Kai had been trying to ignore the feeling.
It had started small — a shiver when entering certain rooms, an urge to glance over his shoulder during lessons, the sense that the school breathed when no one was watching.
But today, the feeling wouldn't leave.
In third period math, he saw it: a faint flicker, low to the floor, between desks near the back of the room.Like a person crawling. But wrong.Too fast. Too smooth.
He blinked, and it was gone.
"Everything alright, Kai?" the teacher asked.
He looked up, startled.
Everyone was staring at him.
He realized his pencil had snapped in his hand.
Between classes, Kai walked down the main hallway. Lights flickered overhead, but only when he passed beneath them.
He heard it again — a short, sharp giggle. Not a laugh.More like a mockery.
He turned, expecting to see someone hiding behind the lockers.
But there was no one.
Only a slip of paper folded neatly in the middle of the hallway tiles.
Kai picked it up.
"You noticed the wrong thing. It noticed you back."
Kai showed the note to Ren.
Ren looked at it quietly, then handed it back.
"Good," he said. "It means you're waking up."
Kai's voice was barely above a whisper. "Waking up to what, exactly?"
Ren tapped the floor beneath them with his shoe. "The truth hides between things. Between moments. Between thoughts. And between desks."
Kai stared at him. "You're insane."
Ren didn't flinch. "And you're still pretending the world makes sense."
Kai stayed late — half by accident, half by choice.
The halls were quiet. Shadows longer than they should be. The lights overhead buzzed like angry wasps.
As he walked back to the classroom to grab his textbook, he passed Class 2-B and froze.
The door was slightly ajar.
He saw movement inside — something low, dragging itself across the floor.
He pushed the door open.
Empty.
Just desks. Chairs. Sunlight fading on the chalkboard.
But then he noticed—
The floor beneath one of the desks was scorched.As if something burned its way in... or out.
He knelt beside it.
Someone had carved into the wood:
"She's still here."
Kai hurried out, heart pounding. The halls felt warped now. Longer than they should be.He could hear something skittering behind him — too fast, too dry.
He turned the corner—
—and it followed.
A flicker. A shape. A whisper.
It disappeared just as a teacher passed by, humming like nothing was wrong.
Kai pressed himself to the wall, breathing hard.
And then his phone buzzed.
No ID. No signal. One image.
A photo.
Of him. In class.
From behind.Taken seconds ago.
Between the desks — a figure crouched beneath his chair.
Grinning.
Kai couldn't stop staring at the photo on his phone.
There he was — sitting in class, oblivious.And under his desk: that thing.Bent. Smiling. Watching.
The timestamp was 12:46 p.m.
Kai zoomed in. The background showed a familiar detail — a cracked floor tile near the back corner of Room 2-B. The same tile he'd passed the day before.
That's where it was taken.
But from what angle?
There were no cameras down there. No mirrors. No one had been behind him.
Unless…
Someone — or something — was under the floor.
Kai skipped lunch. Slipped past the teachers' lounge. Found the maintenance stairs to the lower storage level.
Students weren't allowed down here. Dusty pipes. Boiler tanks. Long corridors. The kind of silence that pressed against your eardrums.
He walked beneath Class 2-B. The ceiling above him was cracked in the exact pattern he saw in the photo.
Something had been watching him from here.
As he turned to leave, he noticed a metal door at the end of the hall. Thick. Bolted. A rusted sign:
"Storage Room 3C – Sealed"
Kai approached.
The door handle was cold. Too cold.
And there were scratch marks on the wall beside it — as if someone, or something, had clawed at the metal.Trying to get in.Or trying to get out.
That night, Kai returned.
He couldn't sleep. He couldn't think. The door had burned itself into his mind.
Armed with a flashlight and his father's old multitool, he slipped back into the school after hours. Past the fences. Through the basement access.
The door waited.
He jimmied the lock. Worked it until his fingers bled.
Click.
The door creaked open.
Inside: darkness. Dust. Silence.Shelves of unused equipment. Broken desks. Crates of old records.
And in the center of the room —
A chair.
Strapped to the floor with chains.Facing a wall covered in tally marks.
Hundreds of them.
One for every time someone had waited here.
Or screamed here.
Kai stepped inside. The air was heavy, thick with rot.
He turned in a slow circle.
Something had been living here. Or hiding here.
He stepped toward the chair—
And the door slammed shut behind him.
Pitch black.
Then—
A voice.
Not loud. Not angry. Just behind him.A whisper that slid into his ears like ice water.
"You came looking. So now you'll see."
Kai spun, flashlight shaking. Nothing.
But the flashlight flickered.And for a moment, the beam caught a shape in the corner — not human.
Too tall. Too thin. Its mouth was smiling.
The door burst open.Light spilled in.
Ren stood there, out of breath, a fire extinguisher in one hand and a flashlight in the other.
He didn't say anything — just grabbed Kai and yanked him out.
They ran. Up the stairs. Through the halls. Out the back exit.
Only once they were outside did Kai fall to his knees, gasping.
Ren crouched beside him.