The bus is silent. The engine hums beneath my feet and raindrops slide down the foggy window beside me. Neon signs and blurred city lights flash by, but I can't focus on any of them.
Erika leans against my shoulder. She is exhausted, her breath soft and uneven. I clutch the strap of my bag tighter, where the flash drive Detective Kean slipped into my hand still rests.
Detective. That's what he called himself. Why would a real detective show up at a funeral?
Why would he hand supposed evidence to a fifteen years old kid?
The thought gnaws at me the entire ride.
When we finally step off near our neighborhood, the cold air hits my face. Our house looms ahead. It's now feels dark, empty, wrong. Inside, everything is the same as yesterday, yet nothing is the same at all.
Erika slips off her shoes and stands frozen in the hallway. "It feels… wrong," she whispers.
"I know," I say quietly. "It's okay... we'll get through this."
She nods weakly and goes upstairs. I wait until her door closes before pulling the flash drive from my bag.
It looks ordinary. Too ordinary. Almost like a bait.
Later that night, with the house silent around me, I sit at my desk. The flash drive lies on the wood like a riddle.
What if Kean is lying? What if this isn't evidence at all, but some kind of trick?
Or worse. what if he isn't just a stranger… but one of the people behind it?
The idea makes my stomach twist. If he really is involved, then handing me this drive isn't an act of kindness. It's a message. Or maybe a warning.
Still, curiosity presses harder than fear.
I plug it into my laptop. A single folder appears. One video file.
[Timestamp: NC 790, Month 3, Day 11 – 21:42.]
Minutes before the accident.
I click play.
The footage is grainy, from a CCTV outside a convenience store near the highway. Headlights blur across the wet asphalt.
Then I see it. The freight truck. At first glance, it looks normal. But when I lean closer, pausing and rewinding, something bothers me.
The front of the truck isn't mangled. There is no sign of a heavy crash, just the faintest scrape along the bumper. It's so faint I almost miss it.
And then my eyes catch something else. The side mirror. From the CCTV angle, it should be aligned straight, but it isn't. The mirror seems tilted, as if it had been struck earlier. Maybe it's nothing, maybe it's just the distortion of the camera, the rain on the lens.
But the more I replay it, the less it looks like coincidence.
I rewind. Play it again. Pause. Zoom. My fingers move without thinking, repeating the sequence over and over.
Ten times. Fifteen. Twenty. By the thirtieth time, my eyes ache, but I can't stop. The more I watch, the clearer it becomes:
The truck barely has a scratch. The mirror hangs just slightly out of place. And my father's car. its headlights flicker desperately, boxed in just behind it, as if it has no escape.
The footage cuts to static, then ends.
I sit frozen, staring at the black screen. My hands tremble on the keyboard.
This isn't just a malfunction. It isn't just bad luck.
Something...or someone...wants them gone.
And then another thought slips in, colder than the rain outside.
'What if Kean already knows this? What if he isn't warning me… but testing me?'
Maybe he wants to see if I notice and give him a reaction. Maybe he is part of it. The flash drive burns cold in my palm.
One thing is certain. if my parents have been killed, then whoever did it isn't finished yet. And trusting the wrong person could be the last mistake I ever make.