Ryuu sits on the school rooftop, rain tapping his shoes. He fixes his glasses and mutters, “Another coded post?” He doesn’t trust anyone from the student government. Are you always wary if your classmates never blink?
Irina, his outspoken best friend, bursts through the door waving a USB stick. “Ryuu, you have to see this. It’s from Haruto, and… you just have to see.” She whispers now: “I think I’m being watched.”
This all starts with a string of online clues: scrambled images, shifts in school policy, and talk on forums that a hidden group controls not just the school, but the city’s dreams. Ryuu tries solving string puzzles in math class, but others seem scared to even try. “Does that symbol mean they’re in on it?” Irina asks during chemistry, her voice low.
At the core is the Glass Tower: a sealed research lab built next to the school. Most people say it’s just used for “historical data management.” Ryuu’s uncle used to be a guard there, but vanished one spring—leaving only a drawing with inked-out faces. Will Ryuu ever tell his family that he’s snooping around forbidden ground?
Shizuka, the quiet librarian, notices Ryuu’s late-night visits and gives him a pamphlet. It’s nothing special at first, but he finds cut-out letters pasted into footnotes: “You’re right to doubt the shadows by the gym wall.” Who’s helping him from the inside?
Rumors stack up fast—missing teachers, secret files, strange blank spots in yearbooks, and that eerie hum in the east stairwell at sunset. Ryuu and Irina start connecting threads using archive searches, school Wi-Fi, hidden camera footage, and those coded posts. Are they close, or being toyed with?
The plot opens up as more helpers appear. Takeshi, a journalist grad student, says his mother’s recipes are all encoded guides. Hana is just looking for her lost cat, but ends up finding a folder labeled “Class D Subject – Observation Complete.” 
Ryuu’s group starts unlocking draft files and DeepWeb notes, usually at risk of getting caught or erased from class attendance logs. They dodge “Cleanup Teams” who roam the school halls. Twice, they fight to stay connected after devices reset themselves.
Mid-arc, Irina gets a hall pass she never applied for with a cryptic map scribbled on the backside. She follows it and vanishes for six days. Ryuu receives silent late-night calls and single-word DMs: “Control,” “Trust,” “Don’t.” He wakes each day feeling watched. Hanging threads everywhere. Ever get that sense reading late at night?
What’s behind all these fake announcements and false leads? Just who is running The Glass Tower, and why does no one ever remember the ones who disappear? Ryuu tracks a distorted voice to an old sub-basement stairs, and finds a wall of screens showing every class in session. There’s someone sitting up front, face hidden, a chorus of other voices narrating real students’ daily actions. He whispers, “So… is all of this even real?” 
As Ryuu hacks the code one stormy night to break the class register firewall, Irina’s face shows up on every monitor. New instructions play in a warped recording: “The next test is memory removal. No one leaves.” Ryuu won’t let Irina down. He shouts at the blank screens: “Why are you doing this?!” 
Cut to credits on ringing alarms, doors locking across campus, students blank-faced as drones drift down the core staircase. Glass Tower protocol: initiated. How can Ryuu break the chain, or does the truth barely exist anymore? Would you keep pushing if your friends started forgetting all the clues?
Next week: The Plan Inside The Segmented File—the secret rosters, a strange history of city-wide ‘erased events,’ maybe the truth behind Ryuu’s missing uncle. Hang tight; if you solve one piece, what’s the cost for the rest?
