"Mmmh?" Leo groaned as his head.It throbbed faintly in a bit of pain. "Why do I feel like I just had a hangover?"
Everything around him was dark. Not the kind of dark you see when you close your eyes, but a deep, swallowing black that seemed to stretch forever.
And then — a voice.
"O!"
Leo blinked. "Huh? Did someone just—?"
"O!"
There it was again. The sound bounced around in the emptiness, faint but urgent.
"Eo!"
"—Oww!" Leo yelped as something pinched his cheek hard enough to drag him back to reality.
"Oh good, you're awake." Rudo's voice came from beside him, relief and annoyance mixing in equal parts.
Leo rubbed his cheek, squinting as his eyes adjusted. He was back in the nurse's office… or at least, what was left of it. The room was dim, the curtains drawn, and the only light came from the faint glow of the moon filtering through the blinds.
"What the hell was that for?" Leo muttered.
"I had to think of something to wake you up," Rudo said. "I tried shaking you for, like, ten minutes. Nothing worked."
Leo groaned and sat up, his head still spinning. "Why's it so dark in here? And how long was I out for?"
"Uhh… let's just say 'a while.'" Rudo scratched his head nervously. "One minute it was day, and now it's night. So, you know—basically the rest of school day."
Leo sighed, dragging a hand down his face. "Fantastic. My parents are definitely gonna kill me for this. Honestly, I'd rather deal with that creepy clown from my dream than the wrath of my mom. At least the clown seemed like a quick death."
Rudo laughed weakly. "Yeah, good luck explaining this one."
Leo stood, glancing around the eerily empty room. "Strange. You'd think at least one nurse would be here by now. What, did they all clock out early? That's not suspicious at all."
"Maybe the school's haunted," Rudo joked.
Leo shot him a look. "You scared or something?"
"Quite the opposite," Rudo grinned. "If this place is haunted, it might finally get interesting."
Leo didn't say it out loud, but he agreed a little. Between finding out his teacher was half goat and being nearly killed by bad milk, "haunted school" barely ranked on his weirdness scale.
He stepped toward the door and slowly pushed it open. The hallway beyond was silent—eerily so—and shrouded in shadows. Then his eyes caught movement.
Three silhouettes stood at the end of the corridor.
"What the hell…" Leo whispered.
The shadows twisted, merging into the shape of a long, slithering serpent before folding back in on themselves—forming a tall, rectangular figure. As the darkness peeled away, Leo's stomach sank.
It was them.
The three receptionists from earlier.
Each one wore a matching black T-shirt: the woman on the right had a single eye printed on hers, the one in the center had a mouth, and the leftmost shirt bore an image of a serpent's tail.
"Aww, were you two little munchkins left behind?" the middle one crooned, her smile unnervingly wide.
"Apparently so," Leo muttered, instinctively stepping back. Of course it's them. The last people I wanted to see today.
The three women walked closer, their steps synchronized, their gazes fixed on Rudo.
They leaned in—sniffing him. Actually sniffing him, like a pack of wolves sizing up a meal.
"I think we finally found him, girls," said the one on the right.
"That means we just have to feast on him, and the job's done, right?" the leftmost one said with a disturbingly cheerful tone.
"Umm…" Rudo stammered, eyes wide. "Sorry, did you just say feast on me? Like—literally?"
Leo raised a hand awkwardly. "Hey, uh, before you all start eating people—any of you know where the nurses went?"
The women ignored him completely, whispering among themselves instead. Rudo tried to inch closer to Leo, but one of them grabbed his wrist, nails digging in just a little too hard.
"Where do you think you're going, dearie?" she hissed.
"Uh, you know—just… over there," Rudo said, smiling nervously.
Leo felt the air shift—like pressure before a storm. His instincts screamed danger. He started inching sideways toward another exit, keeping his voice casual even as adrenaline kicked in.
"Okay, listen," Rudo said, trying to keep the situation light. "I know some may find me attractive, but I usually don't go for women old enough to be my grandma. No offense."
Silence.
Rudo blinked. "You know, that's where you're supposed to say 'none taken.'"
Then, all at once—their eyes glowed gold.
"Don't worry," they said in eerie unison. "It'll be over soon."
The air pulsed. Shadows stretched from their feet, twisting together, coiling up their bodies as their forms merged into one colossal creature. Walls cracked, ceiling tiles shattered, and dust filled the air.
Where the three receptionists once stood, a massive serpent now loomed—three heads, golden eyes burning, scales glistening like oil under moonlight.
Leo's jaw dropped. "Seriously, what the hell is happening to my day?!"
The serpent hissed, its central head snapping toward him.
"AHH!" Leo shouted, diving for the nearby doorway just as the creature exhaled a thick, dark gas that rolled across the floor like fog. He slammed the door shut behind him, coughing as he stumbled in the darkness.
"Come on—schools have to have a gas mask or something, right?" he muttered, searching frantically. "Not that it'd help against a hydra-looking demon snake thing, but—"
His words cut off as his knees buckled. A sharp pain tore through his chest, and blood splattered onto the cold floor tiles.
"What... didn't I make it in time?" he choked out, clutching his stomach.
He spotted something metallic nearby—a broken pipe, maybe a vent handle. Grabbing it, Leo used it to pull himself upright, every breath shallow and burning.
"This is it, huh?" he murmured weakly. "Guess dying like this is still better than dying to milk…"
His vision blurred. The world tilted sideways.
He hit the floor.
And then—everything went black.
Silence.
A faint mist began to rise from his body, swirling like smoke, glowing faintly grey. It pulsed once, twice… and then spread—engulfing the room completely.
When the world came back into focus, Leo was standing in front of the nurse's office door again.
His expression was blank for a moment, then faintly puzzled—like a man trying to remember a dream that slipped away the second he woke up.
"No offense, of course," Rudo said jokingly from beside him, trying to lighten the mood.
Leo blinked. Something about that line… felt familiar. Like he'd heard it before. But before he could think further, movement caught his eye.
It was the three ladies standing there clenching Rudo's arm.
"What was that just now?" Leo muttered, frowning slightly. He couldn't shake the odd sense that he'd been here before.
But the thought faded as he now looked at his current situation.Only one emotion could be seen on Leo's face at the moment Fear.