The academy tried to return to order.
Teachers doubled their patrols in the halls. Lights were kept on longer into the night. Dorm curfews were strict and unbending. But despite the heavy footsteps of patrolling staff and the sharp commands to "Stay in your rooms!", fear lingered like smoke.
And that night, the academy learned that rules couldn't keep the darkness out.
Elara lay awake in her dormitory bed, staring at the ceiling. Her roommate, Claire, slept soundly across the room, but Elara's eyes refused to close. The whispers had been growing bolder since the message on the board, their voices clearer now.
"You cannot run, child."
"Ours… you are ours…"
Her heart pounded, but she clenched her fists and pressed them to her ears. "Leave me alone," she mouthed silently. "Please…"
Then, she realized something horrifying.
The voices weren't in her head anymore.
They filled the dormitory.
Soft at first, like a breeze drifting under the door. Then louder. Dozens of voices, overlapping, groaning, laughing, whispering in a language that chilled her bones. Claire stirred, frowning in her sleep. Down the hall, Elara heard doors creak open, footsteps, gasps.
She wasn't the only one hearing it.
The voices spread like a wave across the girls' dormitory. Lights flicked on, students screamed. Somewhere, glass shattered. One by one, the whispers grew into a single chant that rattled the windows:
"SHE IS OURS. SHE IS OURS. SHE IS OURS."
Claire bolted upright, her face drained of color. "What—what is that?!" she cried, clutching her blanket.
Elara's blood froze. They weren't just calling for someone. They were calling for her.
And then came the scratching.
From the ceiling. From the walls. From beneath the very floorboards. Long, jagged nails dragging slowly through wood, circling the dormitory like something was crawling inside the academy itself.
Students screamed, huddled together, pounding on doors for teachers. But Elara sat frozen in her bed, her pulse hammering in her throat, because she knew — deep down — the voices weren't after anyone else.
They were after her.
---
Damian woke to chaos. The boys' dormitory was in an uproar, students leaning out into the hall, some crying, others shouting. But he didn't need explanations.
He heard the voices too.
The same whispers from the library. The same chant from the classroom. Now magnified, echoing across the academy, rattling every window and door.
But amid the confusion, he noticed something strange.
Through the crowd of panicked students, he caught sight of the girls' dormitory across the courtyard. And there—through a lit window—he saw her.
Elara Winters, sitting on her bed, unmoving. Pale. Staring at nothing while the other girls around her screamed.
The voices weren't just haunting the school.
They were tied to her.