The air was buzzing with tension. Students crowded around the corridor, their curious chatter humming through the mysterious atmosphere. What was supposed to be a fun-filled exciting day had turned into one of confusion. All because of the mysterious  incidents that had been taking place since morning and thus disrupting the university's annual festival.

A bit farther away from all the commotion stood Damian, leaning against the wall. His eyes scanned over the crowd trying to decipher an unknown puzzle. At that moment his friend Cara appeared beside him, and started narrating the recent mishap that had occurred. This girl here knew all the latest news about everything. Thus she was the perfect person to ask for assistance when it came to gathering any information. Damian turned towards his friend and  asked her to recap all the unusual incidents that had taken place till now.

As she listed them out, the  aspiring teenage detective listened attentively, searching for  clues that might help him crack the puzzle.

The first incident occurred early in the morning,  soon after the festival had begun. The music club reported that one of their instruments had gone missing. Nobody thought much of it until the Quiz tournament's trophy was stolen. Then more reports started coming in. Multiple people had complained about things  being lost from their respective stalls.  The last update was from half an hour ago. Somehow just a few minutes before the sports program would begin, the school's star athlete had mysteriously fallen sick.

No one could say that these were coincidences because the one thing they all had in common was a mysterious note the anonymous culprit left behind. After each of these incidents occurred a small printed paper had been discovered near the scenes. They all ended with the same trademark words etched on them in bold black print,  signed, ‘Xenon’. What was more unusual was that these notes all contained rather strange writing . Each of them had a word that seemed to be composed of jumbled letters.

The teenage detective stood deep in thought, mentally sorting through everything that had happened. But the annoying factor for him was that  he couldn't find any proper clue. The incidents seemed to have nothing in common. The culprit was not following any particular pattern behind choosing their victims. Hence the question arose - Who’s Next ?

What might be the culprit's motive behind their actions? Did they have anything against the institution or the annual festival? Or was it just someone trying to be a huge prankster?

The latter option was soon ruled out. Damian snapped out of his thoughts as he heard Cara gasp loudly looking down at something on her phone. Her next words increased Damian’s frustration. The latest victim was the cooking club. A fire had broken out but thankfully it wasn't very big and the staff immediately  put it out with the fire extinguisher . What started out as small incidents seemed to  gradually become more and more dangerous. Sure enough a printed note had also been found this time. Something clicked on the detective's brain and he promptly asked his friend if she could show him pictures of all the notes.

After seeing the notes, Damian wondered about the identity of ‘Xenon’ - Who could it be? Is Xenon a single person or an entire group ?

How could he possibly figure out their identities and intentions?

Whoever is behind all the chaos was clever and knew what they were doing.

But our young detective was no less clever than the culprit. As he looked over the notes, he made a shocking discovery.

The logo of the school printer was present in the bottom right corner, just below Xenon’s trademark.

Damian scurried to the library, where he noticed the printer still running. A smirk crept up on his lips after noticing the culprits’ mistake.

Using some quick computer skills, he researched the school’s printing machine records and the culprit’s identity stared back at him.

He then looked at the words, and all of a sudden everything started to make sense. All the notes contained  some symbols from the Periodic Table, which came together to form the sentence,

‘This place is about to blow.”

And then it clicked.

‘Xenon’ is an element from the Periodic Table. So therefore-

He had finally solved the case! But before he could expose his findings to the public, a deafening explosion ripped through the entire building-

‘BANG!’

A loud sound echoed throughout the entire building, as many students screamed in terror. The young detective rushed out of the library and headed to where the culprits were- the science lab. Turns out, ‘Xenon’ was the science club, who had their performance scheduled to be one of the last ones of the day.  But why did they create such a commotion?

To simply attract students to their performance. The science club's performance timing clashed with the magic show's one and naturally more people were inclined to watch the latter. As a result the science club pulled this stunt in order to lure the audience away from the magic show and attract them towards their own performance.

Heaving a sigh, Damian stood in the corner of the room as more and more people entered the science lab, the commotion leading them to the show known for creating chaos. He then felt a presence beside him, a presence that put him in more ease.

“Figured out Xenon's identity yet?” asked Cara.

Leaning against the wall , Damian closed his eyes and started narrating the details of the whole mystery to Cara- about how the Science kids lured everyone in by creating a commotion, the trademark and the school printing machine records. Cara listened, unable to believe the drama as she immediately started towards the science show in front.

By now, the entire school must have guessed what had happened

Author's Note

Co wrote this with one of my school friends