FINDING HER

Episode 3:The New Era

Are you telling me you got trapped in a secret society vault?” Hank asked, wide-eyed, as they regrouped in the dorms.

“Almost trapped,” Brad corrected, “but yes.”

Dorothy paced. “It’s reacting to us. That box, the orb, the door closing—it’s testing us, maybe.”

“Like we triggered some kind of ancient protocol,” Jane added, flipping through her journal. “The Ember Order must’ve built safeguards. This is deliberate.”

Helena sat quietly, the monocle still in her hand. “It showed me messages on the wall. One said, ‘The first trial is awareness.’”

“Trial?” Brad repeated. “So what, this is a game?”

“Or an initiation,” Alan said. “They left the room behind for someone like us. Someone curious enough to find it.”

But something else was happening.

Around campus, odd things began to surface.

An old professor in the history department was found unconscious in his office, a burned symbol on the floor beside him. A first-year student claimed to have seen a figure in a black cloak watching from the bell tower late at night. And Violet—who had always kept her cool—started asking pointed questions she never used to care about.

“Where’s that ring you found?” she asked Brad one night.

“I lost it,” he lied.

She narrowed her eyes. “Be careful, Brad. There are things in this place that don’t want to be remembered.”

By the end of the second week, Jane had cracked part of the code in the parchments.

“It’s a map,” she said one night in the library, spreading it across a reading table. “Of the college, but not the one we know. There are tunnels, hidden doors, and markers labeled with Latin names. One says ‘Thalamus Ignis.’”

“Chamber of Flame,” Alan translated. “That must be the room we found.”

“But look here,” she pointed to another marking near the library basement. “This one says ‘Oculus Dormiens’—Sleeping Eye.”

They decided to investigate that night.

While Hank kept watch near the basement doors, the others followed the map through an old maintenance crawlspace. Helena led the way with the monocle, spotting a hidden glyph etched into a bookcase panel. Alan pressed it—and the shelf swung inward with a soft click.

They found themselves in a room even older than the last.

Dust coated everything, but the walls were lined with books that hummed faintly with energy. A large circular table sat in the center, with twelve carved seats—each bearing the mark of the flaming eye.

“Another Ember Order meeting room,” Dorothy whispered.

But unlike the last one, this chamber felt... awake.

There was no orb here. No box. Just a single book resting on the table, leather-bound and sealed with a bronze clasp.

Jane opened it carefully.

The first page was blank—until Helena raised the monocle.

Then words appeared:

“Knowledge is the first flame. Loyalty is the second.”

And below it, in smaller print:

“To ascend, one must sacrifice.”

The line from the Ember book stayed with them for days: To ascend, one must sacrifice. No one wanted to say it out loud, but they all felt the weight of it.

“What kind of sacrifice?” Dorothy asked in the common room that night. “Time? Secrets? Blood?”

“Hopefully not the last one,” Brad muttered, chewing his thumbnail.

Jane was already buried in the book, transcribing passages. “It says the second flame tests unity. Which means this next trial isn’t about what we can do as individuals—it’s about what we can endure together.”

Alan leaned back in his chair. “Great. So the ancient secret society wants to test our friendship.”

“I don’t think they care about our friendship,” Helena said softly. “They care about loyalty to the truth.”

The monocle had stopped revealing messages in the old chamber. Whatever magic or technology powered it seemed to have gone dormant—waiting for the next step.

That’s when everything started to shift.

One by one, the group members began receiving letters. Slipped under their doors. Typed. Unsigned. Each one different.

Helena’s read:

“The people closest to you know how to hurt you best. Be careful who you trust.”

Dorothy’s said:

“Not all knowledge brings freedom. Sometimes, it brings chains.”

Brad’s was short.

“You’re being watched.”

And Alan’s letter was blank—but when held to candlelight, a symbol appeared: the flaming eye, crossed out.

They met that night in the library, shaken.

“This is part of the trial,” Jane said grimly. “It’s psychological. Divide and conquer.”

“It’s working,” Helena said. “I don’t know who left those. But someone wants us to turn on each other.”

Brad slammed his fist on the table. “Why? What do they want?”

No one had an answer. But they all felt it: something—or someone—was pushing them. Watching. Waiting for them to fracture.

It was late when Brad got back to the dorms that night. The hall was quiet, the kind of silence that stretched too long. As he reached for the doorknob, he felt a hand grab his shoulder.

Violet.

She dragged him into the stairwell and shut the door behind them.

“What the hell is going on?” she demanded. “I know you’ve been down there. I know about the ring, the door, the Order.”

Brad blinked. “How—”

“Because I went through the first trial too,” she said. “Two years ago.”

His heart dropped.

“You…?”

“I found the chamber. I passed the first trial. But I failed the second. I lost someone because of it. The Order doesn’t just test you. It tears you apart. It watches how far you're willing to go to find the truth—and who you’re willing to leave behind.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I thought I could protect you. But now it’s too late. You’ve already been chosen.”

Brad sat on the cold steps, stunned.

Violet leaned in. “You need to be careful. There’s more than one group down there. The Ember Order wasn’t the only one using those chambers. Some of the older students—some professors—still believe in the power beneath this college.”

“And you think they’re watching us?”

“I know they are. I was warned too.”

She handed him a folded note. The same type he’d received.

This one said:

“The second trial begins when you break the first bond.”

The next morning, Alan was gone.

No messages. No calls. His bed untouched. His books still on his desk.

Dorothy panicked first, then Helena. Jane and Brad checked every corner of the college. Hank asked around the student café. No one had seen Alan since midnight.

When they regrouped, Brad pulled Violet’s note from his pocket and read it again.

The second trial begins when you break the first bond.

They all stared at the words.

“He’s part of the test,” Helena whispered. “They’ve taken him.”

Jane stood slowly. “Or he left to protect us.”

Brad’s fists clenched. “I don’t care what this trial is. I’m getting him back.”

Dorothy nodded. “We’re not breaking. That’s what they want.”

Helena slipped the monocle into her pocket. “Then we find the third chamber. And we finish this trial before it finishes us.”

They didn’t see the figure watching them from across the courtyard. Cloaked. Unmoving.

But someone else did.

Violet.

She watched the watcher.

And this time, she wasn’t going to let them take another person she loved.