The video flickered.
The audio was low, muffled, like he was speaking through cloth.
But his voice was clear.
"If you're seeing this… you're not supposed to be."
He paused. Swallowed.
"And if they find out you've seen it, they'll say I never said it. That it's fake. That I was unstable. That I made it up."
A bitter laugh.
"They've already started."
He looked older than the photos. Tired. One eye slightly swollen, like he'd been hit.
"This isn't a suicide note."
He leaned forward.
"It's a testimony."
I didn't move. Didn't breathe.
"The Index isn't about ranking students. It's about breaking them. Not all at once. Not with force. With time. With silence. They don't expel the ones who resist. They isolate them. Overload them. Make them doubt their own mind until they walk out — or jump."
He tapped his temple.
"They call it 'recalibration.' It's not therapy. It's programming. They use the earpieces to send low-frequency pulses — not loud enough to hear, but enough to disrupt sleep, to make you anxious, to make you doubt what you see."
My hand went to the side of my head.
The place where I'd been having headaches.
The place where the earpiece sat.
"I didn't fall," he said.
"I was pushed. Not by a person. By the system. By the silence. By the way everyone looked away. By the way my own thoughts started turning against me."
He looked straight into the camera.
"They want you to think the Alpha is the most powerful person in this school. He's not. The Alpha is the most controlled. He's the example. The proof that the system works. And if you challenge it, they'll use him to break you."
A pause.
Then, softer:
"But there's one thing they can't erase. Not completely. Memory. Truth. What we saw. What we know."
He reached off-screen, picked up a small notebook.
"I wrote it all down. Names. Dates. Files. Where they keep the backups. Who's really in charge. It's not Dr. Moss. She's just the face. The real control comes from outside. From the Apex Circle."
He looked at the camera one last time.
"If you're watching this… you're already on their list. You won't be able to stop digging. And they won't stop trying to stop you."
He stood.
"So don't fight them fair. Don't leave a trail. Don't trust the rankings. Don't trust the silence."
Then, quiet:
"And if you can… get it out. Not for me. For the next one."
The screen went black.
I sat there.
Long after the file ended.
No music. No alarms.
Just the hum of the servers.
The cold floor beneath me.
The weight of a truth I could no longer un-know.
I reached into my pocket.
Pulled out the penlight.
Turned it on.
Went back to the terminal.
Opened the folder again.
There were more files.
Backups.
Logs.
One labeled:
/Apex/Circle_Members_Internal.xlsx
I didn't open it.
Not yet.
Instead, I pulled out the tiny drive I'd brought — black, unmarked, bought with cash in the city before I came.
Plugged it in.
Copied everything.
Took it out.
Put it in my shoe.
Then I looked at the screen one last time.
Typed a single line into a new document:
They wanted a system that couldn't be broken.
I'll be the flaw they didn't see coming.
Saved it.
Deleted the file.
Shut down the terminal.
I was standing when I saw it.
On the edge of the desk — half-hidden under a stack of printouts.
A sticky note.
Handwritten.
Familiar handwriting.
3.72
Watch the watcher.
And beneath it, a single initial:
K
I took it.
Left the same way I came.
No lights.
No sound.
When I reached my room, I taped the note beside the mirror, next to LUA.
Then I sat on the bed.
Didn't sleep.
Waited for morning.
Because now, I wasn't just running from them.
I was running toward something.
And this time —
I wasn't alone.