Chapter 2:

Footprints

Those Summer Nights


A strong light. Voices. People I don't know.

Where am I?

There's a man in front of me and he looks pretty serious. No, it's two men.

I look around me, but I can’t really make out anything.

“What were you doing…”, a voice says while fading away.

“… we looked the entire scene…”, the voice continues, but my brain doesn't seem to process anything.

What is happening here?

"Please answer!"

I close my eyes, I cover my ears with my hands and I lower my head.

Leave me alone! I wanna go home…

The light seems to fade away and I open my eyes again. Now I’m somewhere else. The dark sky above, and a girl standing in front of me.

She is…

She starts to speak, but the voice that comes out isn’t hers.

"Didn't you kill her?"


I wake up suddenly, scared. My breathing is heavy and I'm all sweaty.

Another nightmare.

As I compose myself, the smartphone’s alarm keeps ringing, indicating that a new day is starting, a new Monday.

The school canceled Saturday’s classes, so today will be the first day there after what happened last week.

But I don't want to attend class.

I don’t want to go to school.

I want someone to show up and say that everything was a lie. An hallucination of mine.

But reality isn't kind

Mei is dead.


To make matters worse, I was the last one to see her alive. And she was murdered in the short time between me seeing her going upstairs and my arrival at the rooftop door.

Short time? Was it really short? For how long did I keep looking at the stairs trying to figure out why Mei was there?

Mei's death was quick: a merciless stabbing in her stomach. A likely unexpected attack, taking away any chance of reaction. The murder weapon was found on the rooftop itself, near the door. The criminal was careful to not leave his fingerprints.

I was the one who alerted the night guard about the murder and I waited for the police to arrive, yet I'm clearly the prime suspect.

After the incident, I was questioned for hours and hours by two detectives. One of them said he believed in me, that he wanted to be my friend and wanted me to help him, but the trauma was so great I can't even remember his name. However, that doesn't matter. It's an act. He was probably pretending to be on my side. Because… it was written all over the other detective's face that he didn't believe me.

But… why would I kill Mei?

We were just classmates. What I really wanted was to talk more with her, but that is impossible now. She’s gone. A cruel and meaningless ending.

I leave my bed, and wash my terrible face. The incident really affected me and I haven’t had a good night of sleep since.

After that, I finish my morning routine and it’s time to go to school.

In the way, Tama appears meowing at me, but I ignore him. Today I’m not in the mood. And it’s not only me, the atmosphere in the school is heavy and a lot of people are looking at me while I make my way to the classroom trying to ignore what they’re saying.

“It’s him, right?”

“Yeah, he found her dead.”

“Maybe he really killed her.”

“This is scary… A killer coming to our school.”

When I finally arrive there, a girl is crying at her desk and another one is trying to comfort her. They’re the same girls who were talking with Mei last Friday. When the one not crying sees me, she comes in my direction, grabs my left hand and pulls me outside.

“I need to speak with you.”

If I’m not mistaken, the girl’s name is Sakura.

We stop at an empty spot in the hallway, she looks into my face and bows before me.

“Please, if you have any idea of who would do that to Mei, tell me! She didn’t make anything wrong! Why did she have to die!?”

For a moment, I thought she would blame me, but no, she was begging for my help. But I can’t do anything for her.

“I’m sorry… I don’t know anything.”

She raises her head and speaks again. “She didn’t said anything to me about coming to the school that night, so… No, I’m sorry for this. It’s obvious you wouldn’t know anything.”

In the school, Sakura was always with Mei, so I think it’s strange for Mei to hide something from a big friend. Now I’m curious.

“Did she do anything strange last Friday?”, I ask.

“Strange? Huh… During the club activities, she was a little distracted, lost in thoughts. I asked her about that, but she said it was nothing. Ah, we hid that together, but…”

Lost in thoughts? Hid?

“Forget it! Let’s return, the teacher should arrive soon! And let’s exchange our phone numbers and addresses! If you discover anything, tell me as soon as possible, I’ll do the same!”, she says while getting her phone from her pocket.

“Sure. But can I ask something first?”, I say getting my phone too.

“Of course.”, she answers while getting my phone from my hand.

“Don’t you think I can be the killer?”

She laughs. “Impossible! I know that would never happen! And… Done! Now we can talk easily! So, see you later!”, and she returns to the classroom after giving back my phone.

I keep looking at her trying to process what she just said. Why does she trust me so much? I can’t answer that, so I just return to the classroom too.

As soon as I sit in my desk, Hayato whispers to me, “What was that for?”

“She only wanted to know what really happened Friday, and we exchanged phone numbers.”

Before we could continue our conversation, the teacher arrived and the class started.


Lunch break. Like I imagined, the stairs leading to the rooftop door are blocked, so we’re sitting under a tree in the schoolyard. Hayato, Naoto and I are eating sandwiches while Hina is eating “real” food.

“It’s still hard to believe. No one else was found in the school when the cops arrived.”, Hina said.

“While Souma is the prime suspect, I’m in a bad position too! I stayed here until some minutes before the crime.”, Hayato said with his mouth full.

“I still can’t believe you didn’t see Mei at all.”, I commented.

“Not my fault. And that makes things worse for me, because I was still in the school when she arrived.”

“Huh... Let’s put things together.”, Naoto said. “After Hayato left the classroom he went to the bathroom in the first floor. While he was there, Mei arrived and probably went directly to the rooftop. Souma saw Mei going upstairs and went to check on her, finding her dead. Souma went to call Akira just to find him already in the building.”

“He saw Mei arriving in the school running and went to see why.”, I said.

”Huh…”, Naoto puts his left hand in his chin and thinks for a moment. “And when Hayato truly left the school, no one saw him. I wish we knew how much time passed during some of those events.”

“Wait, doesn’t saying like that make me really suspicious?!”, Hayato said raising his voice a bit.

“Sorry I didn’t want to make it sound like that. Still, the killer had some very small opportunities to escape.”

“It’s true. If you think about it, Mei was killed while Souma was in the stairs. I think it’s safe to say that the killer was still in the rooftop when Souma went to see what Mei was doing.”, Hina said while looking at the sky.

I had completely forgotten about that detail. No, I was just trying to not think about it. While I was there beside Mei, the killer was watching from the darkness. What would have happened if I had arrived when the killer was leaving the rooftop? I would be probably dead too.

Naoto adjusts his glasses. “Mei arrived in the rooftop and the killer stabbed her on the spot. Then, the killer tried to escape but saw someone moving in the stairs, so the killer hid in the darkness. When Souma finally went to check on Mei, the killer used this window to escape while avoiding being caught by Akira who was in his way. It’s something really difficult to pull off, no wonder Souma is in a bad spot.”

“That’s why I wanted to find anything that could help me.”, I said.

“I will speak with the girls from our class to see if I can find anything, I know the police probably already did this, but maybe they missed something.”, Hina said.

“So let’s do some investigation?”, Hayato questioned.

“If that helps you guys get some peace of mind, let’s do it.”, Naoto affirmed.

“All right! Let’s do this!”, I said getting a bit excited.

But speaking of investigating things… Sakura said they hid something…

Before I could think or say anything, the lunch break ended and we returned to the classroom.

During the class, I couldn’t pay attention in anything, I kept thinking about everything that happened. And Sakura was the biggest question in my head.

I think she is hiding something.

When the teacher ended the class telling everyone to go straight to their homes, my eyes searched for Sakura, only to find her leaving the class as fast a possible. Just to make me even more curious.

Without any other option, I leave the school with my friends, but in the end I didn’t tell them about what Sakura said. I really want to talk with her first. So when we partted our ways, I grabbed my phone and sent a message to Sakura asking her if we could talk.

After five minutes waiting for a reply that never came, I sighed and returned to my empty home.


Some hours passed... Still nothing.

I couldn’t relax, so I’m scribbling some random thoughts in a piece of paper. But in the end, I can’t think of anything. I wasn’t a friend of Mei, so no matter how hard I try, I can’t find anything that would make someone want to kill her. Well, in truth, there’s one very stupid but plausible option: A guy confessed to her and she turned him down, the guy didn’t like that and killed her.

It’s a really stupid reason to kill someone, but it’s not impossible. Still, there’s no way I could think of anyone who could’ve confessed to her.


10:50 pm. A message from Sakura. I want to talk with you in person, I’m going to your house now.

I really wanted a reply from her, but I wasn’t expecting something like this. What is so important she needs to come to my house? Why did she wait so much to reply?

My mind is filled with questions, but for now I can only wait, so I go to the kitchen to prepare some tea. I’m living alone right now, my parents are traveling abroad because of they job. A really bad time to not have them here.

11:10 pm. Sakura didn’t send any other message and she has yet to arrive. I send a message asking if it’s everything ok.

11:15 pm. No reply. Strange.

11:18 pm. I look outside from the window. Not single soul there, only darkness and very few lights.

11:19 pm. I keep checking the clock.

11:20 pm. Still nothing.

Wait a minute.

And let’s exchange our phone numbers and addresses! If you discover anything, tell me as soon as possible, I’ll do the same!

We really exchanged numbers when she got my phone, but I never said anything about where I live! What is happening here?

There’s no time to waste thinking, so I leave my house in a hurry. But before I can run in any direction…

I don’t know where she lives!

I get my phone and for no good reason, I start to walk towards the school.

Maybe Hina knows where she lives! No, maybe I should just call the police!

“Meow.”

Tama came from an alley and was looking at me, but just some seconds later he returned to where he came from. At that moment, a saw something that sent shivers down my spine: Tama left footprints behind him, red footprints.

I approach them and then I look down the alley. There’s a dumpster opened.

After some seconds paralyzed, I go there, stopping in front of it.

It’s just some paint! It’s just some paint!

I keep repeating those words in my head for some moments.

Finally, I look inside.

A nightmare. Yes, this is only a nightmare. What I’m seeing right now can’t be anything but a nightmare!

Inside the dumpster, a girl was looking at me. Her face devoided of life and soaked in blood.

I was waiting for someone who would never arrive. Sakura was there, dead. Inside a dumpster, near my house.

How? Why?

No matter how many times I questioned that to myself, I never got an answer. My mind was confused, consumed by terror.

I didn’t know the best way to react to this. And when I realized, I was calling the police.

I can’t describe my tear-stained face at that moment, when I sat down on the ground.