Midoriyama Academy stood like a slumbering giant beneath the gray sky. Tall, brooding, and far too old, it resembled more a fortress than a school. Ivy strangled its western wing, where the brick had long since blackened, and the bell tower loomed like a sentinel over the courtyard, ever silent. Ever watching.
Rain had fallen earlier. The wet scent of moss and stone clung to the air. The students had gone home. The corridors echoed only the ghost of footsteps now, footsteps that led nowhere. Or perhaps everywhere.
Inside Class 2-B, the lights flickered.
Akiro Natsume sat near the window, sketching in her notebook. Her pencil moved of its own will. She wasn't drawing consciously, her hand simply followed the images surfacing in her mind. A staircase. A door. A mask. And now…a figure. Tall, robed, and faceless.
She stopped.
On the page was something wrong. Something she didn't mean to draw. Her hand trembled.
The figure had eyes.
Not blank sockets, real eyes. Eyes with depth. Looking at her.
Her phone buzzed.
Hikaru [Group Chat]: "Yo! Secret meeting spot. 6PM. Bring flashlights. We're doing this."
Asahi: "Ghost hunt?"
Kenta: "West wing is locked. You'll need bolt cutters."
Rina: "I have the old floor plan. East stairwell leads into the archives."
Mei: "Akiro? You coming?"
Akiro stared at her phone.
She felt a tightness in her chest. The kind she got before something bad happened. Like when she dreamed about that girl falling from the third floor two years ago. Or when she'd heard a scream from the locker room the day before a teacher was found dead.
But she typed anyway.
Akiro: "I'll come."
6:02 PM - West Wing - Outer Gate
The fence was rusted. Twisted at the bottom where someone had tried to pull it apart years ago. It groaned as Ren held it up, letting each of them slip under, one by one.
They stood in a line outside the forgotten west building.
Ten students. Ten friends. Ten shadows stretching across the damp ground.
The bell tower above them didn't move, didn't shine, didn't sing.
But it felt awake.
"We're idiots," Daiki muttered, holding his camera.
"You're an idiot for coming if you don't believe," Hikaru said, adjusting his neon hoodie.
"I believe," Daiki replied. "That if we're not careful, we'll be expelled. Or worse."
"Worse?" Asahi grinned. "There's worse than expulsion. There's vanishing."
They all turned toward him.
"My cousin," he said seriously, "came here eight years ago. Last seen walking into this wing. Her name's not on any record. It's like she never existed."
No one laughed.
Akiro looked at the windows above.
One of them… blinked.
Not flickered.
Blink.
She gripped Mei's sleeve.
"Did you see that?"
"See what?"
Akiro's mouth went dry.
The window was empty.
They broke into the side door through the old science lab.
Dust exploded from every surface. Desks were overturned. A cracked blackboard still bore chalked equations—evidence of a class abandoned in a rush.
"Check this out," Toma said, holding up a mask.
It was made of smooth porcelain. Cracks ran down its cheeks like tears.
"Creepy," Rina muttered. She held her phone flashlight up. Dozens of masks lined the wall behind old glass cases. Some had horns. Others had eyeless sockets. One had no mouth.
Akiro felt dizzy.
Each mask had a number carved into its forehead.
One. Two. Three… Ten.
Ten masks.
She turned.
Nine shadows stretched across the hallway behind them.
"Where's Yuto?" she whispered.
They all looked.
He wasn't there.
"Did he stay outside?" Mei asked, her voice trembling slightly.
"He was right behind me," Ren said. "I swear it."
Kenta swore under his breath. "Maybe he went back. I'll check the gate."
"No," Akiro said suddenly.
Everyone turned.
Her voice was sharp, colder than usual.
"He's still in here."
"How do you know?" Hikaru asked.
She didn't answer.
She just knew.
Like how she knew her brother had died before the phone call. Like how she knew not to open the music room door two winters ago, and how they later found a dead cat inside, its eyes plucked out.
She walked ahead of them, her flashlight beam cutting into the dark.
"We shouldn't split up," Toma warned.
"Then stay close," Akiro said.
The hallway narrowed, leading deeper into the west wing. The walls were lined with photos in broken frames—black-and-white portraits of past graduating classes. Dust coated every surface. Some faces were scratched out. Others were faded completely.
At the end of the corridor was a door.
Old, metal, and chained shut with a rusted lock.
"This wasn't in the floor plan," Rina whispered.
Akiro reached out to touch it.
The moment her fingers brushed the doorknob
BOOM.
A sound like thunder erupted behind them.
They spun.
All the doors along the hallway had slammed shut.
All at once.
"WHAT THE HELL?!" Hikaru shouted.
The lights overhead sparked violently—then went out.
Pitch black.
Mei screamed.
Ren grabbed Akiro's arm. "We need to leave. Now."
But the hallway… had changed.
Where there had been a straight passage, now there were stairs.
Descending.
Stone stairs, slick with moisture, leading into the ground beneath the school.
And above them… the faintest sound of a bell.
It rang once.
Then whispered.
"One down."
They stood frozen.
The whisper wasn't from one direction.
It was inside their ears.
Inside their bones.
Daiki turned on his night-vision camera. The green glow cast eerie shadows on the stone walls.
"Is this... real?" Asahi whispered.
The descent began slowly.
The stone walls tightened around them. The air grew heavier.
Something about the staircase twisted time. It was only twenty steps, but it felt like they were walking forever.
At the bottom, they emerged into an underground hallwaylined with old lockers, and walls covered in peeling paint.
Rina ran her hand over a locker door. "This… this style... these are from the 1980s."
Mei shuddered. "How is this here? This floor isn't on the blueprint."
"We're below the blueprints," Toma said, scanning the walls.
Akiro walked ahead. Her flashlight caught something carved into the wall.
Ten symbols. Ancient-looking. Each one below a small hook.
Only nine hooks held something.
Nine masks.
"The tenth is missing," she whispered.
Ren stepped beside her. "The mask you saw earlier in the lab—did it match any of these?"
She nodded. "Exactly."
Suddenly, the flashlight beams flickered.
One by one, their lights cut out, until only Daiki's night vision camera was working.
He looked through the lens, then screamed.
Behind them, in the shadows, Yuto stood.
Mask on his face.
But his eyes… they were gone.
In their place—two dark holes.
Like they'd been scooped out.
"RUN!" Akiro screamed.
Chaos exploded.
Hikaru dropped his bag. Mei tripped and fell. Kenta grabbed her and pulled her up. Daiki backed into a wall, the camera shaking wildly.
Akiro looked back once.
Yuto hadn't moved.
But she swore, he was smiling beneath the mask.