Ethan eased the heavy door open. "Is this the comfort room?"
A hush of cool air drifted out, scented faintly of crushed mint and shadowed herbs.
The chamber beyond was dressed in somber grays—stone walls slick with a quiet sheen, a black-veined tub brooding at the center near the iron shower spout.
Even the porcelain gleamed like moonlight on wet slate, elegant yet slightly foreboding.
By the sink, Ethan caught his own reflection. He adjusted the silver brooch, smoothed his coat, raked a hand through his hair.
A drawer marked with his name held the small rites of cleanliness—brush, floss, a slim black bottle.
"Eclipse Veil? …intriguing."
A mist hissed across his throat: a cool, electric hush of minted ozone and rain-wet stone, fading to midnight orchid and smoky tea. Amber and dark labdanum lingered like lightning under skin.
"Whoever mixed this knows their alchemy," he murmured.
The corridor breathed cool stone and candlewax, a hush broken by murmured laughter and the faint crackle of strange energies in the air.
Ethan moved among the crowd like a shadow learning to walk.
Two identical blondes glided past—grey-eyed and eerie, their mirrored steps perfectly in time, only their hairstyles telling them apart.
A wiry boy in grease-stained coveralls shot by in a sputtering jetpack, sparks spitting like fireflies.
Behind him drifted a tall student with a clean undercut and silver rings gleaming against dusky skin; a serpent of green and blue scaled lazily around his arm, tongue tasting the electric air.
Overhead, stained-glass skylights draped the hallway in pools of violet and blue, as though the school itself exhaled twilight.
Ethan unfolded the crisp timetable. Mind and Consciousness Training—Whitewood Room 709.
His gaze drifted over the numbered doors, each etched with silver sigils.
Then a sound unfurled through the corridor—a cello's low hush braided with a ghost-bright violin.
The melody shimmered like moonlight on water, drawing him forward before he realized he was moving, his steps falling into the music's spell.
As each note climbed and wove into the next, Ethan felt the hallway dissolve.
The world tilted—when he blinked, he stood in a narrow, dark corridor.
A faint glow seeped from one door, and through it drifted…his own voice.
Heart quickening, he tried the handle. Locked.
He crouched, peering through the keyhole.
Inside, a girl with auburn-red hair swung her feet from a table's edge.
Her blue-checkered dress caught the lamplight like a flicker of dusk.
Though Ethan couldn't see her face, the sparkle of her laughter made it easy to imagine the smile.
Across from her sat…himself. Hair flipped back,papers in hand.
"Ethan, your papers are so boring," the girl teased,
"Mind your own business, Cecil," his other self replied.
"Come on, put a bit of color in your life. You're always gloomy."
"Plus, I gave your papers a little redo," she added with a sly grin.
"Cecile I swear that if you meddled with my papers" he then sees the papers with a better handwriting more understandable and readable compared to his out of the world cursive he admits with a mumble "thanks "
"What was that" she says mockingly extending her ear
"I said thanks " he says
Ethan found himself smiling through the keyhole
Suddenly the rooms turns to a soft hush and the girls voice is soft and low
"will you forget us....me and the gang?" she said worried " I mean I'm glad that you got accepted at the school of your dreams but you'll be two cities apart from us"
"Why would I? you guys are my family "Ethan says reassuringly "I'll write you guys letters every day and send Chip to deliver them"
the girl laughs "Chip doesn't even know how to fly " she said snickering"but I'm proud of you getting this far Ethan"
Ethan—watching through the keyhole—couldn't help but smile again at her comment
Then the silence warped
"SOMEONE'S WATCHING US" he says
A single heartbeat later, Ethan's gaze locked with his own through the keyhole.
"Boo"
From the keyhole seeped a creature the color of stormed parchment—pale gray shot through with drifting silver veins.
Its body writhed like spilled ink diluted in rainwater, a liquid fog that refused to stay still.
Across its shifting hide bristled quills of bone-white steel, needle-points clicking together like a thousand pens poised to strike.
Where a face might be, a smear of darkness stretched into a jagged paper-cut grin, and two hollow sockets leaked thin ribbons of smoke, the hue of wet ash.
It moved with a scratchy, staccato fury, every lunge whispering the sound of quills raking stone, like words being etched into living marble.
"Don't come back!!" The monster says with a
Loud screech
The music snapped to nothing.
Ethan jolted awake, breath ragged.
Shapes swam into focus: a pale girl with black hair streaked in gray held a fiddle at her side.
"I told you, Syd—we shouldn't have played the Recordatio," she said.
A boy with warm chestnut skin and green-blue eyes shrugged, guilt threading his grin.
"We hit a few wrong notes," he said. "I didn't think it would actually work, Harper."