The campus didn’t feel like it belonged to them anymore.
Not in the way it had before.
Everything looked the same—same brick paths, same low buildings stretching across the quad, same clusters of students moving between classes with backpacks slung over their shoulders and coffee cups in their hands—but it all felt… off. Like the air had shifted just slightly and no one else had noticed yet.
Or maybe they had.
Madaline wasn’t sure anymore.
She stood near the edge of the central courtyard at Blackridge University, staring at the growing cluster of candles arranged along the base of the stone fountain. Someone had already started before they got there. A few small tea lights flickered unevenly in the late afternoon breeze, their flames bending low and then righting themselves again, stubborn and fragile at the same time.
It didn’t look like much yet.
Just the beginning of something.
That made it worse somehow.
Ethan knelt a few feet away, setting down another candle carefully between two others, adjusting it slightly so it wouldn’t tip. His movements were slow. Precise. Like if he focused hard enough on getting it right, everything else might stay manageable for a few more seconds.
Mira stood beside him.
Not helping at first.
Just standing there with her arms folded loosely across herself, shoulders drawn in, her gaze fixed somewhere on the ground in front of her. The sweater had been changed, but Madaline could still see it in her mind—the blood, the way it had looked too dark against the fabric, too real.
Mira looked smaller now.
Quieter.
Like something had been taken out of her and not replaced.
Madaline swallowed and forced herself to move.
There was a cardboard box sitting near the fountain, half-filled with things people had already started bringing. Flowers. A few handwritten notes. A stuffed animal that looked like it had been dropped there by someone who didn’t know what else to do with their hands.
Madaline crouched beside it and picked up one of the candles, turning it slowly between her fingers before placing it down with the others. The flame flickered when she lit it, wavering in the breeze before settling into a small, steady burn.
She watched it for a second longer than necessary.
Then reached for another.
No one spoke.
Not at first.
The quiet wasn’t awkward.
It was heavy.
Like anything said out loud would feel wrong the moment it existed.
More people had started to gather at the edges of the courtyard.
Not close.
Not yet.
Just enough to watch.
To recognize.
Madaline could feel it without looking directly at them—the way attention lingered, the way conversations dipped slightly when they passed, the way people didn’t quite know whether to come closer or keep their distance.
They knew.
Everyone knew.
Ethan stood again, brushing his hands lightly against his jeans as if he needed something to do with them. His eyes moved over the small cluster they’d built so far, then out across the courtyard, taking in the space like he was trying to measure how much of it this would eventually fill.
“We should spread them out more,” he said quietly. “So there’s room.”
Room.
Madaline nodded, even though the word twisted in her chest.
Room for what?
More candles.
More flowers.
More reminders that five people weren’t coming back.
She shifted a few of the candles outward, spacing them unevenly along the stone edge. The flames danced again as she moved them, some going low, one nearly going out before catching again at the last second.
Mira crouched then.
Slowly.
Like the decision had taken longer than it should have.
She reached into the box and pulled out a small bundle of flowers—white, slightly crushed at the stems—and held them for a second without placing them down.
Her fingers tightened around them.
Then loosened.
She set them carefully near the center of the candles.
Not looking at either of them.
“There should be photos,” she said quietly.
Her voice sounded… distant.
Not broken.
Just far away.
Ethan nodded immediately. “I can print some. I’ll—” He stopped himself, swallowing hard before finishing. “I’ll find good ones.”
Madaline didn’t say anything.
She couldn’t quite bring herself to picture them.
Not like that.
Not reduced to something you printed out and taped to a board and stood in front of while people whispered.
The wind shifted again.
One of the candles went out this time.
Madaline noticed immediately and leaned forward to relight it, her hands steady even though everything else felt like it was slipping somewhere she couldn’t reach.
As the flame caught again, she found herself staring at the small circle they’d made.
It still didn’t feel like enough.
It didn’t feel like anything.
Just candles.
Just light.
Just something to do so they didn’t have to stand there with nothing at all.
Behind them, footsteps crossed the courtyard.
Voices passed.
The world kept moving.
And in the middle of it, the three of them stayed where they were—
building something that felt too small for what had happened
And too permanent to undo.
The candles multiplied slowly after that.
Not all at once, not in one dramatic wave of grief—just one person setting one down, then another stopping to add flowers, then someone else leaving a folded note beneath the stone lip of the fountain before walking away without saying anything. The memorial grew the way bad news spread through a campus: unevenly, quietly, through people who had heard enough to feel like they had to do something with their hands.
By the time Madaline stood again, there were more candles than she remembered lighting.
The soft gold of them flickered against the fountain stone in trembling little halos, some flames leaning in the breeze, others burning straight and steady. Wax had already begun to gather at the bottoms in thin white drips, hardening in uneven trails.
Ethan stepped away for a moment to grab another box someone had brought over, and Mira moved to the far side of the fountain without a word, arms folded again, gaze fixed somewhere beyond the quad like she couldn’t bear to keep looking at what they were making.
Madaline rubbed her palms lightly against her jeans and straightened, trying to work the stiffness out of her legs.
That was when she noticed the pair of girls lingering a few feet away.
They weren’t part of the memorial exactly.
Just close enough to look like they might join it, not close enough yet to commit.
One of them held a bouquet wrapped in crinkled plastic. The other kept glancing between the candles and the three of them with the strained, careful look people got when they were talking about something sad and trying not to get caught doing it.
Madaline would have ignored them.
Probably should have.
But one of them said Kane’s name, and that was enough.
“It’s so messed up,” the one with the flowers murmured. “Especially with everything he and his sister already went through.”
Madaline’s attention sharpened immediately.
The other girl nodded, lowering her voice even though she was already speaking softly. “I know. My roommate said they were on the news before, like years ago, when they were kids.”
Madaline went still.
Not visibly, she hoped.
Just enough that the air around her seemed to tighten.
“What happened?” the first one asked.
The second girl lifted one shoulder uncertainly. “I don’t know exactly. Something about their mom? Or their house? I just remember hearing about it. It was bad.”
“That’s horrible.”
“Yeah.” The girl glanced toward the memorial, then toward Mira. “I just feel awful for them. Like… imagine surviving all that and then this happening.”
Madaline stared at the candle in front of her without seeing it.
Their mom.
Their house.
On the news before.
She tried, quickly and without meaning to, to pull up anything Mira had ever said about home, about childhood, about family beyond Kane. There wasn’t much. Not because Mira had acted secretive, exactly. She just… hadn’t volunteered much. Little scattered things, maybe. The kind of details that felt normal while you heard them and strangely empty when you tried to line them up later.
Madaline hadn’t noticed that before.
Or if she had, she’d never thought it mattered.
A small knot of discomfort tightened under her ribs.
Not suspicion.
Something quieter.
The feeling of brushing against the edge of a story she should have known and realizing no one had ever actually told it to her.
The girls fell silent when Ethan walked back into view, setting the second box near the fountain. One of them stepped forward then and placed the bouquet down carefully among the candles, eyes lowered.
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
It wasn’t clear who she meant it to.
Maybe all of them.
Ethan gave a tight nod. “Thanks.”
The two girls lingered another second before drifting away again, their voices lost back into the wider sounds of campus.
Madaline watched them go.
Then looked across the fountain toward Mira.
She was still standing there, half-turned away from the growing memorial, her face pale and distant in the late light. From where Madaline stood, she looked breakable. Hollowed out. Too tired to keep carrying what the day had done to her.
Nothing about her suggested history.
Nothing about her suggested headlines.
And yet—
“Did you know?” Madaline asked quietly.
Ethan looked up from the box. “Know what?”
She turned toward him, lowering her voice instinctively. “About Kane and Mira.”
He frowned. “What about them?”
Madaline hesitated.
The question already felt strange the second it existed. Too late. Too close to gossip. Too close to something private being overheard rather than offered.
Still, she said, “Those girls were saying they’d been on the news before. Something when they were kids.”
Ethan’s expression shifted only slightly.
Not recognition.
Just confusion.
“I’ve never heard that,” he said.
“Me neither.”
His eyes flicked briefly toward Mira. “Maybe it’s not our business.”
The answer should have settled it.
Maybe it did, on the surface.
But the unease stayed.
Not because Madaline thought the girls were lying.
Because Ethan didn’t know either.
He loved Mira enough to carry a ring in his pocket.
Enough to plan a proposal by the lake.
And somehow, even he didn’t know.
Madaline swallowed and looked back at the candles.
Another one had gone out.
She crouched automatically to relight it, hands moving through the familiar, simple task while her mind stayed caught somewhere else entirely.
When the flame caught again, she stared at it for a second too long.
Then, without really deciding to, she glanced back toward Mira one more time.
Across the flickering light and the flowers and the gathering notes, Mira finally turned her head.
For a second, their eyes met.
Mira’s expression did not change.
But something about the stillness of it made Madaline’s chest tighten in a way she couldn’t explain.
Then Mira looked away first—
and the moment was gone.
By evening, the story belonged to everyone.
It moved faster than grief ever should have.
Faster than the candles gathering at the fountain. Faster than the flowers left in trembling hands. Faster than the names written across posters and cardboard in black marker that bled slightly at the edges where tears or weather had touched them. It spread from phone screens to dorm rooms, from whispers in the student center to alerts on local news apps, from one frightened retelling to another until it hardened into something official enough to repeat without questioning.
The memorial at Blackridge University grew beneath a sky turning slowly blue-gray with dusk. Candles multiplied in uneven circles around the fountain, their flames bending in the breeze and straightening again. Bouquets crowded together at the base of the stone, stems crossing and crushing under the weight of other flowers laid on top of them. Printed photographs had begun to appear, taped carefully to poster board and propped against backpacks or water bottles so they would stay upright.
One board carried five names written in thick block letters.
Noah Valentino.
Katarin Kingsley.
Kane Amato.
Simon Nest.
Ramon Nest.
Five names.
Five faces.
Five versions of youth fixed permanently in photos that had never been meant for this. Graduation pictures with too-bright smiles. Group shots from bars and rooftops and tailgates. A cropped photo of Noah in sunglasses with one arm thrown around someone now cut out of frame. Katarin in glitter makeup, chin tipped high at the camera, like being seen had once been the easiest thing in the world. Kane in a darker-toned photo, not quite smiling, blue eyes half-shadowed by low indoor light. Simon and Ramon Nest, side by side in more than one picture, brothers rendered suddenly inseparable in death because the world liked tragedy neater when it came in pairs.
Around the memorial, students and former classmates gathered in loose clusters, voices lowered automatically as though the air itself demanded it. Some cried openly. Some stood with crossed arms and hollow faces, staring at the names like repetition might make them less impossible. Some lit candles and walked away immediately, unable to bear the shape of what they had contributed to. Others stayed, lingering near the fountain as the memorial took on a life of its own.
Phones glowed in hands.
Screens refreshed.
Notifications climbed.
Pictures of the fountain had already begun circulating across social media—first locally, then farther, captions changing as they spread, details sharpening where emotion needed something certain to hold onto.
#JusticeForKane
The tag appeared first under a blurry photo of the memorial posted by someone who had arrived early enough to catch the candles before the crowd did. Then under a close-up of one of Kane’s old graduation photos. Then under a clip of the fountain at dusk, flower petals moving in the wind while voices cried softly just out of frame.
#JusticeForKane
#BlackridgeFive
#PrayForTheSurvivors
The names traveled with the tag.
The story traveled faster.
Across the city, televisions flickered to life in bars, apartments, dorm common rooms, and living rooms where no one had expected their night to be interrupted by catastrophe. The same breaking-news banner stretched across every screen. The same station logo in the corner. The same composed anchor voice delivering horror in a tone polished smooth by repetition.
On one channel, the segment opened with aerial footage of the house itself, taped off now, police lights still flashing weakly against the darkening yard. The camera cut to the memorial at Blackridge University, then to a reporter standing at the edge of it in a dark coat, wind lifting the ends of her hair while candlelight flickered behind her.
“Tonight, the city is mourning after one of the most violent criminal incidents in recent local history,” she said, voice grave but measured, practiced enough to sound personal without ever becoming it. “Authorities have now confirmed the identities of five victims connected to the killings that took place over the weekend in a rented home just outside the city.”
As she spoke, photographs filled the screen one by one.
Noah Valentino.
Katarin Kingsley.
Kane Amato.
Simon Nest.
Ramon Nest.
The names appeared in white text beneath each image. Clean. Unarguable. Official now in a way memorial posters could never quite be.
The report continued.
“Police say the suspect, twenty-four-year-old Ymir Thorsson, was taken into custody at the scene following what investigators describe as a prolonged and violent attack that left multiple victims dead and several others traumatized.”
A booking photograph flashed next.
Ymir’s face looked flattened by bad lighting and the cruel stillness of the camera. Red curls darkened at the edges, eyes dulled by exhaustion and whatever pain had survived the arrest long enough to be recorded. The image stripped him of scale, warmth, context. It made him look less like a person than a headline waiting to be simplified.
Below it, the caption read:
YMIR THORSSON — IN CUSTODY
The reporter’s voice lowered slightly, finding the tone such stories always used for the final shaping of public fear.
“Authorities allege that Thorsson acted alone. According to preliminary statements, he attacked members of his friend group inside the home before being confronted. Police have not yet released a full motive, but prosecutors are expected to pursue multiple homicide charges. Sources close to the investigation say formal sentencing proceedings could begin by the end of the week.”
Across the bottom of the screen, a scrolling headline ran without pause.
BLACKRIDGE GRADUATES KILLED IN WEEKEND HOUSE ATTACK
SUSPECT YMIR THORSSON TO FACE CHARGES
CITY REACTS TO ONE OF MOST BRUTAL CRIMES IN RECENT MEMORY
#JUSTICEFORKANE TRENDS AS MEMORIAL GROWS
The segment cut to footage shot earlier in the evening.
Candles at the fountain.
Students and recent graduates standing shoulder to shoulder.
Flowers.
Posters.
A hand taping up a printed photo of Kane.
A close-up of wax dripping down a candle marked with someone’s trembling handwriting: You tried to save them.
The camera lingered there just long enough for the message to settle into the narrative already being built around him.
Kane Amato: victim.
Kane Amato: hero.
Kane Amato: the one who tried to stop it.
No one on the screen questioned that shape once it was given to them.
A second anchor took over in the studio, hands folded neatly at the desk, expression solemn in the exact way viewers had been trained to trust.
“Friends and former classmates have gathered throughout the evening at Blackridge University, where the victims had all recently graduated,” he said. “Support services are being offered on campus, and city officials are urging anyone struggling in the aftermath of the tragedy to seek help.”
Then, softer:
“For many in the community, the name Kane Amato has already become central to this case, with mourners describing him as courageous in the final moments before police arrived.”
The words passed into homes like fact.
No friction.
No pause.
Just another sentence layered onto the rest.
Courageous.
Victim.
Justice.
On campus, the memorial lights flickered brighter as the sky darkened fully. More people arrived. Some knelt in front of the photographs. Some left notes under stones to keep them from blowing away. Some stood off to the side refreshing their phones and reading aloud the same headlines they had already seen twice, as if repetition could make the thing easier to survive.
No one looking at the memorial could have known how cleanly the world had swallowed the wrong version of events.
No one listening to the broadcast could have heard the missing pieces.
The story was too smooth now.
Too public.
Too easy to repeat.
By the time the segment ended, it no longer felt like an update.
It felt like history.
The screen shifted to the next story.
The memorial kept growing.
And somewhere inside all that candlelight and camera footage and breaking-news certainty, the lie settled in so deeply it almost stopped looking like one.