Seline’s absence was never announced. It arrived quietly, the way dusk settles over the school grounds—first a shadow, then a chill, then the realization that something essential has slipped away.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLdAqMNRpX4
She still showed up for roll call, still answered questions in class, still laughed at the right moments when Shiko nudged her under the table. But there was a thinning, a transparency to her presence. She no longer lingered after prep, no longer joined Kim and the others on their slow walks beneath the jacarandas. She stopped borrowing books, stopped sharing her notes. When she spoke, her voice was softer, as if she was careful not to disturb something fragile inside her.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7GFlf5Pyxj
Kim noticed first, but said nothing. She understood the need for silence, for space. The wall had taught all of them that. But even Shiko, who believed every rift could be mended with a joke or a story, found herself hesitating before calling Seline’s name.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡFH2mNUtGGV
Sometimes, Seline could be seen near the wall—not close enough to break the new rules, but close enough for the wind to catch her skirt, for her gaze to linger on the cracks where the mortar had crumbled. She would stand there, hands in her pockets, not moving, not searching, just…waiting. For what, no one could say.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡqm79U9KiaZ
The others speculated. Some said she was hiding something; others whispered she was simply tired of fighting the current. But Kim, watching from a distance, wondered if Seline was listening for something only she could hear—a message from the past, or a warning about what was coming.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7SwqdFdpzb
The wall, once a place of daring and laughter, had become a line of demarcation. Seline, it seemed, was drifting to the other side—not in body, but in spirit. The cracks in the stone had begun to mirror the cracks in their friendship.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8OpfPnlZ31
And in the hush that followed, Kim realized: sometimes, the most dangerous secrets are the ones you keep from those who know you best.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡQMPCznBK5M
The prefects’ room was quieter than usual, the air heavy with the memory of last term’s betrayals and the new, watchful regime Naomi now commanded. Sunlight slanted across the battered table where June waited, the old silver badge resting in her palm, its edges dulled by years of anxious fidgeting.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡR5RsljLNt0
Naomi entered with her usual composure, her eyes cool and unreadable. She didn’t sit. She simply stood across from June, hands folded, the silence between them thick with history.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0VUqvZNfIp
June looked down at the badge. It had once meant belonging—authority, trust, a place in something larger than herself. Now, under Naomi’s rule, it was something else: a token, a bargaining chip, maybe even a confession.
Naomi used to be just another face in the corridor—a shadow trailing after June and the real prefects, always eager, always watching. Now, she stood at the center, the new authority, the “Order” incarnate, dishing out ultimatums as if she hadn’t once begged June for a seat at the table.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡypoOb7Febh
June rolled the silver badge between her fingers, feeling its familiar weight. Once, it had been a symbol of her own power, her place at the heart of the Order’s machinery. She’d enforced the rules, kept the secrets, made the Order run smooth—until Mercy’s spectacular implosion ruined everything. Now, thanks to that disaster, June was stuck babysitting junior girls like Kim and that insufferable Seline, who fancied herself a journalist just because she could string a few sentences together. All to bring Mercy down. All to prove her loyalty to a new regime she didn’t respect.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡBjSK8xWZaS
Now Naomi wanted the badge—wanted June’s submission, her public pledge of loyalty. As if June were just another lackey, grateful for scraps. As if the badge meant more in Naomi’s hand than it ever had in June’s.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡivyKinwVMz
Fine. June would play along. She would bow her head, hand over the silver, let Naomi bask in her little victory. She would be the good servant, the model of obedience. Let Naomi believe she’d won.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8CzzWbLyc3
But in the background, June was already making her moves. The Order was never about badges or titles—it was about who controlled the secrets, who pulled the strings. Naomi was just a little girl playing at big girls’ games, making up new rules and thinking that made her safe. She didn’t see the cracks forming, didn’t sense the old power shifting beneath her feet.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡN2XWEIdNhu
June would get her Order back. She would take it from the inside, quietly, methodically, the way real power always worked. And when the time came, not even Naomi’s new rules—or Mercy’s ghost—would save her.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4DBNzvvz2v
Let Naomi have her moment. June would have the last word.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡjcoOemHHd7
She held it out, her voice steady but low. “I want you to have it. Not because I deserve it, but because I know what it means now. I know what it costs.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6C39MkikWt
Naomi’s eyes flickered, just for a moment. She took the badge, weighing it in her palm as if testing its truth. “You know the rules have changed,” she said quietly. “This isn’t the old Order. There are no second chances for sentiment.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyxxETYQtnz
June nodded. “I’m not asking for sentiment. I’m asking for a place.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ2Z3Hl4pAmu
For a moment, neither spoke. The badge lay between them, gleaming dully in the late afternoon light—a silent contract, a pledge, a surrender.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡXRYBq5WEBo
Naomi finally closed her fingers around it. “Prove you can keep secrets this time,” she said. “And maybe you’ll earn your way back.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡu7g0wHIRDZ
June nodded again, relief and uncertainty warring in her chest. The badge was gone, but the game was not over. Not yet.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ8cFm51wmG5
Outside, the wall stood silent, its cracks deepening, its secrets waiting for the next hand to reach through.
Mary followed at a distance, her steps measured, her gaze sharp. She was not following out of suspicion alone. For Mary, every encounter was a test: of loyalty, of discipline, of the new order she had been summoned to impose. She watched the girls—June, with her restless ambition barely masked by obedience; Naomi, with her quiet authority and the unmistakable air of someone who had learned to play the long game.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡprMBIy00e3
Each was driven by a different hunger. June, by the need to reclaim what she had lost, to prove that she could bend even the new rules to her will. Naomi, by the thrill of command, the satisfaction of having outlasted her rivals and inherited the machinery of the Order. And Mary, by the weight of responsibility—by the knowledge that her success or failure would be measured not in headlines, but in the quiet compliance of girls like these.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡSpGE2I0GH1
As June approached Naomi, badge in hand, Mary paused just out of sight, listening. She understood that discipline was not enforced in assemblies or written in handbooks. It was negotiated in moments like this—quiet, tense, and invisible to most. She watched as June extended the badge, as Naomi accepted it with a nod that was both command and acceptance.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ4wJJ1JX4gm
Mary turned away, satisfied for now. She knew the real struggle was only beginning. For all her speeches about order and obedience, she understood: the wall was not the only thing that divided this school. There were other boundaries—of loyalty, of ambition, of secrets still hidden in the cracks. And she would have to navigate them all, just as these girls did, each driven by her own motive, each playing a part in a story the wall itself was still learning to tell.
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Jabari’s authority came with privileges, but also with obligations that bored him. Jabari didn’t like being summoned by the principal’s secretary, but he hid it well. He expected another speech about discipline or a request to mediate a prefect squabble. Instead, she handed him a typed memo, stamped and signed by the principal himself. The request was simple—routine, on the surface:50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡiIgyuY17uo
“The Board wants a list of all past student presidents for the centenary. You’re the only one who can get it right, Jabari.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYrnZjvZgdi
He nodded, accepting the task with the calm of someone who knew how to keep school and Order business separate. The archives were his domain, after all. No one would question the Head of Students reviewing old registers.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEXaK1nNgY3
But Jabari’s real work was in the margins. He knew the Order’s true history—at least, the parts he was trusted with. The official records were a fiction, a public face. The Order’s story was hidden in the gaps: missing names, erased notes, years where the wall’s shadow fell thickest.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTD5pjVgGmB
The archives were cold and windowless, dust motes swirling in the shaft of light from the corridor. Jabari moved his team with purpose, scanning the old registers, the prefects’ ledgers, the council minutes. They made notes, cross-checked years, filled in the blanks where they could. But it was the absences that drew his eye—the years when a name should have appeared, but didn’t. The gaps that no one ever explained.
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Jabari and his team moved quietly through the old records room, the air thick with dust and the scent of old paper. They were supposed to be compiling a list for the principal, but the work had turned into a hunt for anomalies—missing names, odd codes, the kinds of things only Order eyes would notice.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡldVLXdRxfR
It was Otieno, the quietest of them, who found the gap behind the cabinet. He reached in and pulled out a slim, battered notebook, its cover blank except for a faded blue thread wound around the spine.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRsCfw1HFpz
Jabari flipped it open. Most pages were blank, but near the center, a single slip of yellowed paper fluttered out. The handwriting was small, careful, and old-fashioned:50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡTJLAz77Hep
“Under the third stone from the left, by the old bell,50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡV1wMgfTxu3
Names are written that never rang.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOJyAiqk92S
No signature. Just a faint, penciled winged sandal in the corner.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡc1QC8ja3vt
The team exchanged glances—no one spoke. They all understood: this was not meant for teachers or prefects, not even for most students. It was a breadcrumb, left by someone who knew the game, for someone who would know how to follow.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLAootEtU9A
Jabari tucked the note back into the notebook and slid it into his bag. The official list would be neat, complete, and unremarkable. The real search would begin after dark.
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Shiko wasn’t looking for secrets, just a distraction from the endless lists and warnings that now defined school life.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡwlHBkZfUtJ
She had volunteered to help Miss Otieno sort the oldest files—anything to escape the surveillance-laced silence of the dorms. The archives smelled of mothballs, rust, and old chalk dust. A fan turned lazily overhead. No one else had volunteered.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHj1oO6Ha60
She was sorting through a battered box marked “Facilities—Historic”, scanning dull maintenance logs and ancient asset lists, when her fingers brushed something stiff and oversized. It wasn’t filed—just crumpled and tucked between folders like it had been forgotten decades ago.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡCjEGxZ1QzQ
She tugged it free: a folded sheet, brittle at the corners, the ink faded to a watery brown. She held her breath and spread it carefully across the table.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOtjkFNUk1c
No dividing line.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡmsgzdpu6ss
That was the first thing she noticed. No bold stroke separating Kisumu Girls from Kisumu Boys. Just one sprawling compound—shared gardens, merged fields, one chapel, one bell.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPh5nQ6AjCC
And there—drawn in a thin, wavering blue—was a single curved line: a water channel. She traced it with her fingertip.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡZoLjtFloCt
It began near the old well, cut under the current wall, and ended by the overgrown banana grove at the lake’s edge.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡRlSHtRao2M
A link. Hidden in plain sight.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡPdfd6ZDm1o
A forgotten artery that ran beneath everything that had been built to separate.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡNAtPsKrJQT
Her breath caught. She leaned closer.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡVMBLTbfrqo
In the margin, someone had scrawled in tidy, slanted hand:50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡEAs8gB7POZ
“Access via maintenance hatch — old bell tower.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡYPkvYuZR3R
Shiko looked up. No one was watching. No one would believe her—not yet.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHmGsAvHFgz
She didn’t dare steal the map. So she bent low and studied it, tracing every angle until it etched itself into memory.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoM2G0JbHQp
She folded the map, slipped it back where she found it, and pressed her palms flat on the desk to steady herself.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡOSAORq9WMX
The wall wasn't sealed. It had never been.
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“I saw them,” Kim said softly, fingers resting on the edge of the map. “Last term. Two boys. They crossed onto our side. I watched them scale the wall and vanish.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡzXFxyVyQIG
Shiko stiffened. “You’re sure?”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡ7TGeqys27J
Kim nodded. “And there were girls. Not prefects. I thought they were—” She swallowed. “But they weren’t. They moved different. Like they belonged to the dark.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡyTlWGDmG9b
Shiko blinked slowly. “They weren’t watching the boys.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡHpslbiBFxg
“They were watching you.”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡa8XYEwDrJS
Silence thickened between them.50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡLoSTETBjdQ
“Shiko…” Kim’s voice cracked. “What if this tunnel isn’t a secret that was lost? What if it was never supposed to be found?”50Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡWyup4dizYM
Shiko looked at her. “Then we’ve just disrupted something bigger than both schools.”
