The first thing I noticed was the smell: Not the normal smell of the gym socks and cafeteria pizza that usually filled Jefferson Middle school, but something sharp, like burnt plastic.
It happened on a Tuesday morning, right before first period. Kids crowded the hallway, laughing, shoving, and complaining about homework until a piercing alarm cut through the noise. Red lights flashed overhead, and everyone froze.
“Fire drill?” someone guessed. But it wasn’t on the schedule.
We filed outside anyway, teachers waving us along, but Principal Harlow looked … nervous. She kept checking her watch, muttering into a walkie-talkie.
Then I saw it. A thin trail of smoke was curling out of the window from the science wing.
The fire trucks came, and everyone assumed it was some experiment gone wrong. But when we were finally allowed back in, the hallway was taped off, and the whispers started.
“Someone set it on purpose.”
“They found chemicals in the trash.”
“Mr. Barlow’s classroom got broken into.”
By lunch, the whole school was buzzing.
That’s when I noticed the first clue. A single piece of paper lay crumpled on the floor near the vending machines. Nobody else seemed to care, so I picked it up. Half of it was burned, but I could still read the words:
“The experiment isn’t finished.”
I showed it to my best friend Malik. His eyes widened.
“Bro. That’s creepy.”
“It has to mean something,” I whispered.
We spent the rest of lunch piecing it together. Someone had broken into the science lab, started a fire, and left this note behind. But why?
After school, we snuck back inside. The hallway was still taped off, but Malik dared me to check the trash bins nearby. That’s when we found clue number two: an empty bottle of lighter fluid shoved deep inside.
“Someone definitely planned this,” I said.
We heard footsteps and ducked behind the lockers. A tall figure in a hoodie slipped into the science wing, moving fast. I caught a glimpse of something shiny in their hand before the door shut.
“Who was that?” Malik hissed.
We didn’t wait to find out. Instead, we came back the next morning before anyone else. At Mr. Barlow’s desk sat a glass container filled with cloudy liquid. A sticky note clung to the side of it.
“Step two tonight.”
The final clue came later that day. A message appeared on the whiteboard in permanent marker:
“Knowledge is power, and power must be tested,”
The teachers tried to scrub it off, but it stayed.
That night, Malik texted me a blurry photo. It showed the hooded figure again captured from a security camera outside the school. The face was hidden, but I recognized the backpack.
My heart pounded. It wasn’t a stranger.
It was someone in our grade.
And tomorrow night, they were planning “Step two.”
I barely slept that night. Every time I closed my eyes, I saw that backpack. Bright blue, with one broken zipper and a dangling keychain shaped like a lightning bolt.
It belonged to Ryan Carter …
