“Th-this isn’t funny anymore…”

  Narina’s voice and other trembled as she spoke.

  Her fingers clutched the sleeve of my uniform so tightly it almost hurt.

  Around us, the others whispered over one another, panic slipping into every sentence.

  “What if the rumors are real?”

  “The missing students—what if they didn’t transfer?”

  “Void souls… those stories weren’t just urban legends, right?”

  “T-this wasn’t our idea, was it? Ria? Narina?”

  Questions piled up, crashing into each other with no answers in sight.

  Narina shook her head quickly. “No—no, this isn’t us. This isn’t part of the concept.”

  Her breathing was shallow now.

  She had always been afraid of ghosts... real ghosts, the kind that lingered, watched, waited.

  Not the fake ones we laughed at in movies.

  And yet here we were.

  I swallowed hard.

  In that moment, something became painfully clear to me.

  Exvertia or not… fear didn’t disappear.

  I had thought fear belonged to people like Narina and me.

  Introvert, non-Exvertia.

  People who flinched at shadows and stories whispered in the dark.

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  But I was wrong.

  Everyone was scared.

  The so-called confident ones.

  The loud ones.

  Even those who had already become Exvertia.

  Fear didn’t care about status or personality.

  It clung to the soul all the same.

  Someone finally spoke louder than the rest.

  “Let’s go to the teachers’ room.”

  The words echoed down the empty hallway.

  “They’re adults. They’ll know what to do. If something’s wrong, they’ll help us.”

  Narina and I looked at each other.

  Deja vu.

  The haunted house.

  The desks.

  I hated this feeling.

  But the majority agreed.

  And fear is louder when it has numbers.

  So, we walked.

  The hallway stretched endlessly ahead of us, lit only by emergency lights that flickered like tired eyes.

  Classroom doors stood open on both sides, decorations frozen mid-festival—

  Paper ghosts swaying gently, fake cobwebs hanging limp, as if even they had been abandoned.

  No voices.

  No footsteps.

  No laughter.

  Just us.

  When we reached the teachers’ room, the door was already open widely.

  Too wide.

  Then we stopped.

  Inside, the room was empty.

  Desks neatly arranged.

  Chairs pushed in.

  Papers stacked.

  A coffee mug left half-full, long since gone cold.

  No teachers.

  No adults.

  No signs of struggle.

  A wave of dread washed over us all at once.

  Without a word, we began to step back.

  Slowly and carefully.

  Because if even the teachers, the people responsible for this place, were gone without a trace, then whatever was happening… was far beyond us.

  That’s when Narina and one of my classmates screamed.

  A sharp, piercing cry tore through the hallway.

  I spun around.

  “Narina—!”

  She and another girl were at the back of our group, faces twisted in pure terror, staring at something I couldn’t see.

  And then—

  They were gone.

  One second, they were there.

  The next—

  Nothing.

  My heart slammed against my ribs.

  “W-where did they go!?”

  “They were just—right there!”

  Seven of us had entered the hallway.

  Now there were five.

  Including me.

  Panic exploded.

  We turned away from the teachers’ room instinctively, backing up together, our steps uneven, breath frantic.

  But behind us—

  The teachers’ room door was still open.

  Waiting.

  Before we could run, before we could scream again—

  Hands grabbed us.

  We were yanked backward all at once, dragged across the threshold as the world tilted violently.

  I barely had time to shout Narina’s name before the door slammed shut behind us.

  The darkness swallowed everything.

  And somewhere, deep within the teachers’ room—

  Something breathed.