet. The shelves cast long, weird shadows, and every little noise made her jump. She could hear creaks and thumps from somewhere, maybe the building shifting, maybe not. Then she noticed it. A cardboard box tucked away under a shelf, like someone was trying to hide it. The label read, Uncatalogued – 2000-2005. Her hands trembled as she pulled it out. Inside, there was a bunch of old papers, scribbled notes, and a worn-out notebook. The name on the cover hit her like a punch to the gut: Anita Langley. Her heart was pounding. She flipped through the pages, filled with frantic handwriting. They erased important docs everywhere, Why? Who would do this? Library not giving access to critical info. One line was underlined: Corruption. Missing files. Names covered up. A scraping sound made her freeze. Footsteps. Heavy and slow. Not her own echo on the concrete floor. She pressed herself against the shelf, barely breathing. The steps stopped close by. A muffled sound, then… silence. Her ears were ringing; the world around her turned to white noise. She grabbed the notebook and slipped out the back exit and ran, her shoes slapping the wet pavement outside. Back in her apartment, she spread the notebook on her desk under the dim light of a lamp. Names, dates, shady deals. A whole network of lies that Anita had been trying to expose, and that someone wanted to keep buried. The smell of old paper mixed with her own sweat. Her phone vibrated. Message number eighteen. Her fingers fumbled as she hit play. The same gravelly voice, now barely a whisper: “You didn’t listen. I told you to drop it. And now it is too late.” The hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She stared at the notebook, then at her reflection in the window. The city outside was bright and loud, but here, the air was getting thick and heavy. She had a bad feeling, like someone was watching, was always a step behind. She couldn’t back down now. Anita’s disappearance, the warnings, the notebook, this all deserved answers. She flipped to a marked page with the names of officials, hidden transactions, erased cases. Her fingers traced the ink. She gasped. A floorboard creaked somewhere in her apartment. She froze. Footsteps outside her bedroom door, slow and heavy, were getting closer. Her heart pounding, she grabbed the notebook and dove under the bed which felt like she was drowning. The shadows in the hallway shifted. The doorknob rattled once, then stopped. Nothing. She let out a shaky breath of relief, but her hands still trembled from fear. She wasn’t okay. No. Her phone buzzed again. Another voicemail. Number nineteen. She couldn’t bring herself to listen to it—not now. Deep down, a little voice, a whisper said: “Anita didn’t know what she was playing with, and now you do too.” The ticking clock felt too loud. Like a countdown. Outside, the city moved on, but in her room, the night felt like a threat. The notebook lay open, a hidden map to somewhere, its pages whispering danger. With a shiver of fear and grim determination, she knew there was no going back.

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Ellie90

Ella-Marie Anderson

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