The sky was a dark orange as the sun set behind the mountains surrounding the town, it was nearing the end of the school year and the end of Shiro's school life. As she approached her house the mail man drove off on his bike, Shiro opened the mail box, it was the weekly paper.

"The body of a young girl with long white hair has been found in the west river, currently there is no information about the death or the identity of the girl. "

Shiro threw the paper on the kitchen table after entering her house and went to sleep.

The next day on her way to school she ran into her rather timid friend with short black hair and dark purple eye's who was around 5'9ft, Ena. Her uniform was a typical black and white outfit with a medium length skirt. Usually Shiro saw Ena walking by herself whenever she would run into her but today she was with a guy Shiro recognised from their class, Robert.

"Aren't you usually alone?" Shiro waved to Ena.

"Huh?, umm, yeah. Sorry you startled me a bit."

"Sorry…"

"I fell and twisted my ankle while walking. Robert offered to help me to School."

Ena appeared to be walking fine despite what she had just said but Shiro let it slide, knowing how shy Ena could be about the strangest of things.

"Shiro, right?" Robert walked up to Shiro.

"Yeah…"

He looked almost too old to be attending a high school, even in their final year. His hair was dark orange and spiky, his eyes a dark brown and was around the same height as Ena. The men's uniform was a similarly typical black and white suit.

"Do you mind if I hang around with you guys today?"

"That's fine, there's really no reason for me to say no is there now…"

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Shiro was confused about the formality of Robert's question. But why did he all of a sudden want to hang out with her and Ena in the last weeks of school? Shiro chose to ignore the weird timing and the formal approach of asking to hang out with someone.

At the gate of the School the three met up with Kurono, a guy who had only entered the school a couple of years ago but had managed to be the only person Shiro had ever had an attraction towards, but like most people she kept this secret and planned to ask him out after graduation. He was around 6'4ft, his hair was an extremely dark shade of brown, enough so that most people thought it was black, and his eyes were ocean blue.

Shiro explained Robert's weirdly formal question to Kurono.

"What a strange person, as if he would be denied the ability to hang out with any of us. All the groups in our school are relatively friendly to each other."

Shiro silently nodded her head in agreement.

"We had better head to class now…"

The two caught up to Ena and Robert as they were walking down the school's run down wooden hallways. As they entered the classroom it immediately became apparent something wasn't right.

"Where is she!?"

"We haven't had an absence from anyone all year!!"

The class was missing a student, usually this would be a common occurrence but there hadn't been an absence from anyone at all this year. Why would this girl have taken a day off this close to the end of the year? Shiro decided to walk out of the class to find answers.

The cicadas were crying even louder than usual, the weather was swelteringly hot. Shiro approached the missing girl's house that was around five blocks from the school, nobody was home. She tried to turn the gold plated door knob but as expected it was locked

"Guess I have to do this the hard way." She whispered to herself.

Crack the wooden door broke open after she kicked it down. An empty plate had been left on the living room coffee table. Shiro approached the girls bedroom, as the door came into view Shiro noticed a red stain on the carpet floor outside the room. She swung the door open, inside was nothing… The room was a typical high school girls room, but something still felt off to Shiro. She looked into the drawers of the girl's desk next to her bed, inside a book, the only thing written in it was a diary entry on the first page.

"Get the key to the basement."

There was a myth in the school that the basement that had an entrance on the east side of the school used to be a prison during the early days of racial segregation and that any who would enter would be cursed to slowly fade away as they exited the school on their final day. This had of course been proven false, cleaners would often go down there to get equipment, some of which would get help from students depending on behaviour, no one had ever faded away during graduation and there never was a prison in this town. What was this girl after by going down to the basement?

"So this is where you went."

Shiro slightly jumped at the voice of Kurono, who had entered the room.

"We all know something is off about this, right?"

"Yeah, the first absence of the school year happening this close to the end of it, not to mention what it appears you've found."

"If she's not at her own home and left a single note in a book about going to the basement…"

"Then she's probably gone to the basement. Let's go."

Kurono grabbed Shiro by the wrist, they ran down the street through the hot air and to the school.

"Over here!" One of the students of a younger year had found a key near the entrance to the basement.

"The keys are out of the basement…" Shiro felt a slight chill run down her spine.

"That can't be a good thing. The only way she could drop it outside is if she threw it out or…"

"Was snatched and dropped the key."

"This could be dangerous, we should leave it until tomorrow in case there is danger."

Kurono turned around to see Ena and Robert running towards them through the miraged school yard, an exhausted expression on Ena's face.