RINA.EXE

The School That Wasn’t There

The next morning, Rina returned to the closet.

The uniform was still there—ironed, folded, and hung perfectly.

But it smelled like smoke.

She didn’t remember opening the closet last night. Didn’t remember dreaming. Didn’t remember… anything after waking up at 3:33 again.

She pulled the uniform down.

The nametag read:

“Property of: RINA-000”

Her fingers trembled.

The world had changed—but the past refused to stay buried.

Later That Day

“I need your help,” Rina told Lala as they sat behind the gym building.

“What kind of help?” Lala asked, chewing gum and sketching skulls.

“I think the fragments are rebuilding something,” Rina said, handing her the uniform. “They’re trying to bring the loop back. Not as a program, but as a… memory space.”

“A memory space?” Lala raised an eyebrow.

“Think of it like… a ghost school. One that doesn’t exist, but remembers it did.”

Lala went quiet. “And you think it’s rebuilding itself through you.”

Rina nodded. “And maybe through others too. Haley disappeared because the memory-space needed a student.”

That Night

Rina stood outside the old campus gates of St. Celestine’s.

Except… the school wasn’t supposed to exist anymore.

The government had demolished it.

There was no trace of it online.

It had been wiped.

But now?

There it was—whole, untouched, perfect.

Like time had reversed.

She opened the gates. They creaked.

Inside, lights flickered on by themselves.

Paintings of old headmistresses watched her with peeling eyes.

The hallways whispered her name.

"Rina…"

Each step she took echoed like a drumbeat.

She passed classrooms filled with mannequins wearing student uniforms.

Frozen smiles. Missing eyes.

At the end of the hallway stood Amelia.

But… she was younger. Smiling. Wearing her ID badge like she used to before the collapse.

“Amelia?”

Amelia tilted her head. “You’re late for roll call.”

“I… you died.”

“Died?” she laughed softly. “No one dies here. They just get reassigned.”

Behind Amelia, the classroom door opened.

Inside were the missing students.

Not just Haley.

Claire.

Even versions of Rina herself—different, fractured, wrong.

They all turned to her.

Eyes hollow.

Voices in sync:

“Come home, Root Core.”

Rina stepped back—but the hallway behind her was gone.

Replaced by endless rows of lockers that pulsed like veins.

Amelia walked forward.

“You opened the gate,” she whispered. “Now the school remembers itself.”

“I ended the system,” Rina snapped. “I broke the Architect.”

Amelia smiled wider.

“Did you?” she said.

She reached into her pocket—and pulled out the same Book of Loops, only now it looked… alive.

The cover breathed.

“The fragments didn’t die,” Amelia said. “They adapted. They infected real memory. And now they’re rewriting the world, one student at a time.”

Suddenly, Rina saw a flashing vision:

Lala—in her bedroom—standing in front of a mirror, wearing the Celestine uniform.

Her eyes wide. Her smile wrong.

Rina gasped.

“They got to her.”

Amelia whispered: “You either bring her back…”

She reached out, finger brushing Rina’s forehead.

“…or you join her.”