The rain came down in sheets, drumming against the tall windows of Black Hollow High like a warning. The school had been shut down for five years—abandoned after a mysterious fire gutted the east wing. No one really knew what happened that night. The official reports said it was faulty wiring, but the students whispered something else entirely.
Something darker.
Yoon Hana stood at the rusted front gates, umbrella clenched tight in her hand. She wasn't the type to scare easily. Seventeen, sharp-eyed, and obsessed with unsolved mysteries, she had spent the last three weeks begging her cousin, a part-time janitor, to sneak her inside. Now, standing at the threshold of what locals called the "Cursed School," she wasn't so sure she'd made the right decision.
"Are you seriously doing this?" her best friend Mira asked from behind, trembling under her raincoat.
"Of course," Hana replied, voice steady. "I want the truth."
Mira groaned. "Truth or not, no one comes here for a reason. People say... the doors whisper at night."
Hana didn't respond. She pushed the gate open, metal creaking like a dying animal. They entered the main hallway, flashlights casting thin beams through the gloom. Everything inside looked frozen in time—desks covered in dust, chairs overturned, lockers half open. A heavy silence wrapped around them like a blanket of ash.
"Do you hear that?" Mira whispered.
Hana paused.
A low tapping sound echoed from the east corridor. Tap. Tap. Tap.
She swallowed. "Probably water dripping. Don't freak out."
But she was lying. It didn't sound like water. It sounded... deliberate.
They pressed on, walking past shattered glass, faded banners, and old trophies dulled with age. The school felt wrong, like the walls were watching. Hana's flashlight flickered as they neared the east wing—the part that had burned down.
The moment they stepped past the yellow warning tape, the air turned icy.
Mira grabbed Hana's sleeve. "Hana, I think we should go back."
"No," Hana said, though her voice had lost its edge. "Just a little further."
The corridor was pitch black. Charred walls and crumbling lockers lined the path. The smell of smoke still lingered faintly, as though the fire had never truly gone out. Then they saw it.
A door.
It was untouched by fire. Wooden. Red. With no dust on its surface. Like it had been polished that morning.
"I've seen this before," Hana whispered. "In the photos from the investigation. This door... it's not on the school's original blueprint."
Mira shivered. "Then where does it go?"
Hana reached for the handle.
The metal was cold as ice.
She twisted it slowly. The door opened with a long creak, revealing a narrow staircase spiraling downward. A musty smell rose to greet them—damp, old, and metallic.
"There's a basement?" Mira asked.
"There isn't supposed to be," Hana replied.
Still, she stepped inside.
The stairs groaned under their weight. Each step deeper seemed to sap warmth from their skin. When they reached the bottom, Hana's flashlight hit something.
Eyes.
Dozens of glowing red eyes stared back at her from the darkness. She gasped and stepped back, but the light revealed only a wall of mirrors.
Mirrors that hadn't been there before.
And in every reflection, Hana wasn't holding the flashlight.
In one, her hands were covered in blood.
In another, her mouth was stitched shut.
And in the third, she was looking straight back at herself—but her eyes were solid black.
"What the hell is this?" Mira whimpered.
Suddenly, the door slammed shut above them.
They ran to the top, banging on the door. It wouldn't open. The red paint on the wood now pulsed like a heartbeat.
And then came the whisper.
"We see you."
Hana froze.
The whisper came again, this time from behind.
"Behind the door... the dead are watching."
Mira screamed.
Hana turned and saw something crawling from the wall. A shadow, long and thin, with too many fingers and no eyes. Yet it moved as if it could see everything.
The girls backed away, heartbeats thunderous in their ears. Hana pointed the flashlight at the shadow, but it passed through as if the light didn't exist.
The mirror behind them cracked.
Then shattered.
A blast of cold air knocked them down.
Mira sobbed, grabbing Hana's arm. "We need to get out! We need to—"
The whisper returned, louder, clearer.
"One of you must stay behind."
Hana looked into the remaining mirror.
In it, she saw herself alone.
Trapped.
Bleeding.
A voice inside her head—her own voice—spoke calmly.
"It's already too late."
The flashlight died.
Total darkness swallowed them.
And behind the door... something opened its eyes.