The following day carried a strange weight, as if the academy itself had grown restless. Whispers drifted in the corridors, students speaking of flickering shadows and strange echoes that followed them between classes. A few claimed to have seen a pale figure at the end of the hallway that vanished when approached. None dared to speak of it openly to the faculty, but the tension was unmistakable.
Selwyn, Raven, Jason, and Sofia gathered in the library after hours, the lamps casting long, quivering shapes across the wooden tables. The silence between them was heavy until Sofia finally spoke, spreading a handful of old parchment sheets she had retrieved from the archives.
"These records…" she said, tapping her finger against the faded ink, "they mention something called The Forgotten. Not much, only fragments, but it seems tied to… curses. Almost like an echo of someone who died violently, trapped between this world and something else."
Jason shifted uneasily, folding his arms. "Or it's just nonsense scribbled by paranoid people a century ago." Yet his voice betrayed his uncertainty. He had been restless all day, eyes shadowed as if he hadn't slept. When Selwyn glanced at him, Jason quickly looked away.
Raven leaned closer, scanning the parchment with sharp eyes. "It's no coincidence this curse appeared here. Someone is directing it. Curses don't linger this long without a hand guiding them."
Selwyn remained silent, though his mind replayed the strange dream from the night before. A dim corridor, cold air pressing against his chest, and a figure cloaked in shadow whispering words he could not fully understand. The sound had clawed into his skull, a chant half-formed, broken, yet filled with malice. When he woke, his hands were trembling.
Jason broke the silence with an abrupt sigh. "Look, if this is all real - if what you're saying about mana and rogues and curses is true - then explain why I've been seeing things. Nightmares that feel… real. I keep hearing a voice in my sleep. A voice that doesn't sound like mine." His eyes darted nervously toward Selwyn, almost as if seeking confirmation.
Selwyn and Raven exchanged a glance, but neither rushed to answer. Sofia leaned forward instead, calm despite the unease threading through the room. "Dreams are never just dreams, Jason. At least not when mana is involved. You may be… closer to this than you realise."
Jason's jaw tightened. He wanted to protest, but the words caught in his throat.
That night, under Raven's lead, the four slipped quietly into the hidden tunnels once more. The air was colder than before, the walls damp with a faint sheen of moisture. Every step echoed, swallowed quickly by the vast silence.
"We're not fighting it head-on," Raven reminded them in a hushed voice. "We need to see if something - someone-is feeding it."
They reached a narrow chamber deep beneath the academy, one of the passages that had not been used in years. Raven placed a faint marking on the floor with a trace of her mana, forming a weak lure to draw the spirit closer. The air thickened almost immediately, shadows creeping along the stone.
Then, a figure shimmered at the edge of the chamber - half-formed, translucent, its face obscured by wavering strands of mist. A hollow cry escaped its mouth, but what made Selwyn's heart clench was not the spirit itself. From its chest stretched thin, black threads - dark mana twisting unnaturally, as though someone else was pulling at its very soul.
Sofia's eyes widened. "It's bound," she whispered. "Not roaming free… something is controlling it."
The apparition lunged suddenly, slamming against an invisible barrier Raven erected just in time. Jason stumbled backwards, his breath ragged. "That - thing - look at it! That's not just a ghost!"
The spirit writhed against the barrier, shrieking in a sound that wasn't quite human. And then, as suddenly as it appeared, it was pulled back into the darkness, the black threads vanishing with it like smoke into a void.
Silence returned, pressing hard against their ears.
Selwyn stared into the empty space where it had vanished, his chest heaving. For the first time, he was certain - this curse wasn't simply a wandering spirit born of tragedy. It was being used.
Sofia knelt near the faint symbol carved into the stone floor where the spirit had lingered. Her fingers traced its shape. "This isn't random," she murmured. "It's part of something older… something tied to the foundation of this place. Ashford has secrets buried deeper than we thought."
None spoke as they left the tunnels, the echo of the spirit's cry still clinging to them. The mystery had only grown darker, but a single truth had begun to surface - someone at Ashford was manipulating the curse, and the roots of it ran deep into the academy's past.