Chapter One: The Transfer
The rain hadn't stopped for three days.
Gray clouds hung low over the small town of Crow's Hollow, and the streets shimmered with cold puddles. Tina clutched her backpack tightly as she walked up the cracked path toward the gates of St. Mary's High School—a building that looked less like a place for learning and more like a forgotten asylum.
The metal gates screeched open, their sound swallowed by the mist.
Tina hesitated, staring at the ancient building looming ahead. Windows boarded up. Paint peeling like old skin. A bell tower that no longer chimed.
Her mother's voice echoed in her mind: "It's just a school, Tina. You'll be fine."
But the whisper of the wind said otherwise. It almost sounded like laughter.
Inside, the halls smelled of dust and damp stone. The fluorescent lights flickered overhead, humming weakly. She could hear distant footsteps—but when she turned, there was no one there.
Her first class was empty when she entered. Desks scratched with names, walls cracked like veins, and a blackboard still covered in faint chalk words: "Help us."
She frowned.
"Great. First day and the ghosts already want tutoring," she muttered, forcing a nervous laugh.
A voice from the back whispered, "They don't want help… they want company."
Tina froze.
She turned around—
Nothing. Just an old desk rocking slightly, as if someone had just stood up.
Later that day, she met Liam, a quiet boy with dark hair and a gaze that never seemed to meet hers. He told her that strange things had been happening for months—students disappearing, screams heard through the vents, shadows that moved when no one did.
"They say St. Mary's used to be an orphanage," Liam said. "And before that… a hospital. They built the school over it. Some say the children who died here never left."
Tina shivered. "That's just a rumor, right?"
He didn't answer.
That night, as the rain beat harder against her dorm window, Tina heard it—the sound of footsteps pacing above her ceiling. Slow. Heavy.
She lived on the top floor.
When she looked up, a faint handprint formed on her ceiling—fingers stretching, dragging. And from the corner of the room, a whisper rose, trembling like a dying breath:
"Welcome back, Tina."
Her heart nearly stopped.
She had never been here before… so how did they know her name?
She reached for the lamp—
It shattered.
In the dark, something laughed.