Lena barely slept.
Every time she closed her eyes, the words on her locker flared bright in her mind.
YOU WOKE IT UP.
She lay staring at the ceiling until dawn, listening to her house settle and creak. The world felt normal—too normal—which somehow made everything worse.
By the time she reached Ashford High the next morning, she was already on edge.
Her locker stood exactly where she'd left it. Same dents. Same peeling paint. Same old smell of metal and dust.
Slowly, she opened it.
The symbols were gone.
Her breath caught. She ran her fingers over the locker door. Smooth. No scratches. No glow. Nothing. Like it had never happened.
"You look like you've seen a ghost."
Lena turned. Theo stood a few steps away, backpack slung over one shoulder, expression unreadable.
"You told me to erase them," she said quietly. "I didn't."
Theo nodded once. "I know."
Her irritation cut through the fear. "Then how are they gone?"
"Because you're being watched now," he replied.
"That's not comforting."
"It wasn't meant to be."
They walked to class together, silence stretching between them. Lena noticed things she hadn't before—how other students subtly moved aside for him, how teachers eyed him like he'd transferred in mid-semester for reasons no one wanted to say out loud.
"You knew my name yesterday," Lena said finally. "How?"
Theo didn't answer immediately. They stopped outside the science wing.
"Some doors open whether you want them to or not," he said. "The bell was one of them."
Her chest tightened. "So the bell matters."
"Yes."
"And it disappearing is bad."
"Very."
Before she could ask more, a sharp clang echoed through the hallway. Lockers rattled. Students screamed.
The air shifted.
It was subtle—but Lena felt it instantly. Like a pressure change before a storm.
Down the hall, shadows stretched unnaturally across the floor, pooling together where no light reached. The temperature dropped. Her breath fogged.
"What's happening?" she whispered.
Theo's jaw tightened. "Don't move."
The lights flickered. A distant whisper swept through the corridor—not words, not quite sound. More like a thought brushing against her mind.
Found you.
Lena stumbled back.
From the shadows, something shifted. Not a full shape. Not human. Just the suggestion of limbs bending the wrong way, eyes blinking open where eyes shouldn't exist.
Students ran. Teachers shouted. But no one else seemed to see it—no one except Lena.
"It can see you because you touched the symbols," Theo said urgently. "You're marked."
"I didn't agree to this!" she snapped.
"No one does."
The thing lunged.
Theo grabbed her wrist and pulled her behind him. He whispered a word that didn't sound like English, carving the air with his hand. Light flared—brief, blinding—and slammed into the shadow.
The hallway went silent.
The creature shattered into smoke and vanished.
Breathing hard, Lena stared at Theo. "You just—what did you just do?"
Theo looked exhausted now, like he'd aged ten years in seconds. "You weren't supposed to find out this way."
"Too late," she said. "Tell me the truth."
He met her gaze.
"The bell keeps the balance," he said. "Between this world and the one underneath it. And now it's gone."
Lena swallowed.
"And since it's gone," she said slowly, "things can cross over."
Theo nodded grimly.
"And you," he added, "are at the center of it."
The warning bell finally rang—late, distorted, wrong.
And this time, Lena knew for sure.
Ashford High wasn't just hiding secrets.
It was guarding a door.