As I opened my eyes, the first thing I saw wasn't darkness or screaming classmates this time—it was… what looked like a choir?
Rows of old seats, cracked wooden floors, music stands tipped at odd angles like they'd been abandoned mid-rehearsal. Dust floated in the air like ghostly confetti. A shattered piano stood at the far end of the room, keys broken like someone had tried to play Beethoven with a sledgehammer.
Ryan looked around, squinting. "Is this a choir?"
I turned to him. Yep. Still Ryan. Alive. Still got that confused golden retriever face going.
"Looks like it," I muttered.
Then I saw them—James Foster, the golden boy protagonist of the novel, and also my best friend. Still glowing with protagonist aura, even in a haunted choir hall.
Next to him was Sophie Tanaka, standing tall like she was starring in a perfume commercial. She always looked ready to strike a dramatic pose, even when surrounded by death and ghost stories. She had this "rich anime girl" energy—long dark hair, perfect posture, expensive clothes even when we were supposed to be in a uniform, and, yeah… big boobs. Not that I noticed.
...Okay maybe I noticed but I'm a guy cut me some slack.
Anyway, she turned toward me with those big, intense eyes like I was the only person in the world.
Sophie said, "Where are we, Jake?"
I shrugged. "I don't know." (Seriously, why are you asking me? Ask James. He's the protagonist, not me.)
James looked around, calm as ever. "It looks like only four of us made it."
A voice behind us piped up, "Don't forget about me!!"
Tommy.
Of course.
The gaming addict. The conspiracy theorist. The guy who said "trust me, I read a thread about this on Reddit" five minutes before summoning a ghost by accident.
I turned and gave him a thumbs up. "Oh good, Tommy's here. Now we're really safe."
So that made five of us. Me, James, Sophie, Ryan, and Tommy.
I scanned the room. No Lena. No Lucas. I remembered from the novel they didn't survive this far. But now all of them alive and well they are not here and also why Ryan was here instead of… someone else?
The story had changed.
Before I could dive deeper into that thought, someone behind us said, "Hey."
We turned around.
Five more students stood across the room. Three girls, two boys. They looked just as confused as we were. Or maybe more. One of them, a tall, lean guy with slicked-back hair, stepped forward.
Something clicked in my head.
Oh crap.
I remembered these characters from the novel. This was supposed to be when James meets Liza Smith and Locke Alfonso—two named characters who eventually join the main cast later in the book. Only… it was supposed to be after Ryan dies.
But since I saved Ryan in the first trial... things had shifted.
The others with Liza and Locke? Probably side characters. You could smell the background role on them. One of the boys looked like he thought he was the leader of the group. He was already puffing out his chest like he was gonna give a motivational speech or something.
He spoke up. "Anyway, where are we?"
I stared at him.
I could already tell this dude was the type who tries to take control… and dies first. Classic cannon fodder with a voice.
I shrugged. "Beats me."
🩸 [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
✨ You've drawn attention!
+5 Attention Points
→ (Others now look to you.)
He blinked. I ignored him and looked at James.
James nodded, thoughtful. "Jake, we're in a choir hall."
"I know," I said, blinking slowly. "I was being sarcastic."
Suddenly, an eerie, disembodied voice echoed through the air like it was coming from an old radio.
"The second ghost story begins."
We all froze.
A soft, almost delicate hum floated through the room.
A woman's voice—gentle, mournful, as if it had been recorded years ago and left to decay. We turned toward the front of the room. Nothing there.
Then the announcement continued, calm as if it were being read to children:
…..
GHOST CHARACTER: Ms. Echo
Real Name: Eloise Kanner
Nickname: Ms. Echo
Ghost Type: Lingering Spirit of Sound and Memory
Location: The Abandoned Choir Hall / Music Wing
Time of Death: 1989
🕯️ Backstory (Short Novel Style):
Eloise Kanner was once the school's beloved choir teacher. Gentle, patient, and devoted to her students, she believed music was the purest expression of the soul. But when a school rivalry escalated into violence, a cruel prank was pulled during the winter recital.
A group of students — from two feuding cliques — tampered with the audio equipment, sending a piercing feedback tone through the speakers during her solo performance. It shattered her hearing instantly and triggered a severe seizure onstage. The students laughed.
She never recovered. Days later, she was found in the choir room, dead by suicide — still dressed in her conductor's gown, holding the broken baton.
No one was punished. The school covered it up.
…..
Haunting Method: Ms. Echo is a sound-based ghost. She uses your own voices against you.
Trigger 1: Loud voices, arguments, or shouting; what will Happens? She awakens. The louder the group, the faster she arrives.
Trigger 2: Repeated phrases (e.g., calling names too many times); what will Happens? She echoes it, making it hard to know who is calling.
Trigger 3: Divided groups); what will Happens? She mimics voices from group to mislead them, and vice versa.
Trigger 4: Music or recordings; what will Happens? She possesses the sound source, turning it into a weapon.
…..
"Oh hell no," Tommy muttered. "We're being hunted by a haunted Spotify playlist."
Sophie's face went pale. "So… we can't shout. Or talk loud. Or play music."
"Or split up." James added.
I raised my hand. "So… we're in a horror story that punishes every classic horror movie mistake?"
James nodded.
I turned to the others. "Good news, guys. As long as we whisper, stay together, and don't break into song, we might make it to lunch."
[SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
You've commanded attention!
+10 Attention Points
Locke, the quiet boy from the new group, spoke up. "How do we beat her?"
I tapped my chin. "I dunno. Unplug the AUX cord?"
(+5 Attention Points)
Sophie smacked my arm.
"What?" I whispered.
The lights flickered. The air grew colder.
A faint hum began again.
Ryan whispered, "Guys…"
I looked around. The piano at the far end had moved.
Just an inch. But it moved.
Tommy said, "Okay, new rule. No jokes about ghosts from now on."
I clapped a hand over his mouth. "Shut up, shut up, shut up!"
Because I remembered something else from the book.
Ms. Echo wasn't like Mr. Chalk.
She didn't show up in blood and messages.
She arrived in whispers, and mimicry, and—
Ryan's voice echoed from the other side of the hall.
"Guys… over here…"
But Ryan was standing next to me.
I turned, eyes wide.
So did everyone else.
We all looked at the other side of the choir hall.
Nothing was there.
Just that broken piano.
And Ryan's voice again.
"…over here…"
Oh.
Crap.
We all stood frozen as Ryan's voice echoed again.
"…over here…"
But Ryan was right next to me.
Still. Quiet. Breathing.
His eyes were wide, fixed on the piano across the hall. The broken instrument was no longer just cracked and dusty — the lid had popped open like a mouth, keys shifting slightly. Twitching. Like fingers. Like teeth.
Then I saw it.
Just for a moment.
A pale figure, hunched and twitching, behind the piano. Its head tilted at a sharp, unnatural angle. It wore something like a conductor's robe, but it was soaked in… something. Ink? Blood? Sound?
"Guys… Ryan's still over there…"
The voice repeated again.
"Guys…"
"Guys…"
"GUYS."
It grew louder, more distorted — warbling, like a cassette tape melting in a microwave.
Sophie grabbed James' sleeve. "That's not Ryan."
"No shit," I muttered.
(5 POINTS)
A red number blinked briefly in the corner of my vision. 5 AP. Hell yeah. I'll take it.
James took a step forward — but I pulled his arm.
"Don't," I whispered. "That's her trick. She echoes voices. If we move toward it, we split the group."
"But she's mimicking Ryan," he whispered.
"Exactly. That means she's active. We need to get out of this room. Together."
Tommy muttered, "Where? Everything's boarded up."
I glanced toward the old stairwell in the back. "There."
James nodded. "Agreed. Everyone stay close. No talking unless it's urgent. Go."
We started moving.
Shoes creaked on the dusty floorboards. The echo of each step came half a beat too late.
Wrong pitch. Wrong rhythm.
And then—
The piano played.
Just one note.
Sharp. High. It rang out like a scream trapped in a bell jar.
We all stopped.
A second note followed. Lower.
Then another. Discordant.
It wasn't a song. It was her.
Ms. Echo was playing us.
Tommy hissed, "She's using sound—she's here—"
I grabbed his shirt. "Shut UP!"
But it was too late.
The lights exploded.
Every single bulb shattered at once. Glass rained down. A wave of pressure hit my ears — like the whole room inhaled.
Then—
The air seemed to freeze for a heartbeat.
Then—a voice screamed right into my ear. My voice.
"JAKE!!"
I spun around, my heart thundering in my chest, but my feet felt like they were sinking into the floor. My blood ran cold as I stared at the empty space behind me. There was nothing there—no one.
It wasn't me.
It was her.
I forced myself to breathe. Ms. Echo. She was in my head. Playing me.
Sophie's scream cut through the tension. Real this time. Pure terror.
The others panicked immediately.
Locke and two of the others bolted for the back rows—completely splitting the group. Idiots.
The moment they scattered, I knew.
That was the trigger.
[Ms. Echo — Haunting Phase I Activated]
Groups split detected.
Sound levels elevated.
→ Echo Disruption begins.
And then—
The air shimmered. I couldn't see it, but I could feel it—like a cold wind pushing against me, warping the space around us. The world seemed to bend, and that's when the voices hit.
Whispers.
Laughter.
Call after call, echoing through the room.
"James… James…"
"Ryan… Ryan… RYAN!"
"Jake… Jake… JAAAAKE…"
I flinched, my stomach twisting. The voices sounded like they were coming from everywhere, layering over each other, wrong in every possible way. They were distorted, like a bad radio transmission. It was impossible to tell who was talking, who was calling me, who I should be listening to.
James gritted his teeth, his eyes scanning the room. "She's trying to make us run into each other."
"I know!" I snapped, my voice shaking with urgency as I grabbed his shoulder. I looked around, my brain working overtime. "We need to get everyone back together, NOW!"
🩸 [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
✨ You've commanded attention!
+10 Attention Points
→ (Took leadership during panic. The group is looking to you.)
Sophie stood frozen, wide-eyed, her breathing shallow. I saw her lips move, but no words came out.
Liza shouted from across the room, "We're trapped! She's blocking the exit!"
I narrowed my eyes, focusing on the far side of the room. That's when I saw it. The exit—the one Liza was pointing to—looked… wrong. Off. I squinted harder, and then the realization hit me.
"No she's not," I said, a rush of clarity surging through me. "That's a fake wall. Optical illusion. The angle's wrong."
James looked at me, his eyes filled with disbelief. "How do you even know that?"
I didn't have time to dwell on the question. "My Grandma Remember…"
(Also, I might have read that chapter of the novel three times… Sophie had a really good scene in it.)"
I didn't wait for a response.
I ran forward.
Everyone hesitated for a moment before following. The tension in the air was suffocating, but I didn't care. If I hesitated now, if I let doubt creep in, we'd never make it out.
The moment we were close enough, I reached out. I touched the wall, my hand trembling as I pressed it. The illusion flickered, like a mirage melting in the heat of the sun, and—
It broke.
Behind it—a stairwell. Descending into the unknown.
I didn't hesitate.
"GO!" I barked.
The others followed quickly, but the noise behind us had already escalated. Suddenly, there was a loud shriek, sharp and piercing—like metal scraping against metal. It came from behind us, from where Locke and the others had gone.
And then—I saw it.
A body flew through the air. The fake-leader boy—he had tried to make a break for it. He was flailing, limbs caught in the air like a ragdoll before slamming into the wall with a sickening crack.
My heart skipped a beat as I watched him fall.
A voice, muffled and echoing, came from the shadows.
"Soloist eliminated."
🩸 [SYSTEM NOTIFICATION]
✨ You've witnessed a key moment.
+5 Attention Points
→ (Reacted with awareness. Logged danger pattern.)
Sophie's grip on my hand tightened. She pulled me forward, and I didn't hesitate this time.
We rushed down the stairs, away from the blood-curdling sounds behind us. James helped Liza, his expression taut with focus. Ryan, of course, was the last one to follow, holding the door open for us until the very last second.
Locke stumbled in after us, dragging one of the remaining girls with him. He looked dazed, his eyes glazed over like he was on autopilot.
As we reached the bottom, the door slammed shut behind us.
The sound of it was final. Cold. Final.
Then, silence.
I felt the air shift again, but this time, it wasn't an echo. It was just… quiet. The kind of quiet that presses down on you, making your heart pound louder than it should.
I exhaled, the tension starting to lift from my shoulders.
But when I turned to Sophie, I felt something that made my skin crawl.
Her hand was still in mine.
Her grip was tight. Too tight.
Her gaze was fixed on me. She didn't even blink.
I thought—shit. She's too cool under pressure.
But then another thought hit me.
Wait a second. Snap out of it, Jake. Snap the hell out of it.
Sophie.
She's yandere in the novel.
She becomes obsessed with James.
My stomach twisted. No. Don't think about that. Focus, Jake. Focus.
I pulled my hand away from hers, instantly feeling the cold air rush in where her warmth had been. Sophie didn't seem to notice—or if she did, she didn't say anything. Her eyes remained locked on me for a moment too long, but then she turned away
Good. Focus, Jake.
I glanced at my Attention Points. The system pinged as I checked the notification that had flashed up just moments ago.
🩸 [SYSTEM UPDATE — ATTENTION SEEKER SYSTEM]
Current Attention Points: 60
Sweet mama sita.
I couldn't help but smile inwardly, despite the storm brewing inside me. 55 points. Not bad. Not bad at all. The more I reacted, the more attention I gained. And with it came power.
Power. That's what I needed. Focus.
Sophie's grip was off me, but I could still feel her gaze burning into my back. I needed to keep my head in the game. Every decision mattered now, and the more attention I garnered, the more I could control the situation.
To be continue