The Thirteenth Button

Leo stood in the hallway with his backpack slung over one shoulder and his eyes fixed on the locker across from him. Jazmine's locker. Two weeks had passed since she disappeared, and the school had turned the metal door into something else entirely. Flowers wilted in the vents. Notes were taped over the combination dial. Someone had left a stuffed rabbit with one eye missing, its fur matted from too many hands touching it.

He should have gone with her that night. The thought sat in his chest like a stone. She had called him at eleven, her voice tight with that mix of excitement and nerves she always got when she was about to do something stupid. He had let it ring. He told himself he was tired, that she would be fine, that she always came back from these things with a story and a grin. Now the locker stared at him with dead flowers and paper condolences, and he could not remember what excuse he had given himself.

The bell rang. Students flowed around him like water around a rock. A girl he barely knew gave him a sympathetic look and kept walking. Leo turned away from the locker and headed for the exit before anyone could ask if he was okay.

His house felt too quiet when he dropped his bag by the door. His mother called from the kitchen that dinner was ready, but he climbed the stairs without answering. The laptop sat on his desk exactly where he had left it the night before, screen dark, waiting. Jazmine had given him the password hint years ago after she forgot it during a sleepover and needed him to pull up a map. "Your middle name backwards," she had said, laughing. He typed it now with fingers that felt too thick for the keys.

The browser opened to her history. Page after page of forum threads about the Elevator Game filled the list. He clicked through them one by one. Rules. Warnings. Stories from people who claimed they had tried it and walked away, and stories from people who claimed others had not. The final link she had opened led to a long post about the abandoned Blackwood Heights building on the edge of town. The text said the ritual only worked there, in that specific elevator, on those specific floors. Someone had replied to the post three days before Jazmine vanished. The username was The_Watcher. The message was short: the thirteenth floor is waiting for you.

Leo stared at the screen until the words blurred. He clicked the next tab. A video file sat in her downloads folder, unposted, titled only with the date. He hit play.

Jazmine appeared in the frame, sitting on her bedroom floor with her back against the bed. The camera light made her eyes look too bright. She looked straight into the lens and said she had found a way in. Her voice shook on the last word. She said she wanted to prove the Otherworld was real, that the game was not just a story people told online. Then she smiled the way she always did when she was scared but pretending not to be. The video ended on a black screen.

He closed the laptop. The house creaked around him the way old houses do when they settle for the night. Downstairs his mother called again, louder this time. He ignored her. Instead he pulled a duffel bag from under his bed and started filling it. Flashlight. The small container of salt his grandmother had kept in the pantry for reasons she never explained. The leather cord bracelet that matched the one Jazmine wore. He zipped the bag and stood there with his hands on the strap, breathing through his mouth because his nose felt blocked with the weight of everything he had not said to her.

The last time they spoke had been a week before she left. She had shown him the forum on her phone during lunch, scrolling fast, pointing at comments like they were treasure maps. He had told her it was creepy and to drop it. She had rolled her eyes and said he worried too much. Now the phone sat in a police evidence locker somewhere, and the only person who had taken her seriously was a stranger named The_Watcher who knew the building by name.

He walked to the window and looked out at the street. The detective who had taken his statement after Jazmine went missing had said her car was found two blocks from Blackwood Heights. The officer had said it like that explained everything, like kids parked near abandoned buildings all the time and walked away fine. Leo had asked if anyone had gone inside. The detective had given him a look that said the conversation was over.

Leo shouldered the duffel bag and headed back downstairs. His mother stood in the kitchen doorway with a plate in her hands. She asked if he was going to eat. He told her he had homework. She did not believe him, but she did not push. He stepped past her and out the front door before she could see the bag clearly.

The night air felt colder than it should have for early fall. He walked with his hands in his pockets and the bag bumping against his hip. Somewhere behind him a car door closed. He did not turn around. The bracelet on his wrist pressed against his skin, the same braided leather Jazmine had bought them both at the summer fair two years ago. He had never taken it off. He wondered if she still wore hers.

At the corner he stopped and looked back at his house. The kitchen light was still on. He could picture his mother standing there, plate cooling on the counter, wondering what she was supposed to do with a son who would not talk. He turned away and kept walking toward the bus stop that would take him to the edge of town. The streets were empty except for the occasional passing car. Each one sounded too loud in the quiet.

He reached the stop and sat on the bench. The duffel bag rested between his feet. Inside it the flashlight pressed against his ankle through the canvas. He pulled out his phone and opened the map app, zooming in on the block where Blackwood Heights stood. The building looked small on the screen, just another gray rectangle among other gray rectangles. He zoomed out again. The city spread around it like a net. Somewhere in that net the police were still looking for a girl who had driven her car to a building no one wanted to enter.

The bus headlights appeared down the street. Leo stood and lifted the bag. The doors opened with a hiss. He climbed the steps, paid, and took a seat near the back. The bracelet caught on his sleeve when he reached up to hold the rail. He tugged it free and pressed his thumb against the knot in the leather. Jazmine had tied it for him because his fingers had been too clumsy with the thin strips. She had laughed at him then, the same laugh she used when she was about to do something reckless and wanted him to come along anyway.

The bus pulled away from the curb. Leo watched the houses slide past the window. Each one had lights on in the windows, people moving inside, living their nights without knowing a girl had walked into an elevator and not come back. He leaned his forehead against the glass. The vibration traveled through his skull and settled behind his eyes. He closed them and tried not to think about what The_Watcher had written or why the message had been enough to pull Jazmine to that building alone.

When the bus reached the last stop before the industrial edge of town, he got off. The streetlights here were farther apart. The sidewalk cracked under his sneakers. Ahead, past a chain-link fence and a row of rusted dumpsters, the dark shape of Blackwood Heights rose against the sky. No lights showed in any of the windows. The entrance sat recessed in shadow. Leo adjusted the strap on his shoulder and walked toward it, the duffel bag swinging against his leg with every step.