A Student
1203 Words
Mr. Renny placed the cup in front of me with that same too-kind smile.
“Chamomile,” he said. “Good for thinking clearly.”
I gave a polite nod, but didn’t sip.
He sat across from me, folded his hands.
“So,” he said, “what is it you wanted to talk about?”
I smiled, tilting my head.
“Well, I’ve been thinking a lot about how people are remembered—how literature preserves people. The ones who go unnoticed.”
He raised an eyebrow. “Go on.”
“And how... sometimes students leave more behind than just answers in exams. Like, stories. Patterns. Things you don’t forget.”
His eyes narrowed—just slightly. “Is this still about literature?”
“Sort of.”
I leaned forward, casually.
“Do you remember a student named Yara? My sister.”
He blinked.
Pause.
Then answered, “I told you—I don’t.”
“You scratched out a name starting with Y on your notepad,” I said calmly. “Right before you brought the tea.”
His jaw tightened.
“That’s private. And you’re very observant.”
I didn’t smile this time.
“Was she your student? Or was one of your students involved in what happened to her?”
Silence.
Then he exhaled—slow, heavy.
“There are things I knew back then… things I wasn’t supposed to see.”
I sat up straighter.
He didn’t look at me. Just stared at the cup in his hands.
“They were too smart. Too quiet. You think you’re tracking one monster, but sometimes the monster is... many people in different masks.”
My breath caught.
I opened my mouth to press him, but he stood up.
“I think that’s enough literature for today.”
And walked toward the hallway—toward that locked room.
As Mr. Renny disappeared down the hallway, I stood up—silent, light-footed.
I hadn’t come all this way for tea and cryptic riddles.
His words haunted me. “The monster is many people in different masks.”
What did that even mean? Who was he protecting?
I walked toward the locked door.
The hallway was quiet, the wood floors creaking softly under my steps. I reached the handle and tried it gently.
Locked.
But the key—
It was still in the lock.
He must’ve forgotten it in his carefulness. Or maybe he underestimated me.
Big mistake.
I turned it slowly, heart thudding.
Click.
The door opened.
A rush of cold air hit my face. Like the room hadn’t been touched in months.
I stepped in.
Dim lighting. Books. Boxes. A file cabinet.
And on the far wall—photos. Pinned. Some old. Some recent.
And there—
In the center—
A photo of Yara.
Not a school photo. Not one from our house.
One I’d never seen before.
Yara, standing somewhere outside, looking over her shoulder—caught off guard.
The photo was dated: 5 days before her death.
I barely heard the footsteps behind me.
“Liv,” Mr. Renny’s voice said, quiet and sharp, “you shouldn’t be in here.”
I turned around slowly, trying to keep my expression calm.
“Then why do you have a picture of my dead sister on your wall?”
I didn’t panic.
My hand moved fast—snap.
Photo taken. The wall. The photos. Yara.
I turned back to Mr. Renny, now standing in the doorway.
“You’re going to tell me everything,” I said calmly, my voice steady but sharp.
He didn’t move.
“You’ve got photos of my sister. Notes. A locked room. And now you're saying she wasn’t your student?”
He exhaled, shoulders tensing—but I noticed the flicker of fear.
“You’re stronger than you look,” he muttered.
He wasn’t wrong.
Every night for months, I had trained—quiet, hidden, patient. I wasn’t just the girl with notebooks and questions anymore.
“I’m not afraid of you,” I said.
“I don’t want you to be.”
He stepped aside.
“She wasn’t my student, Liv. She wasn’t on any official roll. But she came to me. Once. For help. She said someone was following her. Said she found something she shouldn’t have. I told her to go to the police.”
My blood froze.
“But she didn’t,” he continued. “She came back once more. A week before she died. Said she’d fixed it. That it was over.”
His voice cracked slightly.
“She was wrong.”
I stared at him, trying to read the truth through the weight of guilt in his voice.
“So you hid all this?” I asked. “Why?”
“Because I don’t know who’s involved. And I didn’t know if you'd be next.”
Too late for that.
I took a step closer.
“Then help me,” I said. “Before the next note comes.”
I didn’t sit.
I stood in front of Mr. Renny, blocking the door, holding the photo tight in one hand and my phone in the other—still recording.
“You said earlier,” I said, voice controlled, “you couldn’t remember the name of the student who was obsessed with chemistry.”
He nodded once. “Yes.”
“But you remembered his handwriting.”
Tiny. Precise. Secretive.
“And now you tell me you remember Yara coming to you. Twice.”
He looked down.
“Start connecting the dots, Renny. Right now.”
He hesitated—then slowly walked to the desk and pulled open a drawer. From it, he took out a yellowed envelope.
Inside: a sheet of notebook paper, folded neatly.
“I kept this,” he said. “Not because of the content. Because of how it was written.”
He handed it to me.
The handwriting was exactly how he described. Precise. Clean. Small.
Each letter spaced like it had something to hide.
I took out my phone and pulled up one of the screenshots from the case file article edits I had received—the ones that had been sent to me anonymously.
I compared them.
Same spacing. Same style.
Same person.
“I’ve seen this before,” I whispered.
Renny’s eyes widened slightly. “You’ve been getting messages?”
“Not messages. Warnings. Death threats. Edited articles about my sister—with this exact writing hidden in the metadata.”
He swallowed hard.
“Who is this person, Renny? You’ve seen that writing. Match it. Name him.”
His face changed then. Something clicked.
He whispered the name—quiet, haunted.
“Elias Trent.”
A student he once taught. Brilliant. Quiet. Vanished after graduation.
Moved often. No fixed address. No online footprint. Obsessed with chemistry. Known for his experiments. Got into trouble once—but it was hushed.
And Yara?
“She mentioned that name,” Renny added. “When she came to me. Said he was watching her. Said he knew things she didn’t even tell you.”
I stared at the page.
Elias Trent.
The foul player. The watcher.
Maybe the killer.
And now... I had a name.
- Writer
