Dax already knew where he was heading to after class let out, and so he didn't bother saying goodbye to any of his classmates as he barrelled out of the classroom. Not that he would have particularly bothered anyway. He supposed most of them were okay, really, but none of them were his friend. Which suited him just fine.

Since he had planned his afternoon and evening, he already had his camera and sketchpad, and all the other things he'd need to collect samples of the plants and soil he'd collect. That cut out unnecessary time, and he was glad he'd remembered to get them because of that. But though most of the time he was fairly impervious to the cold, as he kept walking he found that he was feeling the chill, and stopped in the middle of the grounds to wrap his scarf around his neck a little bit tighter.

He could see the woods from here, though the view wasn't that clear from this distance. There were some trees here and there closer by, though, a few still clinging stubbornly to their autumn leaves even though they should have been shed by now. There wasn't any particular scientific value to him taking pictures of them, but he thought it looked pretty enough to do so. So he got his camera out, and snapped a couple of pictures. Just as he was gearing up to take a third, someone let out a soft exclamation, and then:

"Oh, sorry, Haley-kun!"

He looked up to see a girl he recognised. She was in his year, he knew that, but in the other class. He couldn't for the life of him dredge up her name. He felt like he should, though. She was dressed in some kind of martial arts uniform, except it was candyfloss pink. The girl blinked at him, grey eyes curious, before asking:

"Are you going into the woods today?"

"The woods? I assume you mean those ones."

Dax jumped as Ms Burton-who had been walking back towards the main building- turned to them both. She pointed to the woods in the distance and then told Dax, sternly:

"You know that you can't go too deep into those woods, don't you? They're larger than they look and it's easy for students to get lost in there."

"I know that!" Dax protested. "Besides, I've been in there before!"

"He has, Sensei," the girl said. "He always goes to take pictures of the trees and…collect leaves?"

"And soil samples, bark…anything that could be of interest." Dax said. "Some of the plants in those woods are different to the woods I grew up around, you see. The mineral content-"

"Are you going alone?" Ms Burton interrupted.

Dax scowled, slightly put off that he couldn't tell them both about the differences he'd noticed in the wood's soil compared to other woods he'd been too, as well as the similarities. But he could tell that she was actually concerned as she crossed her arms and looked at him with her stern dark brown eyes. Though he assumed that she must have been teaching the girl (nope, her name still wasn't coming to him, but oh well) earlier, she still looked very collected, and her black hair was still in what he assumed was its original style of a neat bun.

"I….yeah. It's just the woods. I know my way around the woods."

"I have no doubt you do, Haley-kun," Ms Burton said briskly. "However, again, I must remind you to not go too deep into the woods, and also to keep track of the time. It gets darker quickly at this time of the year."

"Yes, which is why I'd like to go now."

Dax immediately realised he was being rude and slapped his hand over his mouth, but felt too prickly to properly apologise, even though he should, given Ms Burton was a teacher and all. And she was a cool teacher. Kinda strict, but also just kind. She always let him get changed for gym lessons separately to the rest of the class, and she always seemed to know the days when doing his school tie up properly felt too much, too scarily like 'dressing up' and didn't call him out for it.

"Uh, that is, unless…"

"No, no, I need to get going soon myself. Fujita-san, you've got sessions at the dojo across town tomorrow, right?"

"Yes, that's right." The girl said. "And tomorrow lunchtime I'm helping Luca-kun out at The Student Café."

The name 'Luca-kun' triggered something in his memory. It had been last year, and he'd been trying to forget about it the same way he tried to forget all the nonsense he dealt with at this school. Even now, he tried not to dwell too much on the details of that nonsense.

But this incident, he remembered, because these students (who were third years now, but second years then) had been specifically teasing him about his hair and how that meant he shouldn't be 'allowed' to identify as a boy-whatever the heck that meant. And Fujita-san had been watching, but she hadn't said anything at first, and he'd remembered being frustrated at that until she had unexpectedly come out with:

"Pink's my favourite colour, so I'm a bit biased…but I think anybody would be lucky to have such beautiful hair, with all those different shades. I don't want to dye mine, but I wish mine was like that naturally. Plus, it matches our school tie colour."

As if to prove her point, she'd then fiddled with her school bow, which was the same shade of pink as his school tie. Dax didn't know why, exactly, but rather than something more generic than green, red and blue, the different tie/bow colours in this school were yellow, purple and pink. The year above them had yellow, and the year below purple. Once this year's third years graduated, the new first years would get the yellow again. But that hadn't really had any relevance to that incident, only that Fujita-san's comment had completely flummoxed the kids who had been picking on him, making them all stare at both him and her with their mouths open like particularly gormless goldfish. And then Luca Fontana (his name was easy to remember, if only because of the café) had arrived, and had scolded his classmates in a jumbled mixture of Japanese, English and possibly Italian that had nonetheless gotten the point across. But once they'd been sent packing, Luca had turned to them both and asked them both if they were alright.

He couldn't recall exactly what had happened next, but he didn't think it had been very much. Probably he'd just shrugged it off and decided to go to the woods to cool off, leaving Luca and Fujita-san together. But he wondered if Fujita-san remembered. He certainly felt a little bad that he hadn't realised that she had in fact stood up for him, but probably more cleverly than the shouting and scolding he'd wished for. Though he couldn't deny Luca had been very effective too.

Well, it's just going to be weird to be like 'hey thanks for that one random time last year when you confused a bunch of bullies by complementing my hair' so maybe I'll just…not…

Luckily, Fujita-san hadn't noticed that he was still standing there, as she'd still been talking to Ms Burton. But now that the teacher was walking away, Dax figured he'd better walk away too and so that was exactly what he did. Behind him, he heard Fujita-san excitedly exclaim:

"Fukue-chan!"

And he assumed that was a friend of hers, and felt an odd pang. He didn't always want to hang out in the woods alone. Most of the time, sure, but not always. This year, he'd had a few fun times with Silas, who was from one of the first-year classes. Even though he didn't have a particularly nature-related Talent, Silas was someone who appreciated the outdoors the way Dax did. In fact, the only reason they'd met at all was because of the woods. But Silas wasn't free and hadn't been for a few days, because he was assisting some local band with their instrument maintenance ahead of a concert. Or something.

Oh my god get a grip. It's not the end of the world. Dax tried to shake the thought off, pretended he wasn't feeling a little lonely now because obviously he was fine just by himself as he usually wanted to be-

"See you later, Haley-kun!"

Dax almost stumbled over his own feet at the sound of Fujita-san calling to him. He didn't turn around, but pulled himself together enough to call out "Yeah, see you!" as loud as he could while still heading to the woods. But much how her unexpected complement had thrown things off, her unexpected goodbye also made him feel a little off-kilter. In a good way, he had to admit, but still off-kilter. So he was glad when he reached the woods and could start doing what he did best.

Some moments passed contentedly as he photographed and sketched, and took samples of plants and sections of soil and dirt. But then, as he walked a little further in and knelt down to look at some of the plants still there, he saw an unusual shape in the soil. Kneeling down to take a closer look, he realised it was a footprint. There seemed to be a few more ahead, scuffed, walking deeper into the woods. Hmmmm. Taking out his magnifying glass first, he scrutinised them. Of course, this type of forensics wasn't his forte, but that didn't mean he didn't want to give it a go anyway. He then took out his rulers, and made measurements, writing them down and taking photographs. He did so for all of the footprints, and he was so absorbed in this task that he didn't realise that he was actually following them deeper into the woods until they suddenly seemed to disappear.

"Wait, what?" he muttered aloud.

He squinted at the ground, and came to another realisation: it was getting dark. Ms Burton's admonishments came into his head and he shook himself and stood up.

"Oi, is there anyone there?" he asked, first in Japanese and then in English.

When there wasn't an answer, he called out in English:

"You know we're meant to be back out by dark, right? Whoever the heck you are, anyway. I didn't think anyone else in this school was particularly interested in these woods, but whatever."

He had to think a moment about how to rephrase that in Japanese, but he did so anyway, adding in a comment about how they couldn't camp there overnight since it technically didn't belong to the school. Probably everyone knew that, but what did he know? But, failing to get a response from any of that, he just shrugged and said:

"Alright, fine, whatever. Can't say I didn't warn you."

He looked around again, just to be sure, but failing to spot anyone, he quickly knelt back down and gathered his things. The leaves started to rustle, and he felt the back of his neck prickle, but he told himself that this was just the dark producing an instinctual reaction. The noises were just the same noises that the woods made when it was light, too. Just animals, plants, the wind. Even his own motions. Nonetheless, the feeling persisted, and he shivered once, twice, involuntarily. Still, he wrapped his coat around himself, gripped onto his things tighter, gritted his teeth and started to trudge his way out of the woods.

One foot in front of the other, and then the other, and then the other, it did not occur to him until he started to get close to the edge of the woods again that perhaps there was a reason that whoever had made the footprints didn't answer. Perhaps whoever it was had fallen somewhere, gotten hurt. They might have been unconscious, or even dead. And Dax had just left them there. How could he have done that?

Perhaps I should-no, wait. Don't be fucking stupid, Dax Haley. Get a teacher or someone. Like Ms Burton. She's a security guard too, right? So get her or someone…

Even as he turned, he didn't know which direction he was going to choose. To safety, or back into the woods. But he did not get the chance to make that decision, for all of a sudden, someone grabbed him from behind, pinning his hands behind his back with one hand and covering his mouth with the other. He tried to break free, to move his head far enough so that he could scream but before he could manage it, everything went black.

Characters introduced this chapter:

Missing Students:

-Dax Haley, second year, SHSL Forensic Ecologist (my OC)

Staff:

-Alexis Burton, part-time Head of Security and Gym Teacher (belongs to: Spyrorocks389)

There's still a little bit of time before the deadline, so I thought it'd be nice to put in a small update and what better way of doing that than starting off with one of the disappearances? It also ended up giving me an opportunity to briefly introduce one of the early acceptance characters which is nice. But anyway, please keep the submissions coming! I have been getting them recently, but not that many in general. So, I need more.

The deadline still is the 3rd March at the moment, and I am finding the student roles have so far been a more popular choice so a few more adult candidates are needed. With that being said, I do still need more student submissions of both missing and remaining students anyway, as this popularity is only slight, so please follow your heart in that regard. Well, as long as you want to and are able to, anyway. In any case, I may try to put out another special chapter of some sort around the deadline? If not, then I'll just put further status updates and whatnot on my profile.

Hope you enjoyed the chapter. If you want to/can do, please leave a review :)