The abandoned school loomed in the darkness like a grave that never closed.
Its walls were split with age, paint peeling like dead skin. Broken windows stared outward, hollow and blind, while the iron gate hung crooked on a single hinge. The wind pushed against one loose window, making it slam again and again, as if something inside was trying to get out.
Arin pushed the gate open. It screamed as it moved.
Veer followed closely behind, gripping a weak flashlight that shook in his hand. The beam jumped across the cracked walls, barely cutting through the darkness.
"Why does this place still feel… alive?" Veer whispered.
Arin didn't slow his steps. His eyes scanned the shadows ahead.
"Because it hasn't finished hiding its secrets."
Inside the classroom, dust covered everything. Broken desks lay scattered across the floor like bodies after a fight. Old textbooks remained open, their yellowed pages torn and curling at the edges. The air was damp and heavy, carrying a smell that felt wrong—old, trapped, forgotten.
On a dusty shelf near the wall, Arin noticed something small.
A music box.
He picked it up and slowly wound the key.
A lullaby spilled into the room. Soft. Slow. Warped.
It sounded like a song remembered incorrectly, sweet but broken in places.
Veer shivered. "Why are haunted places always full of music boxes?"
Arin's gaze moved across the room. "Because children were here."
He slid open a desk drawer. Inside lay a child's drawing, made with red crayon. Several children stood in a line, their hands held by dark, shapeless figures. One child had been crossed out violently, the crayon marks tearing through the paper.
A sudden knock echoed through the classroom.
Both of them froze.
The door creaked open just an inch.
Two small glowing eyes appeared in the gap.
A shadow child stepped forward.
Its body was made of drifting black mist, constantly shifting and reforming. Its face was almost human—smooth, empty, and painfully sad. It didn't move. It only watched them.
"What… is that?" Veer whispered.
"I don't know," Arin said quietly. "But it's watching us."
Without warning, the creature screamed.
The sound was sharp and high-pitched, like a baby crying mixed with metal tearing apart. It charged toward them.
Veer dove behind a shelf, his breath coming fast and shallow. Arin's eyes dropped to the floor, where an old pair of rusted scissors lay among the dust.
"What do we do?!" Veer cried.
"If it comes close," Arin said, gripping the scissors, "I stop it."
The shadow child leapt over a desk.
Arin lunged forward and plunged the scissors straight into its glowing eyes.
A crackling sound filled the air. The creature collapsed, breaking apart into black ash that scattered across the floor.
Silence followed.
Then a low humming seeped into the hallway.
The same lullaby.
Deeper. Echoing. Alive.
They slowly stepped toward the door.
The corridor stretched endlessly into darkness. At the far end, a line of real schoolchildren walked forward, one by one. Their eyes were blank, their movements slow, as if they were sleepwalking.
Beside them drifted several shadow children, moving like silent guards. Floating above the line were two tall ghost women dressed in black, their faces hidden behind veils.
As they passed, one of the ghosts turned her head.
Her veil lifted slightly.
Her face was cracked like porcelain, and her lips were stitched shut. She inhaled the air slowly, then turned back without a word.
Veer's voice trembled. "Are those… real kids?"
"Yeah," Arin replied. "And they're being taken somewhere."
Glowing symbols pulsed faintly along the walls behind the ghosts, written in red and breathing as if alive. Near the end of the line, two children walked without any guards.
Arin's eyes narrowed. "Now. We grab them."
They rushed forward and pulled the children into the classroom.
The kids gasped, sucking in air like they had just woken from drowning. A little girl looked around, confused and frightened.
"Where's the singing?" she asked softly. "It was making us float…"
The boy beside her trembled. "They said if we sang too, we'd become light. And go with them forever."
Veer swallowed hard. "They're controlling them with the music."
Arin nodded. "It's a trap. A song that pulls them in."
As he spoke, his eyes fell on the girl's wrist. A small black spiral mark stained her skin.
The music box suddenly began to play again.
By itself.
"That wasn't me," Arin said.
The air grew cold. Frost crept along the edges of the window.
Arin looked outside.
Above the forest, the sky rippled, as if something massive beneath it had shifted.
Waiting.
Watching.
"Something's trying to come through," Arin whispered.
The sky rippled again.
Closer.
Continues.....