My eyes scanned the courtyard with growing unease as I crept backward from the fountain. The once vibrant flowers along the path wilted in real time, their petals curling inward, stems bowing as though mourning. Their vitality was being siphoned away—stolen by something that moved unseen, its presence undeniable.

Shhrck... shhrck... The sound of gravel grinding beneath weight, deliberate and heavy, broke the silence in staggered rhythms. Each step echoed with the slow certainty of a predator, until the sound vanished entirely—only to reappear closer, faster. The steps multiplied, pressed faster into the stone, then fell silent again.

'Is this thing toying with me?'

The surrounding shadows grew bold. They flared and lunged forward, hurling themselves at the advancing presence in a unified, silent charge. I braced for impact, but the shadows weren’t coming for me. They were defenders. I recognized one of them—the blood-drained, ghostly figure of Tom, eyes hollow, shirt dark with blood and hair tangled in clumps. His voice, rasped and broken, echoed through the air.

"GOooo...!"

It was Tom—but not the one I knew. This was the echo of a failed timeline. And the others? Students. Spirits. The lost.

I didn't wait to see what would come next. My feet moved on their own, carrying me into the corridor of the left wing. I sprinted through the main hallway, cape whipping behind me. When I reached the front entrance, my hand hovered over the handle, trembling, as if a thousand futures weighed down on that small, final gesture. Then it turned, and I stepped into the rain.

"Tom... then that was his spirit that saved me... which means he's already dead. And those others—who were they?"

I didn’t stop until I reached the edge of the field. Collapsing beside the fence near the cafeteria, I let the weight of cold rain soak into me, my back pressed against the iron bars. The cape unfurled above me, shielding me like some ancient guardian. I pulled out a cigarette, but every time I tried to light it, my hand faltered. The lighter clicked, then lowered.

'Who am I even saving?' I stared down at the sodden earth. 'What exactly am I preventing?' If this was the present—as my watch claimed—then had I already failed? The spirits were showing me flashes of the past, fragments stitched into the now like open wounds. Was this a second chance? Or a death sentence on repeat?

Rain streaked across the school windows, tracing mournful lines down the panes like tears from the building itself. Behind me, light broke across the fence, casting fractured patterns—twisted X’s—into the mud.

Finally, the cigarette sparked to life. I exhaled slowly, watching the smoke rise into the damp air, only to be pulled away by the cold wind like everything else I had held onto lately.

When I stood again, it wasn’t strength that carried me. It was habit. I clung to the fence and traced it to the field gate, my eyes locked on the looming school. Something watched from within. I could feel it in the marrow of my bones. But I didn’t look away.

Crossing through the gate, the metal slammed shut behind me. I didn’t jump. I was already numb. Moving in a trance, I reached the cafeteria doors and hesitated again. My fingers curled around the handle, slick with rain.

'Damnit.' I turned it and stepped inside.

The lights, which had moments ago illuminated the ceiling, now receded toward the kitchen at the back of the room. The cafeteria stretched wide and sterile, the tables empty but spotless, unnervingly pristine. Droplets from my cape fell in uneven patterns, each tick a pinprick against the eerie stillness.

Through the pass of the cafeteria counter, I glimpsed someone slipping into a closet at the back of the kitchen—where the last light retreated beneath a sealed door.

I crouched low, inching forward on silent steps until I pressed my ear against the door’s surface. Inside, voices. Low, broken. One choked on the edge of despair, unraveling into muffled sobs that filled the dark.

The crying went on far too long. The grief was raw. It seeped through the door and filled my chest with a weight that didn’t belong to me. Something else was in this room. Not just sorrow. A residue. Like soot clinging to the lungs.

'What happened?' I thought, just before the silence broke.

"What happened..." the voice echoed—a deep, scratchy sound like gravel dragged through broken glass. Brent. The same question I had whispered moments ago.

“I don’t know,” came Tom’s answer. “I thought it was just the pipes at first… until I heard it moving room to room. Through the walls. Like it was inside them.”

He paused. The room breathed around his next words.

“Everyone on my floor was gone for the weekend. Except Isaac.”

“Isaac?” Brent asked. “That short kid who kept to himself?”

Tom hesitated, then nodded. “Yeah… him. I watched the hallway, saw the lights going out under the dorm doors one by one. When it reached Isaac’s room, his light vanished. I knocked. No answer. I kept knocking until… until the light came back on. I looked under the door and saw a shadow swinging back and forth. When the door finally creaked open, I saw him lying on his bed. Lifeless.”

Brent placed a heavy hand on Tom’s shoulder with a pat sound I picked up on. “That part’s not your fault.”

Becca’s voice cut in sharply, shrill like a bell. “So that’s what started it?”

Tom exhaled. “I think so. The moment it happened, the light in the room flared—and then I ran. Right into Brent.”

Serenity’s voice trembled. “Brent… what did you see?”

Brent’s tone wavered. “I saw Isaac… standing in the hall. Screaming, but no sound came out. I could read his lips though. He was mouthing the same thing over and over: Run. Go away. Run. Go away.”

He began to repeat the words, over and over, until Tom physically shook him from it.

“If you’re gonna tell me it’s gonna be okay,” Tom muttered, “then at least believe it too, you idiot.”

The room fell into another silence, except for the occasional sniffle from Serenity.

“It made him do it? Or did it suck the life out of him?” she finally whispered. “The teachers will call it suicide. That’s what they’ll think. Shouldn’t we tell someone?”

“They won’t believe us,” Becca said. “Not the city scholars they brought in to teach. They don’t give a damn about spirits or curses. They only see books and theories.”

Tom slammed his palm against the tile. “The talismans broke. We know it’s something more. It’s already inside the school. It’s feeding off the dorms… off the weakest of us.”

Brent rubbed his hands together. “It’s not just the bullies. Even if their spirits are involved, they’re being used. Puppets. It doesn’t need their anger—it just needed them to die. And now it’s pulling others down, too.”

A long pause.

Then Serenity’s voice, soft. “We can’t give it an offering, but maybe… maybe we can protect Isaac. Even now. Give him the peace he never had.”

The closet’s light dimmed, casting a pall over the cafeteria kitchen. I leaned back into the dark, drawing a shaky breath. My cigarette spun between my fingers like a charm against madness.

This curse—whatever it was—it wasn’t killing for vengeance. It was multiplying. Like fire, it fed on what it could: grief, fear, suffering. A perfect chain reaction. A domino effect designed to burn until nothing remained.

I stood slowly, eyes catching on a new glow. One of the cafeteria tables, near the window, had come to life with pale illumination. I crawled from shadow to shadow, using the nearest table as cover until I came within sight of them again—Tom, Brent, Becca, Serenity.

Their shadows flickered in the low light.

Brent stirred a bowl. “No matter what we threw at it… it just kept coming.”

Tom watched them all. “At least no one was hurt tonight. But things still don’t make sense. Like how each of us saw something different. Serenity said it looked like the leader of those five bullies. Brent saw a towering demon. Becca… saw something else.”

Becca cleared her throat. “A very… curvy woman.”

“Yeah,” Tom muttered, “that.”

Serenity frowned. “That’s impossible. How can it be all those things?”

“Because it’s not a fixed form,” Tom said. “It manifests differently. For each person, it becomes what they fear most. That’s why it targets the weakest—it breaks them mentally before it ever lays a hand.”

Becca’s eyes lit with realization. “That’s why it doesn’t touch us. It doesn’t need to.”

“But how do you fight something you can’t touch?” Brent muttered.

Serenity looked up. “What about the church?”

“The what now?”

“The one to the east. Priests. Monks. Maybe they can help.”

Tom hesitated. “We’d have to send someone. One person. Two max. And that leaves the rest of us here, exposed.”

“Like we haven’t already been,” Becca said flatly.

Tom frowned. “If we split wrong, someone ends up alone in their wing. Alone means vulnerable.”

“I’ll go,” he said finally.

Becca nodded. “Brent may be strong, but you’re the smartest. You’re fast. You’ll make it.”

Tom chuckled. “I’m not fast at everything…”

Serenity reached up and smacked him. “You’re also not a good listener.”

They laughed, but the air was heavy.

Tom stood, and one by one, the others placed their hands on his shoulder in prayer. I watched him silently mouth a final thought in the reflection of tile beneath the door: If I die… you have to live.

‘Tom… you’re braver than most men I’ve known.’

The scene faded.

I exhaled and turned just as light began glowing from the front entrance again.

'Oh come on, give a guy a break,' I thought. Then winced, as if the dead might hear me and answer.

I stepped out, ready, only to find the light splitting into two directions—one path leading toward the school, and the other toward the front gate.

Ding.

The display flickered into view.

‘Boon of Mystery: The time grows near. Make a decision on what perspective to follow.

Quest: Follow Tom to the church. Protect him from the spirit.

Quest: Stay at the school. Protect the students from the spirit.’

“So there are really two of them? Or... does it follow whichever path I do?”

I lit the eternal smoke, chewing on the filter, shoulders hunched beneath the cafeteria overhang. Rain battered the stone and metal beyond, a choir of drums for a coming reckoning.