The First Warning
224 Words
The next morning, Airi returned to the library before classes began.
The old book was gone.
In its place lay a folded piece of paper.
STOP SEARCHING.
Airi read the words twice.
She looked around.
No one was there.
Instead of obeying, she opened the family archive hidden behind the
library's restricted shelves. Her Takamori name gave her access, though
she had never been encouraged to use it.
The first records mentioned four families.
Takamori.
Kurogawa.
Shirakawa.
Amemiya.
Beneath their names was the same moon symbol.
Airi copied it into her notebook.
Then she found something stranger.
A sentence had been scratched out of an old record.
THE GUARDIAN RETURNS WHEN THE MOON REMEMBERS.
She was still reading when Ren arrived.
“You found something.”
“Yes.”
He noticed the warning on the table.
“Someone knows we're looking.”
Airi nodded.
Ren's voice lowered. “Then we should stop.”
She looked at him.
“Do you want to?”
He hesitated.
“No.”
Airi closed the notebook.
“Neither do I.”
They left the archive together.
At the end of the corridor, a woman in a dark coat stood watching them.
When Airi turned again, she was gone.
Only a single sentence remained written on the wall in wet black ink:
THE FIRST WARNING WAS NOT THE LAST
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