The four of them stood outside the iron gates, staring up at the massive stone building. It looked like an elite boarding school—tall, ivy-covered walls, grand windows reflecting the setting sun. But the barbed wire, the motion-activated cameras, and the eerie silence told them otherwise.

  “Welcome to Blackridge Academy,” a voice said behind them.

  They turned sharply, instincts kicking in. A tall woman in a sleek black suit stood there, arms crossed. She had sharp eyes—the kind that noticed everything.

  “My name is Agent Carter. Congratulations. You’ve officially been recruited.”

  Mia, the confident one, scoffed. “So you’re telling us this is a spy school?”

  “More than that,” Carter said. “It’s the best.”

  Lena, always the skeptic, adjusted her glasses. “And what happens if we fail?”

  Carter smiled—an unreadable, unsettling kind of smile. “Then you disappear.”

  The girls exchanged nervous glances.

  “You don’t have time to hesitate,” Carter continued. “Your training starts now. Codebreaking, combat, surveillance. You’ll learn it all. But first—” She handed each of them a small black folder. “You have 24 hours to uncover the secret of whyyou were chosen.”

  Ivy flipped open her folder. Inside was a single slip of paper with one word:

  CLASSIFIED.

  Sora, the quiet one, studied the school’s towering windows. “They’re testing us already,” she murmured.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

  Mia smirked. “Good. I love a challenge.”

  That night, their dorm room was anything but quiet.

  “I don’t get it,” Lena muttered, flipping through her empty file again. “Why recruit us?”

  Mia stretched out on her bed. “I mean, I am the best athlete in our school. Maybe they needed someone fast.”

  Ivy rolled her eyes. “And I guess they needed someone who can hack into literally anything,” she added smugly, tapping at her tablet.

  Sora didn’t speak for a long moment. Then she said, “What if… we weren’t supposed to find these answers in the files? What if we need to look somewhere else?”

  Mia sat up. “Like where?”

  Sora turned her gaze to the large painting on the wall—a grand portrait of a man in an old military uniform. “Like there.”

  At exactly 2:00 AM, the four girls crept through the halls of Blackridge. They moved in perfect sync—silent, alert, fast.

  Ivy worked her magic first, bypassing the security system with her tablet. “We have about ten minutes before they notice we looped the cameras.”

  Mia took the lead, using her speed and agility to navigate the shadows. Lena followed, keeping track of their surroundings.

  Sora was the last to step through the hidden door behind the painting. Inside was a small, dimly lit room lined with locked file cabinets.

  “Bingo,” Mia whispered.

  Lena started flipping through files. “Names, dates, missions… but nothing about us.”

  Sora’s fingers traced an old leather book on the desk. The moment she touched it, a compartment in the wall clicked open.

  Inside was a folder labeled ‘PROJECT SHADOW: RECRUITS’.

  Ivy grabbed it and flipped it open. Her eyes widened. “No way…”

  Mia peered over her shoulder. “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Lena felt a chill run down her spine. “They knew who we were before we even knew ourselves.”

  Sora’s voice was barely above a whisper. “Because we were born for this.”