The police had already taken their statements.

Names. Times. Faces.

But no one, not Dylan, not Ryan, not Zoe,  had said anything useful.

And now, it was as if Amara had been swallowed whole by silence.

Elena stood in Amara’s dorm room, her pulse thudding in her ears. The air was thick with the scent of lavender body mist and something faintly metallic like dried petals.

Behind her, Mrs. Alvarez lingered quietly by the door, clutching her purse like it could anchor her. Her face was pale, her voice brittle when she spoke.

 “She always calls me before bed. Always.”

Elena’s eyes swept the room. The bed was half-made, clothes folded neatly in one corner, Amara’s usual order but the desk was cluttered, the notebook left open mid-sentence.

Her pen still uncapped.

“Sometimes I feel like I’m drifting too far…”

“Maybe Elena was right. Maybe I don’t know who my friends really are.”

Elena’s chest tightened. She touched the page softly, as if Amara might still feel it somewhere.

That’s when she noticed it, a single crimson rose, its petals beginning to darken at the edges, resting on the desk beside a folded piece of paper.

She froze.

A note. Written in a slanted, deliberate hand.

 “Don’t ignore me again, Amara.”

Her stomach turned.

Mrs. Alvarez took a shaky step closer, whispering,

 “What is that?”

Elena didn’t answer. She was already looking at Amara’s phone on the nightstand. The screen was dark, locked.

She hesitated, then tried the passcode Amara always used, the one she had once told her by accident.

The screen flickered open.

There it was...another message, this time in a phone:

... Dylan: Stop ignoring me.... Amara, You can’t just decide to leave, No one ignores me.

Elena’s throat went dry.

The timestamp was from the night Amara disappeared.

And just below that message

a missed call from Zoe, thirty minutes later.

Elena turned to Mrs. Alvarez.

 “She was here that night. And he, she gestured to the note, the rose, he left this.

Mrs. Alvarez looked at elena confusingly,.

 Who?

Elena didn’t answer.

She only stared at the rose, bright and red against the pale wood...