Short Story Contest 13-15 Age Group Winner!

Author: Justine Mah Title of Work: The Unveiling The small, lower region of Lausanne buzzed with life. The people beamed with hope and optimism, reflecting the nature of the bright sun smiling above them. Snow white clouds danced on the horizon, watching quietly as the town awoke with its usual bustling activities. I watched as the young tourists sat and absorbed the picturesque view of Lake Geneva. Its waters glittered with light as the rays drifted down. This little town seemed like a utopia; until one day it wasn’t.

I dragged my black suitcase up the rocky cobblestoned street. After spotting the bus depot, I stopped and waited patiently for the bus that would take me to the Evergreen Institute of Crime and Forensics- my new university and home for the next few years. I was honoured to be selected from the Forensic Science program at my old university back home in Brighton. After one year of studying, I had gotten a letter and a scholarship from Evergreen. They said that my marks were exceptional and that they wanted me in their program. I immediately took up the offer. Evergreen was known as the best criminology and forensics school in the world, and I was beyond excited to get there.

After waiting at the bus stop for about five minutes, I spotted a tall man with a bundle of files in his hand walking towards me. Suddenly, some slipped out of his hand. I quickly rushed over to help him pick them up.

“Thank you so much,” he said with a small laugh. “I seriously need to be more organized.”

“No problem,” I replied, standing back up. “Are you going to the Evergreen Institute as well?”

“I’m an assistant professor there! You must be one of the new students we just recruited.”

“You’re a teacher?” I said in disbelief. He looked no older than 25 and blended in with the other students roaming Lausanne. His eyes, however, stood out. They were a maddening grey filled with dark rain clouds and chaos. Searching them was like navigating a ship through heavy fog, or being swept into an endless tornado. They were so captivating, that they drew me in until I couldn’t find my way out...

Careful, Violet, I thought. Don’t you dare get attached. He’s a teacher for goodness sake.

“I get that a lot,” he replied. “My name’s Wren McAvoy, but you can just call me Wren. What course are you majoring in?”

“Forensic science! And I’m Violet. Violet Larson.”

In my peripheral vision, I saw a large blue and white bus coming towards us. When it pulled up to the stop, Wren and I got on and continued talking until we reached the university. The bus stopped at the top of the hill beneath some trees. Wren and I got out, and I gathered my bearings. Lausanne’s highest point contrasted the lower town’s modern energy. This part of town was old, quiet and gothic. The only buildings around us included some old-fashioned houses, as well as a tiny coffee shop called, “Kaffehuset”. We walked down a small road, which led us to a smooth stone path embedded beneath layers upon layers of evergreen trees. Finally, at the end of the stone path sat the Evergreen Institute of Crime and Forensics. The stone taupe structure stood tall; showcasing dark french doors, multiple framed sage-coloured windows, and sturdy columns. Its shape resembled a traditional gothic mansion, with sloped coffee-stained roofs, and steeples reminiscent of churches. Branches of ivy cascaded down almost everywhere. Toward the right, I spotted a curled, wrap-around staircase. Purple wisterias, daisies, and tiny magenta flowers clung to the railings creating a colourful display. The entirety was hauntingly serene and breathtaking.

“Wow!” I breathed, still taking in its exhilarating beauty.

“I hope you didn’t lie when you mentioned you loved plants on the way here,” Wren laughed, gesturing towards the forest surrounding the campus. “See you after orientation!”

I waved goodbye to Wren and wheeled my suitcase towards the crowd of new students. My palms felt sweaty and a nervous chill ran down my spine as I approached them. A pretty blonde woman started to walk towards us. She had a stern appearance and wore her hair in a tight, braided updo. The sleeves of her white blouse were folded just beneath her elbows, and her black skirt stopped just above her knee.

“Good morning everyone,” she announced. “My name is Mrs. Aurora Johanssen, the headmistress of Evergreen Institute of Crime and Forensics. We chose 24 of you to partake in our prestigious program this semester for your superior acumen, academic achievements, and your pivotal contributions to the world of criminology and forensics! Here at Evergreen, you will work on projects that will change our world for the better, work under professionals, and of course, focus on your specialized field of interest. You will now be assigned your room and roommate. When I call your name, please come up to receive your information package and class schedule for today. It is now 11:30 and you will be going to your first class at 1:00. Have a good day everyone, and don’t be late!”

Mrs. Johanssen started calling out our last names two people at a time. After calling the names of about six students, it was my turn to go up.

“Violet Larson and Arabella Marceline!” Mrs. Johanssen called out.

I walked up and took my information package from Mrs. Johanssen, my boots scuffing as they touched the pavement. I could hear Arabella walking not far behind me, as her shoes were making the same noise.

“You two will be in dorm 213. Go up that staircase, down the hall, and turn left at the library. Your door is right beside it. Here are the keys,” she added, giving Arabella two ornate silver keys and gesturing to the twisted staircase I had noticed earlier.

Arabella looked about 5’6. She had wavy jet black hair, pale skin, and deep, sunken, green eyes with smudged black eyeshadow around them. Going by looks alone, we were polar opposites. Unlike Arabella, I had wispy blonde hair with pink ends and amber-coloured eyes. Despite this, some part of me just knew that Arabella and I would become close friends very fast.

Once we found our room, Arabella and I unpacked our belongings and got to know each other. I learned that she was studying Forensic Psychology, and was from Quebec City. We were both excited to learn that we were both put on a special case for two months in classroom 207. After the hour and a half passed, we headed towards our classroom and found ourselves at the hands of Professor Matheson. He seemed quite friendly, knowledgeable, and seemed like your modern-day Dumbledore. There were two other students in the room along with Arabella and me; I recalled their names from earlier: Kit and Finn. We sat around a rectangular table that was opposite a whiteboard. On the table lay different robotic parts, microchips, files, left-handed scissors, and other stationeries.

“You four are my dream team,” Professor Matheson stated. “I chose you all based on your specialties. Kit here is focused on Criminology. Finn, Chemistry. Arabella, Forensic Psychology. And Violet, Forensic Science. You see, we are building an artificial intelligence android to further assist forensic investigations. For example, we’ll be able to use it in dangerous work sites where it isn’t necessarily safe for people to partake in. It’ll be called The Matheson Project, but we will all develop it.”

Everybody was intrigued. Suddenly, we heard the door behind us open. I turned around to see Wren with another guy.

“These are the assistant professors. McAvoy,” Professor Matheson said, pointing to Wren. “And Brenneman. They’ll be assisting us with The Matheson Project.”

“We’re here to do the iris biometric scan for everyone involved in this project; for security purposes, of course,” Brenneman said.

Wren started to set up the retinal scanner, and one by one, we took turns peering into the infrared pinhole. Professor Matheson explained that this would give us security clearance for Level 1 projects.

“Now you’ll be able to get into restricted areas,” Wren announced. “Don’t get any funny ideas, Violet,” he whispered to me, jokingly.

Arabella glanced at me quizzically when she heard this. All I did in response was turn red and look away quickly. For the next hour or so, we sat at a table and discussed the elements of the robot. Tomorrow, we would start the building process.

About two weeks later, we had made a significant amount of progress with the robot, as well as with friendships. Professor Matheson suggested that I work under Wren most of the time, as he had a degree in forensics. He became someone I could trust and talk to easily, and he became my mentor. Arabella suspected something more between us, but I never admitted nor denied it. Besides, I had other things to think about. Arabella and I discovered that Finn and Kit were just next door to us, and we would often do homework all together at night. The monotony of the routine felt comforting to all of us, as we missed our families and were far from home. However, one night, the monotony came to an abrupt halt.

We heard a gunshot. The horrendous noise tore through the walls and echoed loudly. I was paralyzed with fear and my feet felt glued to the floor. Finn screamed. I glanced over at Kit, who had grabbed Arabella’s hand. Arabella’s other hand was cupped over her mouth as tears poured out of her eyes. Finn screamed. Again.

“Somebody shut him up,” Kit hissed. “The shooter could be coming this way.” After a few minutes passed, Kit stood up and quietly made his way towards the door. “You’re going to get us killed!” Finn protested.

“Says you,” grumbled Kit. “If they wanted to kill us they would’ve already because you kept screaming. I’m just going to look.”

He turned the doorknob slightly and looked through the small crack in the door. He turned back to face us.

“Guys, look,” he pointed towards the glass-walled library. “Blood spatter residue,”

We quickly got up and shuffled to the door. Quietly, we tiptoed down the dim corridor, and carefully walked until we hit the library. There was a person slumped over in a chair with their back towards the glass wall, as well as a hole that appeared to be wider from the side we were on.

“Oh my god,” I stuttered, as we ran into the library. “It’s Matheson!”

Professor Matheson’s lifeless body lay at a table, with a revolver in his right hand. The gunshot had gone through the front of his skull towards the left. His blood continued to drip down his eyelid as well as the wall behind him, creating passive bloodstains. I spotted a radial fracture on the glass behind his head, as well as a few fragments on the carpet. On the table lay a mug full of steaming hot tea, as well as the book “To Kill a Mockingbird”. The tea appeared to be untouched.

“Suicide,” choked Finn.

“No,” said Arabella, suddenly. “Matheson was left-handed. Why would he shoot with his non-dominant hand in that position and angle?”

“She’s right, he only ever used left-handed tools! And look at the blood spatter pattern. None of it adds up!” I exclaimed. “It’s got to be a murder!”

“Look! There’s soil beside the table,” Kit added, standing slightly behind the residue. “He was definitely shot by someone.”

“So we call the police!” Finn said.

“Finn, it’s a long weekend. The majority of the people here are Swiss so they went home. We’re the only ones who live outside Switzerland, so they’re going to think we killed him because nobody else is on campus right now. Plus, the nearest police station is half an hour away!” Arabella observed. “Guys, I think we should collect the evidence. The whole school could be in danger.”

Arabella and I ran to one of the nearby labs and came back with various shaped plastic bags, cotton swabs, containers, paper bags, gloves, tape, tweezers, and fingerprint powder. Meanwhile, Finn and Kit scrambled to take overview, intermediate, and close-up photographs of the evidence. Together, we collected and labelled the evidence efficiently as we were taught; making sure to swab Professor Matheson’s blood and dust the revolver and table for latent fingerprints. I made a mental note to collect soil from Evergreen’s campus to compare to the sample we found. By the end, we had collected the shards of glass, a swab of Professor Matheson’s blood, the revolver, the book, the soil sample, two fingerprint impressions from the revolver, as well as a mysterious fingernail.

Suddenly, we heard a thud in the hallway.

“Get down,” Finn whispered, pulling all of us underneath the table.

We quickly ducked, trying extremely hard to remain silent. I felt nauseous thinking about Professor Matheson’s corpse entering rigor mortis beside us. The library smelled like gunpowder, blood, and death. I heard soft footsteps creeping closer, as well as a man’s voice.

“He got what he deserved,” The man said in a harsh whisper.

Is that Wren? I thought.

“They’ll never know it was us.” Added another voice with a German accent.

And Brenneman. I glanced over at the others who exchanged puzzled glances. I knew they thought the same thing. Another wave of nausea hit me; this one was sudden and unexpected. The next moment, I had thrown up all over the corpse’s shoes. The footsteps stopped when they heard the wretched noise.

“Lock the doors,” Wren said loudly. “They know we’re here.”

A loud clicking noise went off, signifying that the main exits had been locked. I wiped the corners of my mouth and tried to mentally apologize to my friends somehow. As Wren and Brenneman edged closer to the library, my heart dropped. Then I saw something. There was an eerie, pronounced, box-shaped crack etched into the floorboards. I ran my fingernails around the sides, and a hinged door opened up with an attached ladder. The library doorknob squeaked as we hurriedly scurried down the thin ladder with our bagged evidence. We found ourselves in a long hallway filled with rows of bookshelves on the sides.

“This must be where they store all the books,” Finn whispered. “We need a plan. NOW!”

“We’re using the gun,” Kit blurted out. “We need to kill them. Brenneman and McAvoy. They’re after us, no doubt. There’s no way we’ll have time to test the evidence. We just have to make it out alive.”

“There’s a map!” Arabella remarked. “There! At the end of the tunnel.”

Finn used his phone camera as a flashlight to light the surroundings. We sprinted towards the giant map to observe it. The map displayed the many hidden passageways buried beneath Evergreen. To escape, we needed to get to the trap door that led to the boiler room, which was directly west of where we were. In the boiler room, there was a round trap door that led to a sewer tunnel outside. Right now, we were located just under our dorm rooms. That meant we would have to run back to the ladder from the library, turn right, and climb down to get to the 1st floor of Evergreen.

The two-minute sprint was terrifying. My heartbeat pounded in my ears from the pressure of being found by Wren and Brenneman. I wanted to think that maybe Wren would spare me. Brenneman, on the other hand, would show no mercy. As we passed the library, I could hear them talking indistinctly. There was no time to listen to them chatter; they definitely had a plan to set us up anyway.

We had managed to find the boiler room safely. However, the door had a level 3 lock that only staff could open through their fingerprints.

“Wait!” Finn said. “We can use the prints we found to open the lock. Then, it’ll tell us who the fingerprint belonged to! We can kill two birds with one stone!”

“Smart!” I exclaimed, reaching for the fingerprint evidence I was carrying in my pocket. I scanned it on the lock to reveal the match. In bright blue capital letters, we watched as the name “Wren McAvoy” appeared. My heart sank to my stomach.

There was no time to waste. We climbed down the ladder attached to the hatch and immediately searched for the next hidden door. The space was dark and filled with mechanical equipment. They made all sorts of humming and clicking noises, and were very, very dusty.

“Another special lock,” Arabella said angrily, standing over the circular door she had found. “You need the stupid iris biometric to open it this time! And it's also a level 3 so we can’t open it!”

“We need to go back to the library,” Finn gulped. “and take Matheson’s eyeball out. It’s not pleasant but... we have to do it.”

“I’ll go,” Kit said.

“No, I’ll go,” I said. “It’s my fault we got caught,”

“We’ll both go then, just in case something happens to one of us.”

Kit enclosed the gun in his hand and followed me back up the ladder. Once we had reached the entrance, I heard the library trap door open from afar. I scrambled towards a little room sandwiched between the walls of books, dragged Kit inside, and shut the door.

“What is that?” He stuttered, pointing to the wall.

The room was so much bigger than it appeared from outside. On a long desk at the front, three computers were interfacing with each other. They featured live security footage of the school and even showcased our dorm rooms. The walls were filled with large pictures of the four of us. Underneath the photos lay a blackboard filled with our names, ages, and other additional comments. The comments under my name included, “19” “naive”, and “create trust for manipulation”. Last but not least, there was messy, sprawled, writing all over the last wall. It was a murder plan, set for September 21st, 2035 in the evening - today.

“Well,” said a voice, opening the door. “How nice to see both of you, especially you, Violet.”

“YOU KILLED HIM!” I immediately screamed. “I TRUSTED YOU AND YOU MANIPULATED ME.”

“You stupid girl,” Wren laughed maniacally.

I shook my head in disbelief, tears streaming down my face. I was appalled.

“You all worshipped Professor Matheson; thought he was great, even inspirational. He stole our idea and lied to you all about its real intent. You see, Brenneman and I wanted to create an android that would control the population for the government. The robot would be able to kill without leaving any DNA or traceable evidence. So we told Matheson the idea. We already had funding from the government, and yet he still took the credit. He was a megalomaniac who moved through the ranks because he had influence.” Wren stated as he paced around in a circle.

“So you just shot him,” I said, disgusted. “You’re a psychopath.”

“Thank you,” he said with a smile.

He opened a drawer in the desk and pulled out a small knife. Suddenly, he lunged towards me and pressed the knife to my throat.

“You were always my favourite, Violet,” Wren said, stroking my hair with his other hand. “You were kind, smart, and very funny. Maybe I would have spared you if Arabella were here instead…”

I shuddered with fear. At that moment I finally realized why horror movie heroines were so stupid. My judgement was completely clouded with fear. “Please,” I choked. “Don’t do this.”

A gunshot went off. Wren fell to the ground, blood pooling out of his head. I screamed while sobbing.

“I’m so sorry Violet, please don’t look. I’m going to use his eyeball for the lock instead,” Kit quavered, as he handed the revolver to me.

The next few minutes were a blur. The knife that was pressed to my throat was used to gouge out Wren’s eye. I tried to remember how they looked when we first met, but couldn’t remember a thing. Now, all I saw in them was the absence of life. They were flat, grey, and reeked of evil. I barely remember running back to the boiler room with Kit. The only thing engraved in my mind was an eyeless monster covered in blood.

After unlocking the door, we came across yet another ladder. It led us down a cold, damp, tunnel that erupted with the smell of rotten eggs. Once we got to the base of the ladder, we ran down the sewer towards the trees. My legs burned as we sloshed through the murky water. Beads of sweat gathered in my hair and my breathing became ragged. I was relieved that this night would be over soon.

“WE MADE IT!” Finn screeched once we were all outside.

The sewer tunnel had led to a clearing behind Evergreen. The water from the tunnel leaked out into a small stream that was bordered by rocks. Behind the stream, was a forest. Multiple light posts illuminated the scene. This was the light at the end of the tunnel, literally, and figuratively- or so I thought.

“We’re not alone,” Arabella spat. “Look over there. It’s Brenneman.”

The evil-looking man ambled towards us arrogantly and grinned. Gun in hand, he pointed it at each one of us and prepared to shoot. Between everything that happened that night, I had almost forgotten that I was holding the murder weapon.

“Throw the rocks. I only have one bullet left,” I whispered to Arabella quickly.

Arabella picked up a rock and threw it towards Brenneman’s skull. Finn and Kit caught on and started doing the same. Brenneman’s screams shook the earth. They were enough to send chills down your spine. Finn managed to knock the gun out of his hand, which signalled me to run towards him. My hands shook as I gripped the weapon.

“You wouldn’t shoot me,” Brenneman mocked, seeing my facial expression. “Wren would be so disappointed in you.”

And with that, I pulled the trigger.

The End.