Page 4 of Salem’s Rise

I glance around the empty room. Eleanor must be running late. Still, something feels… off.

I tell myself not to be dramatic and start unpacking my things. It doesn’t take long when you don’t own much. Jeans in one drawer. Sweaters in another. Laptop on the desk. A ten-dollar Goodwill coffeemaker. Boxing gloves. A battered Sudoku book. One pair of heels I almost never wear but brought because college sometimes requires pretending to be someone with a social life.

I pull the envelope from my suitcase last. My brother’s photo is inside, along with the printed screenshot of his final text message to me. I’ve looked at both so many times that they’ve started to feel less like objects and more like evidence. Which, I guess, they are.

I sit on the edge of the bare mattress and slide the photograph free. Josh’s arm is draped around my shoulders, his face turned toward mine like I’ve just said something hilarious. He’s laughing, those warm green eyes crinkling at the edges, that easy, lopsided smile that always made everything seem less scary than it was.

I remember the day well.

We were standing outside a little diner after my high school graduation, both of us pretending we weren’t wondering how we’d come up with my first college tuition payment. He’d worked a twelve-hour construction shift the day before, his hands still scraped raw beneath the bouquet of grocery-store flowers he’d somehow managed to afford. Tucked inside was a card that made me cry in the bathroom because he’d written: You go first. I’ll be right behind you.

There wasn’t enough money for both of us to attend college. I had the grades, the test scores, the scholarships, the acceptance letters. Josh had spent too many years working instead of studying, helping keep the lights on. Even if he could afford to send us both to school, he didn’t have the marks, despite how smart he was.

He’d been so excited when SFU offered him the Blackhollow Foundation Fellowship. They’d found him because of Vanished, the game he’d been working on in his free time—a sprawling online mystery game unlike anything I’d ever seen. There were entire message boards dedicated to it, popular livestreams, even Reddit threads where people traded theories at two in the morning.

The university praised his creativity and the innovative way he’d blended technology with old-world history. They wanted him to continue developing Vanished through one of the university’s interdisciplinary research programs. They offered him a generous stipend, free housing, and the chance to take classes on campus.

I’d never seen him happier.

For a while, everything was perfect. He loved the school. Loved the old buildings and libraries, and the history hidden in every corner of town. He talked about professors who cared about his work and classmates who were slowly becoming friends.

Then his messages started to change.

They became shorter. More cryptic. Obsessed. He wrote about finding strange inconsistencies in Salem’s Fall’s history—records that vanished, stories that seemed impossible to verify. And then… Halloween night happened.

My throat tightens, but I refuse to cry. The paper crinkles as my hand tightens around it. The text came at 11:43 p.m. on Halloween night.

I FOUND OUT WHY DAD DIED. IT STARTED AT SALEM’S FALL. THEY KNOW WHAT HAPPENED. DON’T TRUST⁠—

That was it. Cut off in the middle. And then no answer when I called him ten times in a row. He was just… gone.

No body. No witnesses. Just a missing person report and eventually the polite suggestion that maybe my brother had been under pressure and wanted a fresh start without all the hassle of taking care of me and my mom.

But I knew Josh better than anyone. He’d never leave us.

I stand and pin his photo and the screenshot above my desk, right where I’ll see them every morning.

“I’m here, Josh. I’m going to find you,” I promise. “You can count on it.”

Outside, the bells begin to ring somewhere across campus, deep and solemn, the sound rolling over the courtyard. Students laugh below my window, their voices bright and careless. Someone here knows what happened to my brother. Someone knows where he is. And whoever is responsible for hurting Josh made one very stupid mistake.

They left me behind.

By the time I’ve made the bed, organized the tiny closet, and tucked the last empty box beneath it, my roommate still hasn’t shown. I’ve already checked my email twice to make sure I hadn’t mixed things up and gotten reassigned a solo room somehow, but according to the housing office, nothing has changed.

So where is she?

I tell myself not to overthink it. Maybe she decided to spend one last weekend at home before classes start. Or maybe she also heard the rumors about Room 321 and changed rooms, and nobody bothered telling me.

My stomach growls so loudly, I have to laugh. I’d survived the drive here on gas station coffee, a stale blueberry muffin, and whatever turkey jerky had been rolling around in my center console since July. Between unloading the 4Runner and unpacking my room, I’d completely forgotten about food.

I grab my student ID, lock the door, and head downstairs in search of dinner. My old school was mostly a commuter campus, and I rarely ate there since I’d lived at home. Most students at Northeastern College cleared out by evening to grab takeout, meet friends at local bars, or simply head home. I assumed SFU would be the same. Instead, I step through the enormous oak doors of Winthrop Commons to find the place packed.

The room buzzes with conversation, laughter bouncing off the cathedral ceiling as dozens of students weave between long wooden tables carrying overloaded plates. Parents linger near the entrance, saying emotional goodbyes, while younger siblings dart between chairs with cookies clutched in their hands. Everywhere I look, people are greeting each other like they’ve been separated for years instead of one summer.

I suddenly feel very alone.

At least Winthrop Commons is nice. Stunning, actually. More like an upscale hotel restaurant than a college cafeteria. Massive wrought-iron chandeliers hang from exposed timber beams overhead, casting warm pools of light across polished stone floors. The smell alone makes my mouth water. Fresh bread. Garlic. Rosemary. Butter.