The bell rang like a cracked warning, sharp and final, slicing through the heavy silence that had settled over the back row.
Half-eaten trays were left behind without a second glance.
Plastic forks clattered against metal as the girls rose in quiet unison, drifting out in small clusters.
Students moved down the corridor toward the art wing, footsteps echoing softly against tiled floors.
The art classroom at Draxen City Academy carried its own atmosphere — thicker, older. It smelled of turpentine and drying paint, of canvas stretched too tight and charcoal ground to dust.
The students slipped into their usual seats, the motions habitual and subdued. Sketchbooks were pulled from bags.
Pencils rolled across wooden desks. Pages flipped with a dry whisper. No one rushed. No one lingered.
Tall windows admitted a pale, diffused light that filtered through gray clouds, washing the room in a muted glow.
It never quite reached the corners, where shadows gathered patiently.
Easels stood in loose formation, some holding abandoned works-in-progress. Jars bristling with brushes leaned beside half-squeezed paint tubes, their caps stained with hardened color.
---
The teacher, Mrs. Harrow, a slender woman with paint-flecked spectacles perched low on her nose and streaks of cobalt and ochre staining her fingertips, glanced up from her canvas. A half-finished sunrise stretched across it — soft gold melting into lavender skies.
She adjusted her shawl and offered a small, distracted smile.
"Free drawing period today," she said gently. "You may work on anything you like — landscapes, portraits, still life. Use the time well."
She returned to her painting, the quiet scratch of brushes and pencils slowly filling the room like a soft, steady rhythm.
---
The girls drifted to their usual spots on the middle row.
Ira chose the corner easel by the window, the one no one else wanted because the light was too weak and the draft made the paper flutter.
She set the large, straight canvas carefully onto the easel, securing it upright before her. Its blank surface stood tall in silent anticipation.
Without hesitation or preamble, she lifted her hand and began.
Her pencil moved fast—almost angrily.
Lines appeared first: the stark curve of a jaw, the sharp ridge of a cheekbone. Then the hair—long, dark, tied back in a loose knot that let a few strands fall free, framing the face like spilled midnight.
The coat came next—long, black, open at the front to reveal the brutal architecture of a bare torso: wide shoulders, heavy arms corded with muscle, the deep slash of an old scar bisecting the abdomen like a signature written in violence. The side profile was turned just enough to catch the cruel beauty of it—high cheekbone, straight nose, mouth set in a line that promised nothing gentle.
And the hand.
The right hand—massive, veined, knuckles still wrapped in brass that caught a phantom gleam of moonlight—held a glistening coil of small intestine. It dangled from his fingers like a grotesque rope, slick and steaming in the cold air, blood dripping in slow, deliberate beads onto the mud below.
Around him the world dissolved into nightmare:
Black trees clawed upward, branches twisted into skeletal hands reaching for a bloated, bone-white moon that hung low and accusing. Shadows bled from every edge—thick, tar-like, swallowing the ground, crawling up his legs, wrapping around his coat like living smoke. The darkness wasn't passive; it pulsed, hungry, as though the night itself were feeding on him.
The entire composition was rendered in deep charcoal and ink wash—blacks so rich they drank the light, grays that bled like bruises, the only stark white being the moon and the pale gleam of exposed viscera. It was beautiful in the way a storm is beautiful: terrifying, inevitable, heartbreakingly precise.
Ira's hand never faltered. She drew as though exorcising something.
Across the room, Rina Solace paused mid-stroke on her own canvas—two lovers standing beside a car beneath a silver-washed moon. Her gaze drifted, landed on Ira's easel, and froze.
A soft, involuntary gasp slipped from her lips.
The world seemed to narrow to a single frame of horror.
She moved forward slowly, as though pulled by an invisible string.
Rina stopped behind Ira's shoulder.
"Oh my god," she breathed, voice cracking with awe and something close to terror. "You… you drew Vernon."
Ira's pencil stilled.
She turned her head just enough to look up at Rina. Her eyes—wide, dark, still carrying the echo of that haunting night—held a flicker of shock, then curiosity, as though she were measuring the truth of the words against the memory burned into her skull.
"Is he…" Ira's voice was quiet, careful, almost afraid to finish the sentence. "Is he really the long-haired man you were all talking about at lunch?"
Rina nodded frantically, eyes huge.
"Yes. That's him. That's Vernon Krossvale."
Ira asked again to confirm,
" Are you sure?"
Rina replied in a haste,
" Of course I am . He is the only man in Draxton who has such long hair! Not to forget, his deadly gaze and sharp features! You draw him perfectly."
Ira kept silent.
Rina leaned closer, voice dropping to a horrified whisper. "The whole city fears him. Everyone. Even the soldiers—grown men with rifles and body armor— they flinch when they hear his name. He has this… death gaze. It doesn't just look at you. It tears pieces of your soul out. You feel like he's already decided how you're going to die."
Zara drifted over, peering at the drawing, her breath catching.
"Look at the hand. The blood. The intestine. Jesus, Ira… it's so real. It's like you were there."
Celia joined them, voice low and shaken.
"Where did you even see him? You're new here. You've only been in Draxen a few weeks. How…?"
Ira's fingers tightened on the pencil until her knuckles whitened.
She looked down at the page—at the man she had drawn without mercy, without flinching.
Her voice came out small, almost lost.
"I… saw him once."
The words hung in the air like smoke.
Rina stared at her, eyes searching Ira's face for answers she wasn't sure she wanted.
"When?" she whispered. "Where?"
Ira didn't answer.
She only looked back at the drawing—the beautiful, dangerous silhouette haloed by black trees and a merciless moon—and felt the memory rise again: cold on her skin, the wet rip of flesh, those eyes finding her through the dark.
She didn't speak.
But her silence said everything.
The bell would ring soon .
For now, the art room held its breath—three girls staring at a portrait that should never have existed, and one girl who had seen the monster .
To be continued.....