Echoes of the Lost Elf-Chapter 38 - 37 : Haunted (2)

The silence inside was immediate—suffocating, unnatural. The moment they stepped past the threshold, the temperature dropped, the air heavy with dust and something acrid, like burnt parchment.

"Zephyr, last chance to speak up if you don't want to go in," Historias said, glancing back.

Before he could even finish, the others were already stepping inside.

Zephyr sighed. "Figures."

And then—

The door vanished.

Not closed. Vanished.

Leon turned, blinking at the blank wall behind them. "Oh. That's just fantastic."

"Typical," Historias muttered.

The hallway stretched before them, old and forgotten, lined with decayed wooden doors. The walls were covered in faint, faded carvings, symbols that seemed to shift when looked at too long.

Adriana cleared her throat. "So, uh... I did some research about this place."

Everyone turned to her.

She shifted under their gazes. "Turns out, fifty years ago, a student named Annabeth Higgins mysteriously died here."

Zephyr groaned. "Of course she did."

Adriana pressed on. "Apparently, she was experimenting with curse magic and dimensional spells. Trying to open a portal to somewhere."

Leon's brows furrowed. "Define 'somewhere.'"

"That's the problem," Adriana admitted. "Nobody knows. But right after she died, the weird occurrences started happening. The voices, the moving shadows, the... disappearances."

There was a long, heavy pause.

Kael exhaled through his nose. "And you're telling us this after we walked inside?"

Adriana laughed nervously. "Oops?"

Zephyr buried his face in his hands. "I want to go home."

Nyx, who had been eerily silent, suddenly let out a low growl.

And then—

A whisper.

Faint. Distant.

A child's voice, giggling from somewhere down the hall.

Then, it shifted. Deepened.

The giggle twisted into something low, distorted. A growl—no, a warning.

The candles lining the walls flickered out.

Darkness swallowed them whole.

..........

The darkness was absolute—a thick, suffocating void that swallowed everything. Even Historias, with his elven eyesight, could barely make out the vague outlines of his companions. The only source of light came from the eerie glow of Nyx's golden eyes, standing out like two embers in the abyss.

Then, the whispering returned.

This time, it was closer.

The distorted giggles slithered around them, bouncing off the walls, yet there was no source. No footsteps. No rustling. Just voices—many voices.

Leon let out a slow breath. "So, uh... how do we feel about leaving?"

"The door is gone," Kael reminded him, voice quiet.

"Right," Leon muttered. "Just checking."

Adriana squinted ahead. "We need to move. Standing still won't help."

She stepped forward, and the moment she did—

A new door appeared.

A single, wooden door at the end of the hallway, where there had been nothing but rotted walls a second ago. Unlike the rest of the dorm, it wasn't crumbling or aged—it looked pristine, polished, waiting.

Historias narrowed his eyes. "How convenient."

Zephyr, still unnerved, pointed at it. "I vote we don't open the obviously cursed door."

Leon clapped him on the shoulder. "That's great, buddy. But I don't think we have much of a choice."

Before anyone else could say a word, Nyx moved.

She padded toward the door with deliberate slowness, tail low, ears flicking. She wasn't growling anymore—but she was tense, alert.

Then, she stopped just before the door.

And sat down.

Historias frowned. "Nyx?"

The Nywraith didn't respond. Just... watched.

Adriana exhaled. "Well, here goes nothing."

She reached for the handle—

The door opened on its own.

Beyond it was not a normal room.

It was a classroom.

Pristine, untouched by time. Wooden desks lined in neat rows, a chalkboard filled with writing that made no sense. Not in any language any of them recognized. Strange symbols, spirals, marks that seemed to move when glanced at for too long.

And at the very back—

A single figure sat at one of the desks.

A girl.

Her head was bowed, long black hair covering her face as she wrote something over and over on a single piece of parchment.

Scratch. Scratch. Scratch.

The sound of her pen against paper was the only thing in the air.

Nobody moved.

Nobody breathed.

Then, with agonizing slowness—

She stopped writing.

And turned her head.

Not fully. Just enough for them to see the edge of her face. Her lips—stretched too wide into a smile. Her cheek, was pale and wrong.

And her voice—

"You're late for class."

A cold chill crawled down their spines.

None of them moved.

None of them wanted to move.

Zephyr swallowed. "Did she just—?"

Leon grabbed his wrist. "Don't."

The girl at the desk remained still, except for her hand, which tapped against the parchment. Tap. Tap. Tap. Slow. Deliberate.

Then—SCRATCH.

The classroom door slammed shut behind them.

Zephyr yelled. Kael cursed. Adriana whirled around, gripping the hilt of her sword, but the door had vanished.

Historias, as calm as ever, exhaled. "Of course."

A soft giggle.

They turned back.

The girl had fully turned around now.

Her face—wrong. Her eyes were black voids, endless pits that seemed to drink in the dim light of the classroom. Her smile—too wide. Stretched beyond what a human face should allow.

She lifted her parchment.

"Would you like to see my notes?" she asked sweetly.

Before anyone could answer—

The words on the paper moved.

They twisted, rearranged—and bled.

Ink dripped onto the desk like liquid shadow.

And then—

The classroom changed.

The walls melted into something... rotted. A deep, pulsing darkness spread across the wood like veins. The desks decayed before their eyes, covered in claw marks and dried blood.

And the girl?

She wasn't sitting anymore.

She was standing right in front of them.

Too close.

Too fast.

Zephyr screamed.

Her smile widened.

"Let's begin."

Then the floor collapsed.

The world tilted as the ground gave way beneath them.

Darkness swallowed them whole.

The fall wasn't natural—it wasn't just gravity dragging them down. It was something else. Something pulling.

Grasping.

Tearing.

The air turned thick, suffocating. The screams of his friends rang in Historias' ears, but they sounded distorted. Warped.

Nyx yowled, her claws digging into his shoulder as she tried to hold on.

Then—impact.

Historias landed first, boots skidding across cold stone. The others crashed down around him, gasping for breath.

Adriana groaned. "Okay—ow. That sucked."

Leon sat up, shaking his head. "Where—" He cut himself off.

The room they were in was wrong.

The walls weren't stone, but flesh. Pulsing. Breathing. The air was thick with the scent of old blood and decay. Strange symbols—the same ones from the girl's notes—glowed faintly along the walls, their shapes shifting whenever they tried to focus on them.

Zephyr scrambled to his feet, panic in his eyes. "Where—where the hell are we?!"

Kael exhaled sharply, gripping his bow. "This... isn't the academy anymore."

Historias' golden eyes narrowed as he surveyed their surroundings. His voice was calm, but there was an unmistakable edge to it.

"We've stepped into a different space." He glanced at Adriana. "Curse and dimension magic, you said?"

She nodded, her face pale. "If she really opened a portal... then we're inside whatever she tried to reach."

Leon let out a dry laugh. "Oh, fantastic. So we're in some dead girl's failed experiment."

Nyx growled low in her throat. Her fur bristled.

Then, the whispers began.

A dozen voices, speaking in overlapping tones, some pleading, some laughing, some sobbing. They came from nowhere—and everywhere at once.

Zephyr clapped his hands over his ears. "Nope! Nope! I hate this!"

Then—

A single, soft giggle.

Historias turned just in time.

A hand shot out from the wall—long, rotting fingers grasping for him.

With a flick of his wrist, he erased the limb from existence, disintegrating it with a controlled pulse of pure mana.

The wall screamed.

The others stumbled back as the very room shuddered. The walls twisted, flesh peeling away to reveal something else.

A door.

Tall. Wrong.

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And it was open.

A dark corridor stretched beyond it, filled with nothing but the sound of breathing.

Historias dusted off his sleeves.

"Shall we?"

...........

Annabeth Higgins : inspiration from a famous doll Annabelle

..............

POWER STONES please !!!!